<Begin Segment 36>

SY: So then after, so after you left the museum, you decided to go back to teaching?

RN: Yeah. I went back, and I had at that time -- I went back 'cause they said, "Either you come back or you have to retire," because they only allow you --

SY: It was a leave of absence.

RN: Yeah. So I went back still thinking about retiring, and then Don Nakanishi, who was the director of the Asian American Studies Center at the time, said, I was telling him, "Well, I think I'm going to call it quits." And he said, "Well, why don't you come full time just teaching in Asian American Studies, and then maybe you could develop documentary courses that you can just teach in Asian American studies and you could leave the film department?" And then he also said he thought I had a real good chance at getting, being appointed to the endowed chair in Japanese American Studies, and that way it would support what I wanted to do in terms of my courses and also continue my filmmaking. So that's what I did. So I became full time, full appointment in Asian American Studies. And eventually I taught a lot of media, lecture courses, Asian Americans in the Media course, but then I got some money and I had actually John Esaki come on fellowship for a year to develop and begin to teach the first -- which became EthnoCommunications course -- or specifically they're called the Creating Community Media I, II and III. So John taught it the first year and then we co-taught it for a while and then we... anyway. So I'm very happy with that, and that's the only thing I'd be sorry to leave. But it's a course developed to first sensitize students to the idea of community media, what that is, and the idea of documenting ourselves and the need for that. And then we would go a step further, we'd give them video and sound techniques. And they develop their idea in the first quarter, we really talk about community media. In fact, we say, "If you just want to make a music video or something, you're in the wrong class. This is specifically for community media."

SY: So you're going back to your roots in some ways.

RN: Yeah, yeah. Except this time we had students from every other department. So it's not only Asian American or ethnic community films, we have gay and lesbian films, just different, who can define things that are relevant to a community. So in the first quarter they get some technical training, develop a film idea, and then the second quarter they shoot and edit, and done with almost finished piece at the end of the second quarter. And then the third quarter, which is optional, students would come in and finish or expand their film. And in between there we also have students that specifically want to do a visual life history, not a full documentary. So we do that. So one is we're not using it to train, it's not like film school, although a lot of people have gone out and continued on. And then we have a lot of students who have not gone into filmmaking but use their skills to do oral histories and all of that in different community contexts.

SY: So that's the course, so that's one of the courses, one of the many things that you do?

RN: It's three -- no, that's all I do is I teach those three.

SY: Oh, so that is...

RN: 'Cause UCLA is a research campus, so professors usually have a four course a year load. So I teach these three and then I'm Associate Director of the Asian American Studies Center, so I have release time. So effectively I teach three courses.

SY: And how long have you been doing this?

RN: I'll be retiring, it'll be thirty-two years.

SY: And you're retiring soon?

RN: Yeah, in July.

SY: In July. The year of the retirement. So many people retiring.

RN: That's right. [Laughs] JANM and JACCC, Don Nakanishi gets to retire from the center.

SY: Little Tokyo Service Center.

RN: Oh, that's right. Bill's gonna retire, yeah. The old guys got to leave.

SY: So it's a good time to ask you, though, looking back -- so did you prefer, I mean, given your druthers, do you enjoy teaching, especially this EthnoCommunications series? Or filmmaking? Which...

RN: Probably at this stage of the game I think I'm just getting too old for the stress of filmmaking. I just can't, I just don't feel like taking the abuse and the responsibility and the ulcers. So I'd probably rather... I'd like to develop the whole EthnoCommunications program.

SY: So you get great, you get pleasure from that, helping your students?

RN: Yeah, to see their minds, that little light bulb go on when you start talking about, we don't have to think about Hollywood or music videos. That media is so accessible now, because when we shot film, it's hundreds of dollars for fifteen minutes of interview. Right now we can do it for five dollars.

SY: Edit on your computer.

RN: Yeah, there's more access. You don't have to go film school really anymore. Well, if you're really going to go into hardcore filmmaking...

<End Segment 36> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.