<Begin Segment 4>

FA: You're best-known as a journalist. How did you get into journalism?

JO: Oh, journalism was a pure accident. It happened way back in 1928. I was in Pocatello, Idaho, at that time and attending Franklin junior high school. And we were called to general assembly one morning and there was supposed to be a talk by the superintendent on the status of the school, which was to be a dry discussion. And then at the end, toward the end of his speech, he suddenly announced that the school was going to initiate a student newspaper, which was a big news to most of us. And then strange thing happened, a few moments later he announced the editor and my name was... well, I was stunned when he said that I was to be the student editor. 'Cause I had took no interest in journalism prior to that.

FA: In San Francisco, Jimmie, you had another magazine.

JO: Yes.

FA: What was it called and why did you start it?

JO: Current Life. Why... for one thing, because my views were different from the views of the other Nisei editors, it became difficult to get into the media, well, to get whatever I wrote to be published. And so there were some important things that ought to be -- that I felt that ought to be said, which was not being covered by the Nisei editors.

FA: For example, what did you feel was not being covered, and how were your views different?

JO: Well, the problem was that the other editors were concentrating or focusing inward toward their own ethnic group and ignoring the fact that what was happening in Washington, what was happening in world around them, that these things directly affected their lives and should be, that they should take an interest in them.

[Interruption]

FA: Current Life was different from any other Nisei magazine, different. What set it apart, Jimmie?

JO: Well, we had a purpose in Current Life in that it was to build the image of the Japanese American and to carry that forward to the intellectual American, American, well, they were American, too, but to the general mainstream market. And so we encouraged the Nisei talents wherever possible and we featured it and we tried to show that the Japanese Americans were just like they were, they are, the general mainstream, that we weren't something, something that was peculiar or some foreign or anything of the sort. You have to remember that during this period and all through my growing up, that there was tremendous economic prejudice against Japanese Americans and one of the mission of the publication was to attempt to break down that barrier through, and the best way to do that, I felt, was to approach the intellectual community.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1990, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.