Densho Digital Archive
Japanese American Museum of San Jose Collection
Title: Richard Konda Interview
Narrator: Richard Konda
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Tom Izu
Location: San Jose, California
Date: November 30, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-krichard_2-01-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

TI: And when you go out and make these connections, how much did people know about what happened during World War II to Japanese Americans? I mean, is that something that in this area is common knowledge? Or when you even deal with other ethnic groups, say with the Arab American community, were they aware of this? And how much do people know about the internment camps?

RK: I think it's better than it used to be, but I think there's still gaps in knowledge, and there's still people that, it's a continuing process, as you know, as people, new people come into the community that aren't aware, they need to be made aware. When I was on that panel, the other Arab Americans, they had done some reading, I think, and they knew what I was speaking about.

TI: Because some people, when you think of education and the emphasis on passing tests and reading, writing, oftentimes people say, "Well, history's, sure, history's important, but come on, guys, in our global community, we have to compete, we have to get better at math, science, reading and things like that." And history oftentimes takes a backseat to that. Why is history important? Why is it important for people to learn about Japanese Americans in World War II or the Civil Rights Movement and those things?

RK: I forget what the exact phrase is, but if you don't know the history, then you're bound to repeat the same mistakes again. So I think that understanding what happened to Japanese Americans is so important because, again, whenever there's heightened tensions between the United States and some other government, there are some, there are some in leadership positions who want to do the same thing, make the same kind of mistakes again in terms of rounding people up or sending the FBI out, and just tearing apart communities and families.

TI: And do you think that is the, the issue, the thing that makes kind of what happened to Japanese Americans so important? It's because of when our country -- or I guess whenever a country goes through some kind of tension, whether it's war or some other national disaster, that it's easy to target or scapegoat or target a group and do things? Is that kind of the issue, you think? I guess the question -- this isn't formulated very well, but what is the main reason? What's the key reason why we should have places like this museum? Is it just to learn about an ethnic community, or is there something else that is more important?

RK: Yeah, so about two months ago I was invited to speak to this summer cultural program... what was it called now? I'm forgetting the name of it. But it's up on Mountain View, and so they wanted me to speak about civil rights issues and why is it important for us to understand this. And again, so I spoke to the young group, I think they were middle schoolers, and just talking about what happened during World War II and what was the basis of this? What was the cause of rounding up Japanese Americans? I mean, failure of political leadership certainly was one part of it, racism was another part of it, there were also economic interests involved. I think that if we understand that, then hopefully as we moved forward, that we don't make the same kind of mistakes again.

TI: Good. In terms of you personally, how important is it for you as a Japanese American lawyer to know your history? I mean, does that give you, in terms of the work you do, how frequently do you come back to that in terms of as a, whether a touchstone or as a theme or... yeah, how important is it to you?

RK: Well, I mean, I connect it directly to a lot of the kind of immigration-related work that we do, and know that I've spoken at a number of conferences and workshops and what have you and talked about how when there's an economic downturn, the thing is, we have to find a scapegoat. And so we see through history, there has been numbers of instances where immigrants, recent immigrants, are scapegoated. And so you see the pattern where there's, as waves of immigrants come in, they're kind of the scapegoat. So as we see now, there's been the latest economic downturn, and kind of the fervor of anti-immigrant sentiment has kind of reared its ugly head again. There were, again, there are some quote/unquote "leaders" that would want to use that to their advantage. So we need to kind of remember how it impacted our communities and how it's impacting immigrant communities now. That's something that we can't forget.

TI: So as a country, how do we get better at this? I mean, it feels like, so whenever we're under stress, whether it's the economy or something, then we kind of lash out and scapegoat. I mean, going forward, how do we get better as a country so that this happens less, or it doesn't happen at all? What do we need to do?

RK: It's a long process, and there may be some people who, for their own political reasons, play that card. I think, again, whenever we see that as coming, surfacing on the agenda, again, I think as Japanese Americans, I think we have a responsibility to kind of remember our history and to make the connection with what happened to our communities in the past, and how it's like the same pattern occurring again.

TI: Or here's a question: is it better now than it was in 1942?

RK: I'm not sure. Sometimes I wonder. I think it may be a little bit better. I mean, it's better in the sense that those of us who are willing to speak out will speak out. But there are still elements in this country that would use those to their advantage in terms of blaming the recent immigrants for every ill that we have in the country.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.