<Begin Segment 44>

MM: After leaving there, you now are working as a consultant here at the Japanese American National Museum for the International Nikkei Research Project. That's a change of pace. How's that been for you?

RK: Well, that's been a very interesting, worthwhile experience, especially as I work with very nice people. Akemi has been a wonderful leader and we've enjoyed working with her. But this whole project started with Frank Sogi, who was, who's a Kona boy, a Hawaii boy. By the way, he and I and Ralph Miwa started a pre-legal club at the university when we were freshman. But he and I got in the army together. And Frances Wisely went on and became a lawyer and was very successful. But in many of his travels he was, especially with Japan-U.S. relations but also throughout the world, South America, Europe, he traveled in his businesses, his legal business. And when he came to Hawaii he's telling these stories about meeting Nikkei in Brazil or Peru and how each one was different. And I said to Frank, "We should make a study of this. It'd be interesting, interesting for us to understand ourselves better but also interesting for Japan to know what's happening." And lo and behold, I think he came and talked to Irene and Akemi at the museum here and got into... and Akemi, I think, wrote the proposal that Frank took to Nippon Foundation. And lo and behold we got the first three-year project going which culminated in -- thanks to Akemi's leadership -- into the anthology and the encyclopedia. And as a follow-up, now we're working on this Nikkei legacy project.

<End Segment 44> - Copyright © 2004 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.