<Begin Segment 8>

HH: Before we conclude out of this, couple of questions I'd like to ask you. You've heard the expression "quiet Americans" regarding Japanese Americans. How do you feel about that label? Is it accurate?

AI: I think it's accurate. Because I wanted to become assimilated into the white society, so I... and not being able to speak well. I was a quiet, shy, shy quiet type, and so the "quiet American" is a true characterization of me.

HH: And the other label that's often put to, not only to Japanese Americans but to Asian Americans is that of the "model minority." Do you have any kind of response or reaction to that label?

AI: Just reading. I know that the Japanese Americans do very well education-wise because eighty-five percent of Japanese Americans go to college. But once they get out of college, they hit this glass ceiling. And I feel even in the business I'm in, I was hired in at one time as a manager, but because of the stress, I took myself out of the management picture. But I think Japanese Americans, although they're quite well-educated in this country, they do hit this glass ceiling just like the women do.

HH: So there's a kind of, perhaps, discrimination that exists in the business and career world, but they, in the "model minority" label itself, is that, would you say, an accurate way?

AI: Yeah, it's a "model minority" because we abide by the laws of the land. We don't like to make a lot of waves, we'd go out of our way to stay within the law. So I think in that respect, I think it's a good characterization that we are a "model."

HH: Is there anything that you would do differently if you had a chance to do anything, change any area of your life? Is there something that you would like to change?

AI: In retrospect...

HH: Certain things you can't change, like there's no war.

AI: Right, right. If the war never happened, I'd probably become a farmer. And I don't know, maybe I would have been a very happy farmer. Because all the farmers that are in Salinas became millionaires. Just like my father, the land that he returned to these three or four farmers, they all became millionaires. In fact, just from the sheer fact that they owned the land. Because the land that they owned used to flood every years, and so they could only get one or two crops out of it on an annual basis. And so nobody wanted to build anything on that property. But when they built a dam above Salinas, the city had already gone around this land. So they were in the middle of the city, you have this farmland. And then when they built the dam, it became a fortune, it was worth a fortune, and so my grandmother was one of them.

HH: So if there's something that you would do differently, it would be not to have the family sell the land? [Laughs]

AI: Right. But I don't know. In retrospect, I don't have any regrets.

HH: Well, thank you very much. That was really generous and you filled in a lot of holes.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.