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LG: So you have this pretty strong dedication to education.

TM: Yeah, yes, I do.

LG: What do you want people to learn from your experience, from your parents' experiences?

TM: I have often been asked that question when I have given talks on the incarceration, labor camps. I was talking with Rutgers University in Camden, and one of the graduate students said, "So what should we take away from this?" And I said, well, that people always come up to me and say, you know, with a puzzled look on their face, "You speak such good English, where are you from?" And so I say, "You may be curious about a person's heritage or ancestry, but don't ask that question. Just ask, 'What's your ancestry?' Not, you know, 'You speak such good English.'" Because I often ask them, "What is that assumption?" The assumption is that you're foreign. And although my past is foreign, certainly, my life is not foreign, it's very American. And in fact, I often, because I was able, I had a sabbatical in Japan for five months, and I've been in Japan several times, and what I always come away with thinking is, you know, it would be very hard for me to live in Japan. Because, well, first of all, I don't know the language, and I can't read the language. But the other thing that's very hard, is that I grew up in America in a white society, so I've learned my coping skills. I've learned how to cope in this setting. And I've also learned that you can, it can be an advantage to be different. It doesn't have to always be negative. But when I'm in Japan, I'm considered like everybody else, and I'm not like everybody else. So in that sense, I came to understand that being different doesn't necessarily have to be a negative. So I guess what I'd like people to understand is that, you know, America is diverse, but we can learn from each other, And that difference isn't bad. Right? It's not a negative.

LG: Sort of connected to that, in a way, what do you think of the model minority myth, and did you ever sort of come up against it?

TM: Well, I mean, the model minority is a myth, because there's such a diversity of Asian groups. And it sets a standard, which, you know, not everybody can attain. And it's like any group, you should judge them individually, and not, as a group, a herd. And I think being model minority, there are certain expectations that you're going to meet that those expectations and maybe you're not going to meet those expectations, or maybe you're going to exceed those expectations. So it's like anything that's a myth, it's often incorrect. And when people put you in these little boxes, that's when the thinking goes awry.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.