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AT: And so you mentioned your grandfather being born in camp during World War II and I know that that's often not something that a lot of Japanese Americans like to talk about. So I was kind of wondering maybe if you have had those conversations with him or within your family, and I know he was young, wasn't he born there? So he might not remember it too much, but I know there's a lot of generational trauma that comes with that, too. So I was just wondering kind of how that, if there's been conversation around that and how it maybe has affected you in terms of...

GG: Yeah.

AT: ... generational trauma, things like that. Yeah.

GG: Yeah. It's interesting, because in some ways I feel like my story is a little bit different because that whole thing of being born in camp, I mean, I think a lot -- I've talked to other people where they or their grandparents were very young in camp, but I think being born in camp is kind of a unique experience that... he's sort of like a, he's still a part of that group of people, but also kind of has a very different perspective. My jiichan growing up was a little bit of like, a little bit of a rebel, which I think he would agree with. He was actually really involved in the farmworkers struggle -- what's the kind of like, official name for that, Kyle?

KK: Well, there are lots, but United Farmworkers is an organizational...

GG: Yes.

KK: Yeah.

GG: That's what he was involved with. And, so which, like, again, I think that that's not something I've heard, like, that seems like I haven't really heard about other Sanseis doing that. So he was really, like, growing up in East L.A. and growing up with other, with Japanese kids and Mexican kids, I think that my jiichan feels very deeply connected to the Mexican American experience as well. And, of course, Filipinos were also part of that movement. And I think he, and also he, at the time, which I think was kind of not typical, he had the long hair, like he grew his hair long, he wore sunglasses. And I remember him talking about walking to Little Tokyo in L.A. with his sunglasses and his, yeah, his long hair and how he looked like an activist and other JA men did not, and he thought he was so cool. [Laughs] And it's interesting because like, I don't know if it's because he was a boy or what, but he, like so my aunties, his, my great aunts, his sisters, they were really much more of like the traditional Japanese American women in a lot of ways. But he, being the oldest, and maybe the boy, just, like really kind of did his own thing, and also married two white women, which I think was also kind of a big deal. The first being my grandmother and then the second being my step grandmother. And so that was also very, like, I think, controversial. But he, so he's a Buddhist and considers himself an activist and was an educator for many years. He had his own school and kind of worked with that free school education model, which is about very like "free to be you and me" and not labeling kids. And I think that that is also... that kind of progressive idea of educating children kind of also stems from his activist roots. And I think that a lot of his activism is really inspired by the incarceration as well. And, I think he did feel angry about what happened to him and his parents and wasn't really seeing that anger... yeah, sort of, like, reflected or validated in a way as a young JA man growing up. And it's interesting that he, it's interesting to me that he, like, yeah, that he was into these, he ended up with two white women. I think he, I think he sometimes felt like within his own community at the time that it was more that like Japanese American culture and community was a very conservative place, was how he perceived it. And he kind of felt like he needed to go outside of that community to feel seen and validated with some of those desires.

AT: And so how do you think that his incarceration and the trauma that goes along with it, how do you think that it has affected you and kind of what you do now?

GG: Yeah, I mean, I'm very, very close to my grandfather. And I think all of us, like both me and my mom and aunts, I think all of us growing up, as young children, had like that, you have that painful moment of recognition when you're sort of old enough to really understand what happened to your family. And it's very, it's very painful. And it's funny, I remember actually being a young kid and just being horrified and figuring this out and being so mad. I mean, I think I was probably only like, yeah, maybe like, six or something, six or seven. And I remember like, I was with my grandma all the time, my grandma who was white. And I remember just being so mad at her and being like, "Your people did this to my people." Like what the fuck, basically, and not... and I remember when my mom came to pick me up that day, my grandma was explaining to her that I just got really mad at her for being a white person for kind of like, no reason or whatever.

So I think it just, I think that his, I think that my grandfather's incarceration experience, it just kind of like... I was already experiencing a lot of traumatic things like growing up just for looking, for being Asian basically. And I think that figuring out what happened to him, it only further solidified my feelings of otherness and of not belonging. So it really kind of contributed to, yeah, to like, it was just one layer on top of like Chinese, Japanese, "dirty knees, look at these," and "ching ching chong" and all that stuff. And I think that it also kind of brought me closer to my family in a way, too, because I really wanted to learn more about what had happened to him and what had happened to my family. And I think that was the beginning of me trying to, yeah, just ask him questions about his story. And my mom had me when she was only eighteen, so I'm really fortunate that I got to know both of my great grandparents who had been incarcerated. My great grandmother, my hibaachan, she died when I was in college, actually, so I got to know her for a lot of my life, which was, which was awesome. And I remember wanting to, yeah, like being curious about her experience. And she did not, she was Kibei, so she had been raised mostly in Japan and did not speak the best English, but I remember just having a curiosity about wanting to know her perspective. And so I think it added to the overall trauma, but it also just brought me closer to my family and really wanting to know where I come from and what is my story and wanting to get very close to... just what, yeah, wanting to look into my ancestry more.

AT: That's really cool that you were able to talk to your hibaachan because...

GG: Yeah.

AT: Yeah, I'm also Gosei and my baachan was born in camp as well.

GG: Oh my gosh. Wow.

AT: So that's really cool. Well, not cool, but a commonality.

GG: It's not cool, but I feel like I hardly ever meet any -- I haven't, all the Goseis I've met are like, very small, very small children. And yeah, and that's, I mean, not cool that she was born in camp, but like, yeah, I haven't really met very many other people with that experience so...

AT: Yeah, and I definitely agree, like, the perspective is very different, just because like, they're born in camp so then they technically experienced it, but then their experience is much different, obviously. So yeah, I totally understand that. But yeah.

GG: Just one more thing to say. So we did all, I think it was for it was for my jiichan's -- I want to say his seventieth birthday, we all went to Heart Mountain together. And that was very, that was very powerful. His sisters came with him, too. Of course, they were born after camp. But I remember him saying, like looking at Heart Mountain from a distance as we were driving up, and I remember him saying that his heart was like pounding.

AT: Wow.

GG: And that he felt like he was reacting like very viscerally to it and.. yeah, so...

AT: I mean, that's crazy, because he doesn't probably remember being there, but he feels that, yeah.

GG: He feels it, yeah.

AT: My gosh, that's, that's crazy.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2021 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.