Densho Digital Repository - In Memory of Cherry Kinoshita Interview (Densho ID: ddr-sjacl-2-34-9)

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BS: Yeah, and then just asking about another one of the movements, what are your thoughts on the recent Stop Asian Hate movement and what's been going on in the Asian American community as well?

KK: Yeah. I think that, just in terms of what that's about, I know it's been well discussed. But my ethnic studies education clarifies to me that in some ways, first of all, we shouldn't be surprised. And second of all, it's part of a 150-year-old pattern that Asian Americans seem to be involved in, which is that there's a societal crisis of some kind. And if there's some kind of connection anywhere to Asia, Asian Americans end up playing the role of scapegoat. And that's whether 1880s where the Chinese were blamed for economic difficulties and riots happened, of course, it happened during World War II at the outset, when war hysteria was so prevalent and it was easy to escape to scapegoat Japanese Americans as security risks. Happened in the '80s when the Japanese economy became strong just at a time the U.S. economy was in recession, and we had anti-Asian sentiment leading to the murder of Vincent Chin. So the same thing happens today. You have, sort of, geopolitically a crisis, and a pandemic that has its connection to Asia, and you have politicians who then for a variety of reasons decide to make Asians again scapegoats. So, what I think about it is that again, I think that we have a responsibility to be able to make those connections for Americans to say that this is just another reason why we need to understand endemic racism in this country. It's another reason to make the connections between racism here against our community and racism against the Black community, Latinx community, immigrants, the Muslim community. It's just another message to say that our responsibility is that we really had to make those connections and educate people. Again, I was... thought I was fortunate to be able to make a contribution. Because I was still connected with K-12 education, I got calls from people in various districts, people that I had known, who said, "Hey, can you do something for us here?" So at last count, I think I made, I've made twelve presentations to school district audiences, mostly teachers and school leaders, about what is this anti-Asian racism all about, and what can we do about it? So, again, I'm really glad that I'm now, in working with JACL, have an opportunity to make that contribution as well.