Densho Digital Repository - The Kurose Family Interview (Densho ID: ddr-sjacl-2-42-11)

<Begin Segment 11>

EK: And then, Mika, would you mind also adding to that, by just like out of all the projects, movements and just activism that your grandmother has done, how it's had an impact on you and how it's influenced the practices and activism that you achieve today?

MR: Yeah. There's --

RK: There are a lot of things, not just antiwar.

MR: Yeah.

RK: But you might have other ones.

MR: I think, I've heard so many stories about her. And my own personal experience with her was just as my grandma, and we would do like science experiments together, which I have fond memories of. But when I think about her life, and everything that she did, this theme that I see is, she was... her experience during World War II being incarcerated, it's hard to know an alternate reality. But it seems that it ignited this fire within her not to be angry, but to dedicate her life to promoting peace, preventing war, promoting racial equity, and I think also promoting empathy. Because if I had to guess, I would think that her, the values that she held and the types of projects and work that she undertook, were all in reaction to, were largely in reaction to that experience, and trying to do what she could to make sure that something like the incarceration would not happen again in the future. And so this, just this idea of using that as momentum to create positive change at a very basic level, I think that that's something that is sort of,I hold as a North star for me, even if I won't be... you know, will pursue things in different ways, and probably smaller ways. But I'm just so grateful to have her as an example, and my mom and Uncle Paul as examples as well.

EK: Thank you, Mika. And then Paul, if you don't mind finishing us off, that would be great.

PK: Oh, my. I'm glad I didn't go first. Got to hear both Ruthann and Mika. Because I probably would have focused more on the education side. But then, as soon as Ruthann said how her peace activism, how significant that was, in who she was, just made me remember one of her buttons, one of the quotes that she really liked, I think it was a Gandhi quote about... you know that one, Ruthann? "If we're going to have peace you have to begin with the children," or something like that. Do you remember that one? Anyway, the finish of it, it's something like if you're gonna have peace with in the world, you have to begin with the children. I remember "you have to begin with the children" being part of it. And I think that is where she went, she went to work with the children. And so that was her way of working towards...

RK: She wore her peace buttons every day.

PK: Yeah, she had her peace buttons. And not only did she have her peace buttons, but I remember she taught peace, right?

RK: "If we are to teach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children."

PK: Yeah, see, I got one of her peace buttons right here.

JSG: That's wonderful.

PK: And so she began with the children and she... oh this was a funny story. Because out at Laurelhurst, some of the parents got upset with her because he had this peace curriculum. And what she was trying to teach the children -- or not trying -- she was teaching the children, was nonviolent conflict resolution. And these parents were protesting about her teaching this "subversive stuff." So she dealt with them well. She kind of joked and she said, "Well, do you want me to teach him to fight when they have conflict?" [Laughs] But anyway, so it was so much a part of what she did as an educator was that focus on peace, and so being a peace activist. So I think there was one other thing I was thinking of. Or maybe that's... yeah, I can't remember what else, but that was the main thing.

EK: Well, I, right now, I know that within the fashion realm, people are trying to bring back like '90s outfits, but I think it's time to bring back peace buttons. I think that's the new, I think that's the new startup we got to go back to.