Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/663/

Speak out for your beliefs

When you feel that you are right, you should speak out because if it could happen to you, it could happen to anybody. As long as you're a minority, they can pick on you and they can incarcerate you as they did us because you're a minority. But if you get out there and speak out and speak out loud, I think you will be able to combat those type of things. As you notice, that the Jewish people, they stress the Holocaust year after year after year until people are sick and tired of listening to that. But what they're doing is to, telling the people, “Don't forget. Don't forget that this could happen to you, the Holocaust.” And in the same manner, we should go out there and tell the people and make them remember that this should never happen again.


discrimination interpersonal relations

Date: July 25, 1997

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Larry Hashima, Stephen Fugita

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Nisei male. Born 1925 in Seattle, Washington. Spent prewar childhood in Seattle's Nihonmachi. Incarcerated at Puyallup Assembly Center, Washington, and Minidoka incarceration camp, Idaho. Refused to participate in draft, imprisoned at McNeil Island Penitentiary, Washington, for resisting the draft. Resettled in Seattle. (July 25, 1997)

Shigekawa, Sakaye

Traumatic experiences before camp

(1913-2013) Doctor specializing in obstetrics in Southern California

Shigekawa, Sakaye

“Everybody went in like sheep”

(1913-2013) Doctor specializing in obstetrics in Southern California

Kaji,Frances Midori Tashiro

Discrimination for Nisei doctors

(1928–2016) Daughter of an Issei doctor 

Kozawa,Sumiko

Experiencing prejudice after the war

(1916-2016) Florist

Tashima,A. Wallace

Being Denied as a Japanese American Lawyer

(b. 1934) The First Japanese American Appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals. 

Takei,George

Asian Stereotypes

(b. 1937) Actor, Activist

Calloway,Terumi Hisamatsu

Discrimination faced in San Francisco (Japanese)

(b. 1937) A war bride from Yokohama

Hirano,Paulo Issamu

Accepted by Japanese society as I learned more Japanese (Japanese)

(b. 1979) Sansei Nikkei Brazilian who lives in Oizumi-machi in Gunma prefecture. He runs his own design studio.

Yamamoto,Mia

Understanding anti black racism in high school

(b. 1943) Japanese American transgender attorney

Yamamoto,Mia

Racial discrimination prepared her in becoming the first transgender trial lawyer

(b. 1943) Japanese American transgender attorney