Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/216/

Ethnic diversity

Before the war broke out, we lived in a part of Chinatown. And there, there were a lot of tenement houses—so one room houses. And they were occupied by Chinese chefs--people who work in Chinese restaurants are in the neighborhood there. And so, they were all elderly people. And there was only one Japanese family that was very close to us. And so we got be very close with...and they had one daughter, who was my age; one son who was eight, my brother’s age. And so we spent a lot of time together when we were home in that neighborhood.

But when we went off to school, we went to school with...I went to Japanese school, and when I went to Japanese school, there were mostly Japanese people there. But, public schools that I went to, we ran around with people of all different backgrounds. I love baseball. I played baseball with Chinese boys, with Portuguese boys; there was one Filipino boy who played with us also. So we were...we had a mixture of people who we played with.


communities racially mixed people

Date: December 15, 2003

Location: Hawai`i, US

Interviewer: Art Hansen

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum.

Interviewee Bio

George Ariyoshi was born in Honolulu in 1926. He overcame a childhood speech defect to enter the Military Intelligence Service language school after World War II and served the United States in Tokyo’s ruins. Returning home from occupied Japan, he moved to Michigan where he received undergraduate and law degrees.

He married Jean Hayashi in Hawai`i and, between 1954 and 1986, held elective offices there as a Democrat. He served three terms as Hawai`i’s governor, the first Japanese American nationwide to govern a state. By his own definition, Governor Ariyoshi was “a social liberal and a fiscal conservative.” The title of his 1997 memoir, With Obligation to All, summed up his personal and political philosophies. (December 2003)

Monica Teisher
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Teisher,Monica

Interracial marriage trends

(b.1974) Japanese Colombian who currently resides in the United States

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Mia Yamamoto
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Yamamoto,Mia

Influence of Mexican culture after returning from camp

(b. 1943) Japanese American transgender attorney

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Mia Yamamoto
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Yamamoto,Mia

Japanese American solidarity

(b. 1943) Japanese American transgender attorney

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Vince Ota
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Ota,Vince

Being multicultural before it was “in”

Japanese American Creative designer living in Japan

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Willie Ito
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Ito,Willie

First Exposure to Animation

(b. 1934) Award-winning Disney animation artist who was incarcerated at Topaz during WWII

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Bill Hashizume
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Hashizume,Bill

Japanese community in Mission

(b. 1922) Canadian Nisei who was unable to return to Canada from Japan until 1952

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Peggie Nishimura Bain
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Bain,Peggie Nishimura

Learning American cooking

(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII

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Reiko T. Sakata
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Sakata,Reiko T.

Parents in Utah

(b. 1939) a businesswoman whose family volunterily moved to Salt Lake City in Utah during the war.

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James Hirabayashi
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Hirabayashi,James

Not bringing shame to family

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

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James Hirabayashi
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Hirabayashi,James

Role of the Japanese American National Museum

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

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Chad Morton
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Morton,Chad

Benefits of his multiracial background

(b.1977) Professional football player.

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Eric Morton
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Morton,Eric

Addressing multiracial identity can be difficult

Starred at wide receiver for Dartmouth College, now a patent attorney. Brother of Johnnie and Chad Morton.

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Jane Aiko Yamano
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Yamano,Jane Aiko

Japanese are more accustomed to foreigners

(b.1964) California-born business woman in Japan. A successor of her late grandmother, who started a beauty business in Japan.

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Roger Shimomura
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Shimomura,Roger

Japanese American community life

(b. 1939) Japanese American painter, printmaker & professor

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Kimi Wakabayashi
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Wakabayashi,Kimi

Her early life in Canada

(b.1912) Japanese Canadian Issei. Immigrated with husband to Canada in 1931

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