Interviews

1. Family interrelations between mother and father

2. Christian gatherings in homes

3. Nickname

4. Not bringing shame to family

5. Little interaction with parents

6. Life in camp as teenager

7. Politics in ethnic studies

8. Center for Japanese American Studies in community

9. Involvement with theater

10. Involvement with ethnic studies

11. Involvement with strike

12. Relationship with S.I. Hayakawa

13. How ethnic studies strike affected him

14. Context affects meaning

15. Past ties to present situation in Middle East

16. Role of the Japanese American National Museum

17. Gordon's parents' experience in prison

18. Testing assumptions of Japanese scholars

Hirabayashi,James

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

Involvement with theater

Emiko Omori was around in San Francisco at that time, so I got involved in some film making with her and with Steven Okazaki, and Phillip Gotanda began writing scripts for film. And so, at that time, because of my involvement in the Asian American Theatre Company, I guess I’ve been in something like 15 plays. And so whenever they needed an immigrant generation or a Manong, you know, I’ve played Filipino parts. I’d have to go to my friends’ houses and go with them to churches and stuff like that to get some feel for the Filipino immigrant because they’re quite different from Japanese Americans.

Date: January 7, 2004

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Art Hansen

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

Interviewee Bio

James Hirabayashi, son of hardworking immigrant farmers in the Pacific Northwest, was a high school senior in 1942 when he was detained in the Pinedale Assembly Center before being transferred to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp in Northern California.

After World War II, he earned his Bachelor of Arts and Masters in Anthropology from the University of Washington, and eventually his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Hirabayashi is Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University where he was Dean of the nation’s first school of ethnic studies. He also held research and teaching positions at the University of Tokyo, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and Ahmadu Bellow Univerity, Zaria, Nigeria.

He passed away in May 2012 at age 85. (June 2014)