Interviews
Identity as a conscious ongoing process
I think my own identity changes whether I did the project or not. I think identity is a conscious ongoing process. We always redefine who we are, depending what we want to do consciously, and sometimes it’s unconscious, who we hang out with. I know that when I hang out with my lifeguard friends I talk a different way. And I know that when I hang out with my Karate brethren I speak a different way, and I know that when I’m living in Japan I speak a different way, or living in Hawai`i, I slip right back into pidgin. And there’s a certain thing that we sometimes just drift into our identities.
The example I give is let’s say you hear someone talk on the phone. I use it for college students. Say you listen to your roommate talk on the phone, and he talks to his mother, he’s like “Yeah, okay. Yes, okay. Yeah, I gotta go,” and then he hangs up and talks to his boss and he’s like, “Oh, no problem, ha ha, sure, sure, I got it, bye bye.” And then he calls some girl he met at the bar and says “Hey baby, how you doin’?” We have these guises, so I think it’s a process, we’re always changing.
Date: May 3, 2006
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Jim Bower
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum.
Explore More Videos
Try to be a bridge between both countries
(1919-2020) Member of the 1800th Engineering Battalion. Promoted Japan-U.S. trade while working for Honda's export division.
Sexual Orientation as a Youth
(b. 1957) Jusice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii.
What I wanted to pass down to my children (Japanese)
(1928 - 2008) Drafted into both the Japanese Imperial Army and the U.S. Army.
Becoming the First LGBTQ Judge to Serve on the Hawaii Supreme Court
(b. 1957) Jusice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii.
Impact of Coming Out Publicly in the US and Japan
(b. 1957) Jusice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii.
Proud to be Japanese Americans
(1938-2020) Japanese American attorney and civil rights activist
Finding out about adoption
(b. 1939) a businesswoman whose family volunterily moved to Salt Lake City in Utah during the war.
Japanese Culture and the crafting Sushi in the States (Japanese)
(n. 1962) Sushi Chef
Carrying on the Legacy in the Colony of Paraguay (Japanese)
(b. 1943) Paraguayan Ambassador to Japan
The Changes in Youth in the Colony (Japanese)
(b. 1943) Paraguayan Ambassador to Japan