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)

Hirabayashi,PJ

A “principally-based” taiko group in England creating a global taiko community

Co-founder and creative director of San Jose Taiko

Glaser,Byron

Growing up in a Japanese American community

Illustrator and designer

Houston,Jeanne Wakatsuki

Mixed blood people at camp from a child's point of view

(b. 1934) Writer

Ota,Vince

Being multicultural before it was “in”

Japanese American Creative designer living in Japan

Sogi,Francis Y.

The Kona Island community

(1923-2011) Lawyer, MIS veteran, founder of Francis and Sarah Sogi Foundation

Kobayashi,Bert A.

Being accepted as biracial family

(b.1944) Founder of Kobayashi Group, LLC

Kobayashi,Bert A.

To be “100 % Japanese”

(b.1944) Founder of Kobayashi Group, LLC

Bannai,Lorraine

The importance of Japanese American role models in childhood community

(b. 1955) Lawyer

Bannai,Lorraine

Recognizing issues of dual identity in the nisei generation

(b. 1955) Lawyer

Bannai,Lorraine

Heightened awareness of identity as a Japanese American

(b. 1955) Lawyer

Hirose,Roberto

Growing up with some Japanese families (Spanish)

(b. 1950) Nisei Chilean, Businessman

Hirose,Roberto

The various realities of Nikkei in Latin America (Spanish)

(b. 1950) Nisei Chilean, Businessman

Hattori,Paula Hoyos

The importance of learning cultural diversity (Spanish)

Sansei Argentinean

Hattori,Paula Hoyos

To think in one language and live in another (Spanish)

Sansei Argentinean