S2E12: The Incarceration of Japanese America — with Scott Okamoto

[00:00:00] This is a Dauntless Media Collective Podcast. Visit Dauntless.FM for more content.

[00:00:07] The way Japanese people are and be really overgeneralizing, you know, shame is a thing.

[00:00:16] And they felt ashamed that this happened to them.

[00:00:19] And they just wanted to move on and never speak of it again.

[00:00:22] You know, they didn't do anything wrong, but the fact that they lost everything

[00:00:26] and got stuck in jail for three years, it was shameful to them.

[00:00:30] And they didn't want to talk about it.

[00:00:33] Hi, I'm Nate.

[00:00:43] I'm Gail.

[00:00:44] And this is Full Mutuality.

[00:00:47] Today on the show, well, first of all, we're back.

[00:00:52] It's been a little while.

[00:00:54] Sorry for disappearing without a trace and with no announcements and without letting...

[00:00:59] We were busy in New York wandering around with Scott for a little bit.

[00:01:02] That's true. Yeah.

[00:01:04] Oh, you're going to blame me for this? Okay.

[00:01:08] Well, you went back to LA.

[00:01:10] I mean, that was lovely. Your children were so lovely.

[00:01:13] And I mean, at our wedding, we didn't really get to...

[00:01:15] I don't know, too many people at once.

[00:01:17] And you don't really have that quality time to just sit and chill and hang.

[00:01:21] And you got to meet my kids at our wedding.

[00:01:25] So it was fun to be able to meet yours.

[00:01:28] It was cool.

[00:01:29] Yeah, to meet your cool kids too.

[00:01:31] They're neat. Your kids have a great sense of humor, like all of them.

[00:01:34] They just batter and riff on each other nonstop.

[00:01:37] And they just add that really fun age where they're enjoyable to be around.

[00:01:41] Yeah. And I mean, the older two are adults technically now.

[00:01:45] So yeah, they...

[00:01:47] Okay, real quick before we get...

[00:01:48] Their brains haven't fully formed, but they're getting there.

[00:01:51] I like this.

[00:01:52] Especially after you weather out the teen years, because mine too are adults.

[00:01:55] It's lovely.

[00:01:56] It's really for those who have teenagers or in those other phases.

[00:02:00] It gets better.

[00:02:01] It really does.

[00:02:02] Okay, before we get too far along, I want to introduce our guest today

[00:02:06] in case you haven't been following our podcast for a while.

[00:02:09] Oh yeah, sorry. The guy who's been talking.

[00:02:11] And you don't know who this is.

[00:02:13] This is our good friend who has been on the show more times than any other guest we've had.

[00:02:19] He deserves a prize, I think.

[00:02:20] Yeah.

[00:02:21] Something.

[00:02:22] Yeah, where's my jacket?

[00:02:24] We're going to give you a varsity letter.

[00:02:27] So this is Scott Okamoto, the incredible, the illustrious, the sexy, the funny...

[00:02:35] Oh.

[00:02:38] Scott Okamoto.

[00:02:41] By the way...

[00:02:43] Wait, oh no, we have had you on since your book launch.

[00:02:47] So we don't have to say like, oh by the way, yeah.

[00:02:50] Yeah.

[00:02:51] But yeah.

[00:02:52] You guys did it.

[00:02:53] You want to hear a funny story about your book.

[00:02:55] So we have a story.

[00:02:56] Nate and I do have the story.

[00:02:58] We purchased three of your books, Scott.

[00:03:00] Aw.

[00:03:01] Because we wanted to have you sign and give...

[00:03:02] Three extra copies.

[00:03:03] Three extra.

[00:03:04] We wanted to give some away.

[00:03:05] Can I tell the story?

[00:03:06] So that's half my sales right there.

[00:03:07] Yeah.

[00:03:08] So obviously the weekend of our wedding did not think to have you sign it.

[00:03:14] Too busy.

[00:03:15] This time around when we were like, oh, Scott's coming into town.

[00:03:18] Nate's like, okay, I'm going to bring my backpack into the city.

[00:03:20] I'm going to put the books in.

[00:03:21] And I don't know if you remember that Nate was lugging around a bag with him.

[00:03:26] And then we get...

[00:03:27] After we say bye to you and we get back to the train station, Nate is like...

[00:03:31] And I'm like, wait, Nate, the books?

[00:03:34] Do you remember?

[00:03:35] He's like, oh no, that's why I've had this backpack on the whole time.

[00:03:38] And I completely forgot.

[00:03:40] Scott signed them.

[00:03:42] He was like, do I call him and like go back?

[00:03:45] And he's already booked it with his kids probably back up to the heights of the

[00:03:49] probably.

[00:03:50] And we had already...

[00:03:51] We were stuck there for a while.

[00:03:53] So we...

[00:03:54] Probably could have come back for you.

[00:03:56] But you know what?

[00:03:57] We'll...

[00:03:58] You know what I'll do is...

[00:03:59] An excuse to make it out to LA.

[00:04:01] Yeah, either that...

[00:04:02] Well, that, yeah.

[00:04:03] Yes, there's that.

[00:04:04] But I also don't want to push this out too long because I do want to have a

[00:04:07] giveaway for our podcast.

[00:04:09] So I'll ship out a few copies and have you sign.

[00:04:15] And I'll give you like a return, you know, a return package.

[00:04:18] All right.

[00:04:19] I could just mail you what I like, what I write and then you could just tape it

[00:04:23] in the...

[00:04:24] You could, you could, you could put it on like a sticker and I'll stick it on

[00:04:30] the front page of...

[00:04:31] And I'll post it.

[00:04:33] No, it's even more, I don't know, personalized than the average.

[00:04:39] Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:40] It's my own post it note.

[00:04:42] From Scott's kitchen.

[00:04:44] Yep.

[00:04:45] It's pink and yeah.

[00:04:49] That's awesome.

[00:04:50] So I figure, you know, we're going to release this episode sometime during

[00:04:57] AAPI History Month and I kind of want to have this tradition of having some

[00:05:04] conversations around AAPI History Month.

[00:05:07] I don't know we're going to do it all like every May but you know, from

[00:05:12] time to time as we get close to May or any significant dates in American

[00:05:17] Asian American history, I want to have some of these conversations.

[00:05:22] So I want to talk specifically about your Japanese American identity.

[00:05:29] So for those of you who are listening and aren't aware, both Scott and I

[00:05:33] are Japanese American but Scott has a longer history of his family being

[00:05:41] here in the U.S. whereas I come from an immigrant family.

[00:05:46] So out of curiosity, Scott, what generation of Japanese American are you?

[00:05:52] I am fourth generation which they call Yonsei.

[00:05:55] Oh, okay.

[00:05:56] It's a little confusing because my great grandparents, like a couple of them

[00:06:03] were...Oh no, all my great-grandparents are from Japan.

[00:06:09] Two of the four grandparents were born in Japan and people moved back and forth

[00:06:16] around the early part of the 20th century but they were still...

[00:06:20] My grandparents were still considered Nisei, the second generation.

[00:06:24] Oh, interesting.

[00:06:26] Yeah.

[00:06:27] All here in mostly in LA.

[00:06:29] My grandma's family is from San Francisco originally and my dad's family

[00:06:34] here in Los Angeles and in Pasadena.

[00:06:36] Are you Yonsei on both sides of your family?

[00:06:40] Oh, okay.

[00:06:41] Oh, that's cool.

[00:06:42] Yeah.

[00:06:43] That's helpful so you don't have to do the whole like, well...

[00:06:45] Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:46] Because I don't know how they do it when it's different on both...

[00:06:49] Yeah.

[00:06:50] ...on either side.

[00:06:51] Do you split the difference?

[00:06:54] Yeah.

[00:06:56] Yeah.

[00:06:57] So did your upbringing...I'm guessing given the fact that you're Yonsei,

[00:07:03] you're upbringing probably...maybe I'm jumping to a conclusion or making an assumption

[00:07:08] but was your upbringing pretty American

[00:07:11] or did you have any Japanese traditions in your household?

[00:07:14] We had no Japanese traditions that I am aware of other than we had rice.

[00:07:18] Oh, okay.

[00:07:19] With a lot of meals.

[00:07:21] So my mom would make like pork chops and rice.

[00:07:24] Fried chicken and rice.

[00:07:27] Ah.

[00:07:28] Yeah.

[00:07:30] Yeah.

[00:07:31] But because my...so it's interesting coming out of the camps after World War II, Japanese

[00:07:37] folks on the west side of the country who were affected by this had one of two...and

[00:07:43] I'm generalizing...one of two responses.

[00:07:47] Some were angry and got kind of into activism and involvement in changing the world for

[00:07:55] a better place.

[00:07:57] I think most of the people were like my family.

[00:08:00] You know, they were shook because they were stuck...they lost everything, stuck out in the

[00:08:06] desert and mountains behind barbed wire simply because of their identity.

[00:08:10] So they made it their mission to be the best gosh darn Americans they possibly could.

[00:08:17] And in doing so really sacrificed that Japanese part of their identity.

[00:08:23] And so my parents' generation, their boomers, they didn't speak Japanese.

[00:08:29] My dad took some Japanese school classes he was forced to for a little bit.

[00:08:33] But my parents by and large don't speak a lot of Japanese if at all.

[00:08:37] My dad was a Boy Scout.

[00:08:40] He played baseball.

[00:08:41] He grew up hunting and fishing.

[00:08:43] He was...he was...if Norman Rockwell painted Japanese Americans, my dad would be

[00:08:48] in one of his paintings.

[00:08:49] He's one of those guys.

[00:08:51] Very patriotic.

[00:08:52] He signed up for the Army twice.

[00:08:53] Oh wow.

[00:08:54] I was born at Fort Dix over in your neck of the woods.

[00:08:57] And my dad was a captain in the Army.

[00:09:00] And being Japanese was not a priority.

[00:09:04] We knew we were, but we kind of...I was raised with kind of negative attitudes toward Japan.

[00:09:13] It's interesting looking back.

[00:09:16] We would make fun of fall-bee Asian people from every Asian country.

[00:09:21] But because we were like, well, we're American now.

[00:09:25] And I play baseball and I go fishing and camping.

[00:09:30] You know, I was doing all the Americana masculine stuff.

[00:09:34] I even had an NRA card when I was like 10 or 12.

[00:09:37] Oh my God really?

[00:09:39] Yeah.

[00:09:40] I didn't keep it.

[00:09:41] Well I kept it and it expired and I didn't renew it.

[00:09:44] But I had a hunting license and I thought, man, I'm so cool because I have all this stuff.

[00:09:49] But in reality it didn't matter because white kids were not going to accept me as American

[00:09:54] no matter what I did, which I quickly learned.

[00:09:58] So I was like, fuck it.

[00:09:59] I'll just do what I want.

[00:10:00] Scott, did you grew up around a large Japanese community around you or were you surrounded

[00:10:06] by white people?

[00:10:07] No, I was surrounded by white people.

[00:10:09] My formative years in Pasadena was predominantly a black neighborhood.

[00:10:14] Pretty diverse.

[00:10:17] I spoke like my black friends in the 70s.

[00:10:22] And then my parents moved us to the all-white school one town over.

[00:10:27] And my poor teacher, she had to have been like in her late 60s, early 70s, you know

[00:10:34] this white-haired, lovely old woman, second grade teacher.

[00:10:39] And she thought I belonged in special ed because she had never probably met an Asian person in

[00:10:47] her life.

[00:10:48] And here I was speaking like a young black child.

[00:10:52] It had to have been confusing for her.

[00:10:57] So they just assumed I was ignorant and uneducated.

[00:11:00] And I probably was somewhat uneducated comparatively to the middle class white kids in Arcadia, California.

[00:11:10] But yeah.

[00:11:12] And then I tested into like gifted and they're like, oh, I guess he's not special ed.

[00:11:19] So yeah, I never had a lot of Japanese, like my mom did make teriyaki chicken.

[00:11:24] She was like an old family recipe, but every Japanese family has that, right?

[00:11:27] That's sort of like standard issue.

[00:11:29] It's sort of the creation.

[00:11:31] I mean, interestingly enough, a lot of like so for my dad came over post-war.

[00:11:41] So he came to the U.S. during the big boom of Japanese imports when you know the Japanese cars were becoming very popular here in the U.S.

[00:11:52] And so for my dad, the trappings of Japanese American cuisine hadn't really hit.

[00:12:01] So teriyaki chicken wasn't something that he would have been aware of.

[00:12:04] Yeah, he thought of a Japanese thing.

[00:12:06] Right, right.

[00:12:07] He would have looked at that like, oh, is that like some kind of yakitori with some different flavors?

[00:12:14] Yeah, soy sauce.

[00:12:16] Which it's fast.

[00:12:19] So for those of you who don't know, teriyaki as we know it in the U.S. is not really a Japanese, an inherently Japanese creation.

[00:12:29] It was an attempt by early Japanese immigrants to the U.S. to recreate a lot of the flavors that were from home.

[00:12:38] So that's where teriyaki comes from.

[00:12:40] And the word teriyaki, yaki being that grilled style of cooking and teri meaning shiny.

[00:12:48] So like a shiny grilled sauce essentially.

[00:12:52] But yeah, there's really no...

[00:12:55] Like if you go to Japan and you look for teriyaki, you'll find it in an American restaurant.

[00:13:00] Yeah.

[00:13:02] Yeah, we just blew a whole bunch of minds of people listening.

[00:13:05] Whenever I tell that to people.

[00:13:08] As an Italian, it's not too too shocking.

[00:13:11] Just because I'm like, yeah, Italian food in Italy and Italian food in the U.S. is not at all comparable.

[00:13:17] Like same thing.

[00:13:18] You ask for pizza over there and it's not the same thing.

[00:13:21] Right.

[00:13:22] Same with Chinese food, right?

[00:13:23] Pretty much all the famous Chinese food was invented in New York.

[00:13:28] And part and sometimes from LA.

[00:13:31] It's only the Koreans.

[00:13:32] So the Koreans came last of the big three East Asians.

[00:13:36] And they're like, fuck this.

[00:13:37] We're not changing our food.

[00:13:38] This is our food.

[00:13:39] That's true.

[00:13:40] But they decided to change their religion for us.

[00:13:43] So you know...

[00:13:44] Well...

[00:13:45] It's either food or religion.

[00:13:46] It's a whole other...

[00:13:47] Yeah.

[00:13:48] Well that's another thing.

[00:13:49] They didn't decide.

[00:13:50] Sorry.

[00:13:51] It's a whole other...

[00:13:52] I shouldn't say...

[00:13:53] The Korean Christians is...

[00:13:54] Well they make...

[00:13:55] You know, they really believe Jesus is Korean in those churches.

[00:13:58] You know, it's...

[00:13:59] They've made it their own.

[00:14:00] You know, like American white folks have made it their own.

[00:14:04] Yeah.

[00:14:05] But they're food they kept.

[00:14:07] In fact, they say like Korean food in LA is better than in Korea in some cases.

[00:14:12] Oh really?

[00:14:13] Because it's easier to get materials and ingredients.

[00:14:16] Oh.

[00:14:17] The quality of meats a little higher on average.

[00:14:20] So yeah.

[00:14:21] Interesting.

[00:14:22] Yeah.

[00:14:23] We're talking about food now.

[00:14:24] Yeah.

[00:14:25] I do enjoy talking about food.

[00:14:27] Yeah.

[00:14:28] So did you...

[00:14:30] On the East Coast, do you all have the Obon festivals?

[00:14:33] The sort of Japanese celebration?

[00:14:38] They do have some in New York.

[00:14:41] Let me see if there's...

[00:14:43] I'm gonna do the Google thing.

[00:14:45] Obon.

[00:14:46] So for those listening, the Obon...

[00:14:48] If you've seen Karate Kid 2, the big climactic scene at the end where there's like traditional

[00:14:56] dances and food and it's these...

[00:15:01] And they don't really do it in Japan anymore.

[00:15:04] It's a tradition that kept up...

[00:15:07] Got kept up here in the States.

[00:15:10] And it's not...

[00:15:12] To call it line dancing is probably not the right thing, but everyone's walking in a

[00:15:15] line around like a circle or a street doing all these dances and eating certain foods.

[00:15:22] And weirdly in California at least one of the most popular foods for Obon festival

[00:15:27] is chili and rice.

[00:15:30] Just like American chili piled on to a bowl of white rice.

[00:15:36] Huh.

[00:15:37] Yeah.

[00:15:38] Hot dogs, these dongle donut things, and of course teriyaki everything.

[00:15:43] Yeah.

[00:15:44] They...

[00:15:45] So apparently there is an annual Obon festival in Bryant Park.

[00:15:56] They have a massive Bon Odori dance at the New York Buddhist church.

[00:16:03] Yeah, they're usually at Buddhist churches.

[00:16:05] Yeah.

[00:16:06] Yeah.

[00:16:07] And it's right by...

[00:16:08] Surprise, surprise.

[00:16:09] It's right by a Kinokuniya bookstore.

[00:16:13] Yes.

[00:16:14] Yeah.

[00:16:15] Which is a Japanese American bookstore chain really.

[00:16:20] Yeah.

[00:16:21] Yeah.

[00:16:22] Because there are...

[00:16:23] At least in this area.

[00:16:24] I don't know what you're referring to that I know of.

[00:16:28] But so you had mentioned that in your family history, you briefly alluded to the topic

[00:16:36] of camp.

[00:16:37] And I don't want to assume the knowledge of our listeners.

[00:16:44] Because again, like I've talked to a couple people who never even heard of the Japanese

[00:16:52] concentration camps.

[00:16:53] They didn't know that this was a thing.

[00:16:55] They didn't know that this happened.

[00:16:58] So maybe we could back up a little bit and talk kind of about what happened, what took

[00:17:08] place, and then maybe if you'd be willing to share some of your own...

[00:17:12] If you have any stories that you can share.

[00:17:15] But like...

[00:17:16] So I guess what was this?

[00:17:19] What were the Japanese concentration camps?

[00:17:21] Why did they exist?

[00:17:22] What...

[00:17:23] You know, who created them basically.

[00:17:26] Before we go there, can I ask like in terms of just schooling, can we start there?

[00:17:32] Who actually has bought...

[00:17:33] Like did any of us get to hear about this in school?

[00:17:36] Did any of us learn about the camps in school?

[00:17:40] No.

[00:17:41] I had a couple teachers ask me if my family were in camps and no one in my family talked

[00:17:50] about it.

[00:17:51] So I had no idea.

[00:17:52] I think I said no the first time because I didn't know what she was talking about.

[00:17:57] So in general, I think in America most people don't...

[00:18:01] It's not in the curriculum and if it is, it's a paragraph during the World War II

[00:18:08] section of your American history book.

[00:18:11] I think my recollection from history class was a very brief mention if a paragraph like

[00:18:24] in all likelihood probably just two or three sentences.

[00:18:28] That's maybe even better than what I've gotten in and like I know Canadian and American

[00:18:34] history does not parallel on slavery but when it comes to Asian Americans and what was

[00:18:38] happening to the Japanese people, exactly the same in Canada as in the US.

[00:18:42] In some ways worse.

[00:18:44] Yeah.

[00:18:45] And my cousin, his whole family was...

[00:18:48] His parents were put into a concentration camp and I didn't learn about it until I

[00:18:52] didn't even know about his history.

[00:18:54] Yeah, I didn't hear anything about it in school.

[00:18:57] I don't know if they've changed in the curriculum and added it in but I did not

[00:19:00] grow up in Canada learning that as being a part of Canadian history.

[00:19:05] So not to jump too far ahead but there is a professor who I found a quote from her

[00:19:17] and she said at least up until the 1990s, there's no real mention of it in American

[00:19:27] history books.

[00:19:29] Yeah.

[00:19:32] And do any better with that and teaching about it.

[00:19:36] To be fair, I mean not really fair like we should be learning history.

[00:19:43] We should be learning the bad parts of history as well but this is an embarrassing

[00:19:46] chapter in American history for Americans.

[00:19:50] This is not something that you would want to look at much like the history of

[00:19:55] chattel slavery with black people here, much like the history of the

[00:20:00] continent railroad with Chinese Americans.

[00:20:07] There are a lot of things that happened on our own soil.

[00:20:13] We are kind of talking about America's sins abroad and what our country is guilty of

[00:20:20] outside of our own country borders but here within our own country borders,

[00:20:25] in addition to the chattel slavery of black people, there is a pretty sorted history of

[00:20:32] some very dark events that have taken place and among them being the Japanese concentration

[00:20:39] camps. So why don't we talk a little bit about that, about sort of the Japanese

[00:20:44] concentration camps in general? What spurred this on? What was the catalyst for all of

[00:20:50] this? What was going on at the time? All of that stuff.

[00:20:54] So World War II started about a year before in 1940 in Europe and Europe wanted the U.S.

[00:21:07] to get involved but the U.S. was in its isolationist phase and Congress had no

[00:21:14] no desire to get caught up in it. So Hitler is rising and then now marauding across Europe

[00:21:22] and the U.S. is like whatever really could not have cared less and then it wasn't until Japan

[00:21:32] which was allied with Germany and Italy which we called the Axis

[00:21:40] attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that suddenly American people were like all up in arms we

[00:21:48] got to go to war because we've been attacked. I mean and Pearl Harbor was a military target.

[00:21:53] It wasn't like they bombed neighborhoods and you know business and hospitals and you know it

[00:21:58] was a naval base. Not to say it's good but it was a military target.

[00:22:06] And not to mention the fact that the response was pretty intense given the fact that at the time

[00:22:13] Hawaii wasn't even a state. They were still technically the kingdom of Hawaii where the U.S.

[00:22:19] had some territory and yeah but it was our boats that got bombed. Now the theory, we can go

[00:22:28] conspiracy theory here and it's not that much of a conspiracy theory is that the U.S.

[00:22:34] government knew the whole fleet of Japan was coming across the Pacific. You know even back then we

[00:22:42] had radar and we had spy planes so it's not like you can sneak an entire fleet across the Pacific.

[00:22:49] We knew what we knew where they were and we kind of in the theory is we knew what they wanted to

[00:22:54] do but we didn't stop them because the president, I think it was Truman at the time right,

[00:23:02] wanted to get into... It was Roosevelt. It was Roosevelt, sorry yeah FDR.

[00:23:11] Wanted to go to war because it was good for the economy. World War II is literally what

[00:23:17] pulled us out of the depression, the production in addition to his work programs and things

[00:23:25] but this was like a shot of adrenaline to the economy and he knew this and so

[00:23:32] there's records of people across the Pacific radioing in saying yeah the whole fleet just went by

[00:23:41] are you going to do anything and they kind of sat on it. They didn't and so interestingly Japan

[00:23:47] attacked on a day that was kind of a holiday so there was hardly anyone there. It was kind of

[00:23:51] like this perfect scenario to get into the war. People can debate this but you know

[00:23:57] that's kind of weird that we sort of just let it happen.

[00:24:03] Anyway, of course even leading up to this there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment because they

[00:24:08] were on the other side and so my family was getting harassed and yelled at and

[00:24:17] and so after Pearl Harbor it was just like people just lost their minds and you know

[00:24:23] a lot of Japanese people lost their jobs or were just ostracized in their communities. Now

[00:24:29] on the other side a lot of people were very good to Japanese Americans because they knew

[00:24:34] they had relationships with them and so it was a mixed bag for sure but then they drummed up

[00:24:40] this whole thing that you know especially Japanese on the west coast could be spies

[00:24:45] for Japan because a lot of them spoke Japanese and a lot of them watched Japanese movies and

[00:24:51] sang Japanese songs and they cooked up this whole thing that they were spies and that gave

[00:24:59] the war authority the opportunity to round them up and they erected camps

[00:25:08] as far as Arkansas. My dad was born at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. My mom was born at

[00:25:15] Healer River Arizona. The big famous one is in Manzanar in California, there's a few in California.

[00:25:21] There's a couple in Arizona and I'm forgetting all of them but you know there was a bunch of

[00:25:26] these places and about 120,000 people most of whom were American citizens without due process

[00:25:37] were rounded up given just a few weeks to get rid of all the belongings that they could

[00:25:43] bring one suitcase that was all they could bring to these camps and to the ones that got sent to

[00:25:50] like Heart Mountain like my dad's family these are people from Southern California and it was

[00:25:55] the dead of winter and it was like 20 below so old people died you know babies died because

[00:26:01] they just were not prepared to go to these places. They didn't have enough food at first

[00:26:07] they didn't have an infrastructure for you know how to do this and it was awful for for

[00:26:14] anywhere from two to three years these people were locked up. Now the government tried to have it

[00:26:20] both ways they tried to say it was for the protection because all this hate crime was happening but

[00:26:25] really they just thought they were going to be spies and then to end the history lesson

[00:26:32] portion of this it was until a few people sued Gordon Hirabayashi, Minya Sui and

[00:26:46] Fred Korematsu. Fred Korematsu all had cases get up to the Supreme Court

[00:26:53] and it was during this discovery that they found out that the California it was the

[00:26:58] California agriculture that was driving this they wanted the land because Japanese had become

[00:27:04] really good at farming and were and owned and ran much much of the land the citizens could own

[00:27:12] and they wanted the land back and so they literally there's documentation there's a

[00:27:16] headline in the LA Times in the 40s that said this is not about war this is about white man's

[00:27:22] supremacy on the west coast. Hmm referring to the farm I mean they were literally admitting this

[00:27:28] in the papers and again nobody cared it was whatever it's not my problem you know so

[00:27:37] it is that legacy that we're talking about. Yeah and I do find it interesting how

[00:27:48] how focused FDR was on targeting Japanese Americans. I say interesting it's pretty depressing and

[00:28:01] what's I think what's frustrating as well especially for me recently because FDR is sort of lauded

[00:28:09] as one of if not the greatest president that our country has ever had

[00:28:12] um you know both from people on the on the right who view him as you know the the great

[00:28:21] wartime president who pulled us out of depression and led us through World War II.

[00:28:27] With socialism. People on the left yeah people on the left are excited about the progressive

[00:28:36] projects and and agenda that he set into motion. A lot of what people nowadays might call quote

[00:28:44] unquote socialism were implemented back when FDR was president he presided over the institution of

[00:28:54] Social Security the the new deal. The reform of the banking app the National Labor Relations Act

[00:29:03] um like yeah the arts yeah the arts the federal federal government all of these things that

[00:29:10] we look to as kind of pillars of um or I say pillars they're crumbling but like the the

[00:29:20] the social safety net of the US and the social programs uh you know the strength of the library

[00:29:28] program the public library under FDR um you know so so there are a lot of things that we

[00:29:36] attribute to FDR's administration that are beneficial but if you scratch below the surface

[00:29:45] FDR had some severely uh intense feelings about Japanese Americans and there was as I was doing

[00:29:58] a little bit of digging for this uh for our conversation I found the I had heard a little

[00:30:03] bit you know just in in my history nerdiness um I had heard a little bit about this secret memo

[00:30:11] that FDR sent to his chief of naval operations but apparently like I didn't really do a whole

[00:30:18] lot of research into this but but I found uh I think it's the Densho project project.

[00:30:25] Um they got a hold of this secret memo that FDR sent that included some severely anti-Japanese

[00:30:36] American sentiments he wrote that every Japanese citizen or non-citizen on the island of Oahu

[00:30:44] who meets these Japanese ships or has any connection with their officers or men

[00:30:49] should be secretly but definitely identified and his or her name placed on a special list of those

[00:30:55] who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp in the event of trouble.

[00:31:02] Um it's like that paranoia that was fueled um by and that's not just in in you know

[00:31:10] in his office as president like I did a little bit more digging and found that

[00:31:15] back in the 1920s before he became president FDR was a columnist for the Macon telegraph

[00:31:21] and he had wrote he had written articles in opposition to intermarriage between

[00:31:30] white people and Japanese people or people of Japanese descent because he feared quote

[00:31:37] the mingling of asiatic blood with European or American blood and while also some of the articles

[00:31:45] that he wrote there were in support of California's ban on Issei land ownership so first generation

[00:31:52] Japanese Americans um California had a ban on their on their ability to own land and he was

[00:32:01] in support of that so FDR is a mixed bag um there is a uh a Japanese American singer songwriter

[00:32:09] who I love uh Kishi Bashi and he wrote this song called F. Delano which is

[00:32:17] we know who that is um and it's I don't know it's it's a brilliant song and it really gives

[00:32:26] a sense for like you know I don't know I feel like there we have these heroes um of our you know

[00:32:34] of our history that we look to but they are they're a mixed bag you know for sure and probably

[00:32:41] most people were back then because one thing I read about FDR and you know there's a lot

[00:32:47] of things you can read um he he didn't he wasn't not he wasn't down with the camps initially

[00:32:55] because he knew the law and these were citizens and you can't just without due process put people

[00:33:01] in jail and so it was the it was mostly the generals and the uh like I said the agriculture

[00:33:08] industry that was really pushing for this and I think he basically threw his hands up and said

[00:33:14] all right well show me the plans and how how the hell are you gonna do this you know and you know

[00:33:19] on what grounds are you gonna do this he ended up just going along with it but he was not it was

[00:33:25] not his idea so I'll give him that but damn he in every other way yeah he he went along with it

[00:33:34] and he's you know I remember when I was an AP US history in high school learning about this

[00:33:40] and I had a really good AP English history teacher in high school who it wasn't in the book but he

[00:33:46] he covered it he had his own lecture on this and um he even asked me like what were your family in

[00:33:56] camps and I said yeah he's like which one and I was like oh shit there's more than one uh

[00:34:01] and I had to go home and ask my parents like which which camps were you in um but he he

[00:34:07] covered it and he he showed not both sides but he definitely um humanized the whole thing

[00:34:15] and made it and made it a point to teach it because it was not really in the book

[00:34:22] yeah yeah it's also interesting um I I had done a little bit of reading a few years ago

[00:34:30] and discovered that uh there was actually a camp out here I there were there were a few camps on the

[00:34:37] east coast but uh one of them not too far from me in um I think in Suffolk County Long Island

[00:34:44] and it's a place called Camp Upton which is more known for its um it was a training ground

[00:34:51] during World War One but it during World War Two it became um a detention center for Japanese

[00:34:59] Americans yeah even even this far that's a long way to send people yeah um I almost wonder if that was

[00:35:07] for the Japanese American population that was living in New York City maybe but they weren't

[00:35:12] really concerned with east coasts Japanese Americans that's true they weren't yeah um

[00:35:19] I don't remember where the cutoff was as far as but um yeah and I don't know um a whole lot

[00:35:26] about it like I said I just did a little bit of digging you know so um for like our backgrounds

[00:35:31] for for me like I like I was mentioning before um my dad came over to the U.S. uh in the 70s and 80s

[00:35:41] or that was when he was like doing a lot of his back and forth he came to the U.S. for college

[00:35:45] and then he moved back to Japan and then he came back to the U.S. and he was doing some

[00:35:49] back and forth during the 70s and 80s and then finally settled here in the 80s yeah so like

[00:35:54] his his knowledge of the camps is minimal at best oh yeah they don't really teach it in Japan

[00:36:01] that's the other thing um Japanese people are often surprised to hear about yeah I was talking

[00:36:08] to my cousin and she didn't know that this happened um here in in the U.S. so yeah this is

[00:36:16] not something that they that they learned um so basically um this this was the the executive order

[00:36:25] is called 90 executive order in 9066 um it does not mention Japanese Americans by name uh we are

[00:36:34] I guess kind of at the point in American history where mentioning a particular race by name would

[00:36:39] probably not hold up in a court of law um but because of what had taken place in December 1941

[00:36:51] it kind of stood to reason that this would be you know that the Japanese Americans would be the

[00:37:00] target um and it was so it was executive order in 9066 and the it was enforced under what's called

[00:37:11] public law 77-50 which basically made any resistance to your forced migration uh forced relocation

[00:37:26] uh a fine of up to $5,000 yeah a pretty uh pretty dark time in

[00:37:35] yeah countries history and when I was a kid and learning about this well first first of all

[00:37:40] my parents never my parents or grandparents ever talked about it until uh they made a movie

[00:37:48] Alan Parker um who had just made Mississippi Burning made a movie about the Japanese internment

[00:37:55] camps that had Dennis Quaid and my friend Tamlin Tomita and um that it was like that gave them a

[00:38:03] like I don't know an excuse or a reason to talk about it because suddenly it's in the

[00:38:08] it's in it's in a movie um but I always asked like why didn't you fight you know

[00:38:14] or why didn't you just move somewhere else or why didn't you know I had all these questions

[00:38:20] they all just sort of went and it's really complicated because back then they didn't have

[00:38:27] rights like like we do today yeah they were they were even before the war before all the

[00:38:33] troubles they were always afraid about their standing in their their communities their

[00:38:40] their identities as you know American or not and they were trying really hard you know

[00:38:45] there were there were a lot of boy scouts in baseball I live in Pasadena and Jackie Robinson

[00:38:51] is from was had moved to Pasadena and grew up here and all his best friends were Japanese-American

[00:38:57] and they were rising in the ranks with along with black athletes here in Pasadena but then

[00:39:02] in the middle 30s when you know the war started to sort of develop uh the Japanese got kind of pushed

[00:39:11] aside and um so they were always worried about their standing and they didn't want to make trouble

[00:39:19] and a lot of them were living you know multiple families in a single house or apartment and so

[00:39:25] you know they could have they literally could have just packed everything up and moved to

[00:39:29] Chicago and they would have been fine but they weren't all able to afford the travel or

[00:39:36] they just didn't know and then they were terrified and so initially they all packed up their stuff

[00:39:42] sold everything they possibly could most of them on pennies on the dollar because their

[00:39:46] neighbors knew what was happening you could buy a piano for like five bucks um and they got on

[00:39:53] these trains and you know they were hoping that this would just be for a few weeks or

[00:39:57] something you know they or they didn't know that it was going to be the years out and they

[00:40:02] they they weren't told where they were going a lot of them thought you know at this point

[00:40:08] they knew about the the Jewish concentration camps a lot of them thought they might be killed

[00:40:13] um when they when they got to wherever they were going because they just weren't told

[00:40:17] and these trains with blacked out windows would just drop them off at

[00:40:22] near where their camps were and they would have to walk to these camps in these barracks that were

[00:40:28] crudely constructed with like gaps in the floorboards there was dust coming up through the floors

[00:40:34] and through the sides the siding of the place the roofs weren't always waterproof

[00:40:40] and so they were just scared people who who didn't feel like they had agency in their life

[00:40:46] because you know when I was growing up in the and by this time the 80s I'm just like well

[00:40:50] you could have fought you know I've seen the A team you know I you could have you could have

[00:40:55] stood up to this or or at least just packed up and moved someplace where you didn't have to go

[00:40:59] through this but really you know I and my adult life it's like man there had to just been a

[00:41:06] terrifying time and all you want to do is keep your family together and and stay together

[00:41:11] and and whatever your fate is you're gonna go through it together as a as a family sadly a

[00:41:18] lot of families got ripped apart and sent to a different camp so they didn't even honor that

[00:41:26] but yeah so Scott what age do you mind my asking what age your your parents were when they were

[00:41:32] when they were in the camps yeah my dad was born like months before they got shipped out

[00:41:37] so my grandma gave birth while they're they were already like packing up to go and they let her

[00:41:45] stay in the hospital until and then they shipped him out separately so he was an infant my mom was born

[00:41:55] about a year before oh no the year they got out um or the year before 44 um it was rare but people

[00:42:03] did have kids um during during this so she was born at Heela River Arizona in the desert

[00:42:11] my dad has false faint recollections we went with him on a family trip we went to Yellowstone and

[00:42:17] Campton fished and then Cody Wyoming is just down the hill from Yellowstone so we we at the end

[00:42:24] of our trip we went to Cody and Hart Mountain is about I don't want to say half an hour outside

[00:42:30] of Cody Wyoming and they have a nice um interpretive center museum slash museum and um yeah it

[00:42:40] was cool to see my dad walk through that with my kids was was really moving um and he had faint

[00:42:47] recollections he remembered like the swimming hole um that people would gather at um and the

[00:42:54] and the farming stuff that they did um yeah thanks for listening to this podcast from

[00:43:01] the Dauntless Media Collective if you enjoy what you're hearing we think you'll also enjoy some

[00:43:06] of our other shows which you can find by visiting dauntless.fm here's a sample from one of them all

[00:43:12] right okay welcome to the thereafter podcast a place where we explore life on the other side of

[00:43:20] faith change we're here to break down the binaries deconstruct the dualities and wander

[00:43:26] through what it looks like to live in the gray in church we were told that life after leaving

[00:43:32] would be a bitter wasteland of unfulfilling hedonism but we've discovered quite the opposite

[00:43:39] there's actually a vibrant community of people on the other side of faith

[00:43:43] who are finding and co-creating space for hope and healing come along as we explore the all

[00:43:50] too often uncharted expanse of evangelicalism evolving faith in the life thereafter

[00:44:05] so i i'm assuming that now like your father you know you guys went there as a family and

[00:44:12] we're having discussions about it but growing up was this ever a topic was this ever something

[00:44:17] brought to your attention that your family had gone through this was it like something that was just

[00:44:21] not talked about or was it something that you knew had happened yeah most of what i learned was in

[00:44:25] school initially um because the way japanese people are and be really over generalizing

[00:44:32] you know shame is a thing and they felt ashamed that this happened to them that's

[00:44:40] that's the only way i can put it and they just wanted to move on and never speak of it again

[00:44:45] now they didn't do anything wrong but the fact that they lost everything

[00:44:52] and got stuck in jail for three years it was shameful to them and they didn't want to talk about it

[00:45:00] you know i think other communities would have burned some shit down and

[00:45:05] would have put up a bigger fight but the the ise especially the ise and the older nisei

[00:45:13] were they're just they were proud they got through it and in a lot of ways life after camps was worse

[00:45:22] because you know food was not provided to them anymore and no one would hire them and no one

[00:45:29] would let them live on their property and rent it into house so like my my mom they were like

[00:45:35] homesteaders in in the la for a little while when they when they got back because they couldn't

[00:45:39] find a place to live um so yeah it was just shitty all around all around it was it was

[00:45:47] so i get so i and i used to get mad at my parents like why are you so uncool

[00:45:51] what why why during the 60s they were alive they were in their 20s when the Beatles were

[00:45:56] happening and Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and you know all the stuff counterculture

[00:46:01] stuff's happening you know and the civil rights movement a lot of ja sat out the

[00:46:06] civil rights movement because they were just terrified they didn't want to make trouble and get

[00:46:09] sent to prison again um a lot of ja's did participate in in civil rights and some notable ones but

[00:46:17] my family completely sat it out they they were just happy to be together they bought a plot

[00:46:23] of land in in torrance with like four they put four small houses on it so they could all live

[00:46:30] together and not be separated anymore and they just wanted to to live a peaceful life after what

[00:46:37] they had been through yeah so did it come as a shock to you when you were learning about it in

[00:46:43] school like to realize this was a part of your family history and you had to go back to your

[00:46:46] parents and have a conversation of hey what did this this must have applied to us too right or

[00:46:52] was it a big surprise to have that sit down conversation to to discuss it yeah it was a shock

[00:46:57] and i was surprised that my parents didn't know that much either because their parents didn't talk to

[00:47:02] them about it and if they and they they if they ask questions like my my dad's mom my grandma was a

[00:47:07] tough tough woman and she would just be like you know that's over don't talk about that you know

[00:47:13] that's we don't need to talk about it but it's funny is when the movie came out and i went and

[00:47:17] sat next to her watching this movie depicting you know the the evacuation and getting on

[00:47:22] buses and trains and living in these barracks and i was just bawling and she had a she had like one

[00:47:30] tear all she would say was we didn't have that much food but it gave her it gave her a reason

[00:47:39] to talk about it so it was like it was like the world had recognized what she was what she had

[00:47:45] gone through and pointed out that it was not good and so that kind of opened up that generation

[00:47:52] suddenly my grandparents are telling stories about it that they had never told us probably never been

[00:47:58] told my parents um do you remember how old you were when when that conversation happened with the

[00:48:05] movie it was funny my mom saw an ad that they were looking for extras to be in this movie that

[00:48:10] was depicting manzanar and uh she went and signed up and they said well we're looking for

[00:48:15] teenage boys we have enough you know middle-aged women so she she got me and my brother to sign up

[00:48:23] and so in the movie comes to the paradise you can see me playing clarinet and there's like this

[00:48:27] poignant scene where the everyone's getting off these buses and trudging their way into camp

[00:48:34] but the government wanted to make it happy so there's this Boy Scout band playing this very

[00:48:39] patriotic music as people are trudging by to go into this camp um and then there's a big riot

[00:48:46] scene but that was a true story that i'm into they shaved my head you can see me screaming my head off

[00:48:55] yeah wow that is cool did not know you were in a movie scott i've been in a lot of movies um

[00:49:03] that my friends make movies some you can see me in the background of a lot of Asian-American

[00:49:07] projects i don't get awesome but that movie i got paid they they paid me 50 bucks just to shave my head

[00:49:16] yeah so look for that come see the paradise yeah as a 20 year old college student in 1990

[00:49:22] i was like oh hell yeah i mean that's such a meaningful and important project to be a part of

[00:49:28] right it's something that's discussing your background and your heritage and i so before

[00:49:33] you had even seen the movie that you were in you must have had to learn what it was about or

[00:49:39] were your parents aware of the details of it all the japanese-americans in in the la were

[00:49:43] aware that it was being made and it was being made by this you know academy award nominated director

[00:49:49] i knew i only knew ellen parker from the wall pink floyd um but um the movie tanked because

[00:49:58] right as it was released within a few weeks the first gulf war started

[00:50:05] and the movies were just ganked out of the theaters they just disappeared and the story was

[00:50:12] that the government was was thinking they might have to intern arab americans and they didn't want

[00:50:20] this movie out there building sympathies for for that for the cause and so yeah wow i mean it's not

[00:50:32] the greatest movie but it was it was doing well you know every time i went and saw it i mean because

[00:50:36] i was in it i saw like six times it was a packed theater it wasn't like these were empty theaters

[00:50:41] it was it was pretty it was doing it was doing well wow there you go the movie's called come see

[00:50:48] the paradise yeah yeah denis quaid and tanlin to me go see that folks well not go see it you

[00:50:55] go rent it go stream it i don't think it's on netflix you might have to like it is find it on amazon prime

[00:51:04] i have a copy i have a dvd if anyone wants to borrow it here you go oh yeah it's on prime

[00:51:09] you can rent it for three there you go 379 you can see 20 year old me with the shaved head

[00:51:18] there you go um i'm curious about like the the impact that the camps had on um and it i guess

[00:51:31] for me uh like knowing my own family's approach to family history and the the challenges that kind

[00:51:43] of come along with how how much pride we we can have in our family history but then you know

[00:51:50] something so severely traumatic takes place in our um in our history and our legacy like

[00:51:58] what that could do uh to us as japanese americans i'm curious like how has that sort of informed or

[00:52:08] impacted um the way that your family kind of interacts with american society maybe how you

[00:52:16] interact and how how you uh how you handle it being different from how your family handles

[00:52:22] it because you kind of alluded to that as well about how your family responded to all of this but

[00:52:28] i would assume you handle things quite differently from from your own

[00:52:32] even your parents because um because i'm of the generation i am is gen x or i have the luxury

[00:52:38] of contextualizing everything because i didn't have to live through it so i've been on this

[00:52:43] journey of being pissed at them for not fighting and not you know standing up for the rights and

[00:52:48] then finding great sympathy for what they went through um but it is interesting to look at how

[00:52:56] that generation here in especially in southern california you know you can characterize

[00:53:03] that generation as you know oof how do i do this it's they're they're very uh passive that's not

[00:53:12] the right word but they're gentle people that they don't want to cause trouble in that sense

[00:53:18] now of course i'm speaking in complete generalizations there there were some bad ass people who

[00:53:23] you know joined gangs and there were bad and there's a great generation of people right after

[00:53:29] that that were sort of the hippies of and did fight for civil rights um but yeah it's it's interesting

[00:53:36] the to see the the fallout after world war two so you got world you have you have the camps

[00:53:44] not only did they have the camps they had the audacity to to force the men to fight

[00:53:49] in the military even while they're in jail yeah so they they jailed the families and they say

[00:53:55] we need you to fight against hitler we need you to fight against your own kind um in the pacific

[00:54:02] and so the the 100th battalion for 42nd was formed first from hawaii to and then from the

[00:54:09] states they become the most decorated military unit in american history because they kept getting

[00:54:14] sent to the front lines to do all the the suicide missions so yeah i have always pride for that

[00:54:21] but interestingly that generation and the previous the next generation didn't get along

[00:54:26] because the young boomers are coming up in the 50s and 60s and they want to have these lives

[00:54:34] and there's a rift between that the great generation that fought and died and sacrificed

[00:54:40] and went to the camps and their kids in general had a tough time relating because you know their

[00:54:46] kids want to follow martin the king and mouth Malcolm X and listen to rock and roll and

[00:54:52] get educated and get enlightened and all this stuff and their parents want nothing to do with

[00:54:56] that so i come along the even the generation after that um with you know all my ideas and

[00:55:04] notions about life and what's supposed to happen and really we all just need to have sympathy for

[00:55:12] what we all are going through um it's interesting too uh the the issue of generational trauma is

[00:55:19] a recent development that you know if you go through something really traumatic it it gets

[00:55:24] expressed in your genes and you pass that along right and i always notice when i was my whole

[00:55:29] life whenever there's any kind of change i flip i don't flip out but like i panic i have this feeling

[00:55:34] of panic whenever there's like a big decision to make or something's gonna change um and i get

[00:55:41] this moment of like oh like and i don't know why there's no reason even if it's just like

[00:55:46] planning a vacation there's this moment of panic like oh no we don't know what to do and

[00:55:52] it's interesting i it feels like that my grandparents getting noticed that you're

[00:55:59] gonna lose everything and you might be sent somewhere to be killed that had to have been

[00:56:05] the worst experience that you know one of the horrible experience that gets passed on

[00:56:11] my you know my parents somewhat neurotic and me maybe less hopefully less so and then i look at

[00:56:17] my kids um hopefully less so again and uh you know every culture has trauma and stress and things

[00:56:27] that we have to get over i'm not saying anything about that what we went through was worse than

[00:56:32] anyone else's but it's there i think it is i think it is worse we're still a lot of different

[00:56:38] groups of people especially here in north america depending how we want to like contextualize

[00:56:43] things but yeah it was awful it was it was terrible um and it's a weird thing to have that in in my

[00:56:52] my family story you know that it's this blip it's just two and a half three year blip

[00:56:58] but man does it have repercussions that go through we you know i walk with my kids through

[00:57:05] like the man's in our museum once in a while because it's on the way to where we go fishing

[00:57:09] and we'll sometimes stop and just take a break go to the bathroom and seeing seeing people who are not

[00:57:15] japanese who are white who are black or latino walking around and looking at this museum and some

[00:57:23] of them are tearing up you know that gets me every time we all walk around with a lump in our throat

[00:57:29] because it's like people are seeing the the experience that my family came out of and

[00:57:35] and are moved by it and um so in that sense there's healing and redemption but it's it's a

[00:57:43] it's a dark thing to come out of for sure

[00:57:49] hey everyone i'm jessica from the leaving the village podcast i wanted to take a moment

[00:57:54] to say thank you for tuning into this show we're so grateful that you've decided to spend

[00:57:59] your time with us seriously dan gale cathleen nate scott and the rest of us here at the dauntless media

[00:58:05] collective couldn't produce content like the show you're listening to without your support i'd also

[00:58:11] like to invite you even further into the conversation right now there are some great discussions

[00:58:16] happening over in the dauntless media collective discord server if you're interested in chatting

[00:58:22] with other folks who are deconstructing and decolonizing the oppressive traditions they

[00:58:26] came from please feel free to hop onto the server if you don't know what discord is it's a place where

[00:58:32] communities can gather online for chatting on a wide variety of topics in our discord server we

[00:58:38] have channels devoted to general deconstruction conversations some meme sharing therapeutic

[00:58:43] venting about whatever religious bulls*** you're currently dealing with and even a channel

[00:58:48] specifically devoted to talking about the latest episode of the podcast you're listening to

[00:58:52] right now i hope you'll join us you can log in directly to the dauntless server by clicking on the

[00:58:58] link in the show notes or heading to dauntless.fm and clicking on the link in the top banner see you

[00:59:05] there neat do you mind if i ask you a question sure i want to throw at you the question you

[00:59:12] threw at scott yeah back at ya um i'm curious for you when it comes to uh your dad if he talked

[00:59:22] about it i know he wasn't in the internment camps i know he came over after world war two

[00:59:27] but did he ever bring that up was it ever something he talked about was it something brought up

[00:59:32] no i don't think um you know like we were saying that's not something that was mentioned in

[00:59:37] japanese history um you know and he wouldn't have learned that i mean when you know it would

[00:59:44] have happened uh maybe 10 15 years before he would have um been old enough to start learning some of

[00:59:55] that um uh maybe even even longer um but even then like you know like we're saying it it's not in

[01:00:04] japanese history book my own cousin didn't didn't know that that was an event in japanese history so

[01:00:10] or sorry in american history yeah i mean japan had its own things to over yeah one or two

[01:00:16] really in terms of even like how for you i'm wondering what it's like as a japanese american who

[01:00:25] doesn't have a family history right so you're japanese well it's an american family history

[01:00:30] american family history how does that affect you knowing that this was done to the japanese

[01:00:36] in america like your country yeah i mean but also it not being your directly your family does it

[01:00:41] does it how does that feel for you or what is in terms of of when you learned about

[01:00:47] it for the first time of japanese american history how old were you did you have a

[01:00:51] conversation with your father was this a shock to you i didn't have a conversation with my dad

[01:00:56] um i i think there was like a a note in my american history book like a very brief kind of mention

[01:01:10] that this was the thing that took place um but i was so disconnected from it um it didn't really

[01:01:21] register for me i think because i knew that my family was an immigrant family so they wouldn't have

[01:01:31] they wouldn't have been there i mean actually now that i'm talking about it now that i'm saying

[01:01:34] it out loud i think there's a part of me that felt a kind of relief that like you know i

[01:01:42] and i was a kid right i must have been in like sixth or seventh grade when

[01:01:46] when i noticed that in in his in my history book and maybe even older when we were learning

[01:01:51] about world war two i think i might have been in eighth or ninth grade when we were learning

[01:01:55] about world war two in his in detailed in history class and i think i don't know i i i i think there

[01:02:01] was a a sense of relief knowing that that wouldn't have been my family because and it's more just

[01:02:09] like i i think about my you know i would think about my grandfather i think about my dad and i'm

[01:02:14] like oh okay they're they're safe you know um yeah i don't know i think that's that's sort of my my

[01:02:23] feeling and i feel a little bit i don't know a little bit guilty in a way um that i that i felt

[01:02:31] that especially now knowing you know both you scott and and other japanese american friends that

[01:02:37] i've had that i have who have all have this in their in their family history um and i think that's

[01:02:45] where there's a little bit of a disconnect for me where i'm just like yeah my japanese american

[01:02:49] friends and then i'm like oh but i don't i don't have that that family history and i don't

[01:02:57] i don't know how to relate um to you in that way other than to to say like yeah if we had

[01:03:05] been here we would have been there with you we would have we would have been ripped away from

[01:03:11] our homes we would have been tossed into uh into camp yeah and that's how i i see all japanese americans

[01:03:18] even those who came after because it would have happened you know if had you been here and on

[01:03:24] the flip side i feel this disconnect from japan that i wish i had a connection there like i went

[01:03:31] to japan for the first time in 2017 and i didn't have any relatives to visit the one relative that we

[01:03:38] have that were in touch with came to los angeles to on a sabbatical when we went to japan and like

[01:03:47] going to japan and seeing all that history of the samurai my half my family's samurai as well

[01:03:53] well and seeing all that history that i had no knowledge of previous to going there and i really

[01:04:01] it was the first time in my life i really wished i had a deeper connection to japan as someone that's

[01:04:07] you know racially 100 japanese i did the 23 and me test yeah and it says like you're you are 99

[01:04:14] point whatever percent japanese it's like boring wow like my wife's you know like a little bit

[01:04:23] of this a little bit of that all all these interesting things and yet i have culturally no and historically

[01:04:29] no connection to the the land the country the race of japan and that kind of leads me into

[01:04:36] something else too of like the the asian american identity yeah because that's something that's

[01:04:43] becoming and it's it's a it's weird sort of language i mean i know even the term asian

[01:04:47] america uh it's very much sort of a political rallying cry for a time a specific time period in

[01:04:54] american history that that then you know we sort of adopted that as our um identity but there are

[01:05:00] a lot of people who feel that that doesn't you know adequately uh encompass who they are

[01:05:07] and i and i get that and i think uh but at the same time i think there is such a rich history

[01:05:15] here like i'm trying to do what i can now to learn about asian american history um i've i've been reading

[01:05:22] the book the making of asian america by erica lee and it's fascinating to to see i mean i know there's

[01:05:29] and there's a lot of other like more pop culture style media you know there's um the that tv show

[01:05:34] warrior that's based on the writings of bruce lee that talks about the tong wars um and kind of

[01:05:39] gives a little bit of that sort of history of the tong wars in in san francisco um and all of that's

[01:05:47] very very fascinating to me now i'm sort of curious about i guess let me let me frame it with this

[01:05:54] back in 2022 here in new jersey governor murphy um signed into law this bill that that the state

[01:06:02] legislature had passed that required asian american pacific island history to be taught in k through 12

[01:06:13] public schools currently there's only seven states in the us that have um that kind of a requirement

[01:06:19] me personally i'm very optimistic about that kind of a requirement what are your thoughts on

[01:06:25] on something like that of like having to learn asian history in school and having to like expose

[01:06:30] kids who aren't even asian to that you know history of how asian america formed

[01:06:37] yeah i think they got to do it because we're we're american and americans should be reflected in the

[01:06:43] history that they they're taught and they learn that said as an educator i know i see

[01:06:49] how daunting this is because there's barely enough time to teach just the whitewash

[01:06:54] shit that's in the in the books and so right it's it's going to be a challenge i think they got to do it

[01:07:01] we should learn about black history we should learn about you know hispanic latino history

[01:07:05] in native american history it should all be there um now i don't trust the educational powers that

[01:07:14] be to do it well because they don't even do the whitewash history well um but i think they

[01:07:21] got to try you've got you know to what degree you could argue that and you know because i don't know

[01:07:27] in in arkansas do they need to learn about asian americans yeah but maybe not to the same degree as

[01:07:33] someone in like new york or los angeles where there actually are asian americans and i'm not

[01:07:37] saying there aren't there but there's not as many um right i think we all should learn about

[01:07:44] every all the communities that we can and the things that they did to get here and to

[01:07:49] stay here and to become part of the fabric of this country i think i think that's really important um

[01:07:56] so however they're gonna do it i don't have a lot of faith in it i've taught in the public schools

[01:08:02] and it's not the brightest and best who are making these decisions on curriculum and in pedagogy

[01:08:08] and how this is taught but um they gotta try they gotta try harder they because it's my my

[01:08:16] son uh my oldest son when he was in high school um he immediately opened his history book at the

[01:08:22] beginning of the year and saw that there was one paragraph on uh the interment in the incarceration

[01:08:27] camps and he immediately started this petition to to find another book that had more and he got

[01:08:35] his white friends and his his black friends and asian friends to um on board and they they

[01:08:41] had no idea what he was even talking about they were just supporting him um they didn't win but

[01:08:46] they raised the issue and they got one of the teachers to actually do some research and to

[01:08:53] to have more talked about that that reminds me a little bit of um i don't know if you

[01:08:58] ever it's it's very much like a teen teen comedy drama show on uh netflix called never have i ever

[01:09:07] um and uh it's the the main character is this south asian girl and oh yeah and it's honestly

[01:09:15] it's it's a it's a fun show to watch especially you know it's clearly it's targeting its target audience

[01:09:21] is teenagers but it it's it is just funny to to watch and like the main character is a

[01:09:29] bumbling fool but you root for her so much um and you just feel every time she makes a mistake

[01:09:35] you just feel for her anyway um one of the uh supporting cast members gets uh you know he gets

[01:09:43] a few episodes to himself here in there and there was one episode that really kind of focused on him

[01:09:48] and he was working on a school project because uh he's um birationally japanese and he in in the

[01:09:55] story he has camped his family history and he goes and he talks to his grandfather

[01:10:00] and then he brings it to his class as his class project to talk about um the conversation he had

[01:10:06] with his grandfather and what he learned and he didn't even know that this was something that

[01:10:10] existed in his family history but he wanted to talk about it and share that with his class and i

[01:10:15] thought that was pretty cool to see that's cool in in a you know in a in a tv show aimed at

[01:10:22] at teenagers um but speaking of tv shows you're a bit of a film nerd ish uh kind of

[01:10:33] a little not as i'm not as good as you are about the film tv world but yeah specific i guess i guess

[01:10:39] i have my specifics that i'm really into i'm not like good over like i would only be able to handle

[01:10:45] trivial pursuit in very specific categories um but i i want okay well i i spotted the the

[01:10:55] star trek music at your wedding immediately nice so nice so i shouted out that star track

[01:11:04] we figured with our entrance song that only the real nerds would totally pick up on that it

[01:11:09] wasn't like enough of like you had to really be into the star trek to catch her yeah to catch it

[01:11:15] so i i do want to kind of pivot though a little bit to pop culture and media since we're sort of

[01:11:19] talking about that um so there's there's a lot out there already and i'll probably put some

[01:11:26] some references in the show notes so we're not like bogging down our audience with like constant

[01:11:32] like education on uh asian representation in pop culture it's mostly sad yeah i'm curious though

[01:11:39] because it has progressed and there there is this sort of evolution over time and we're sort of at a

[01:11:46] point that there is enough representation in uh in tv and and film where we can say there's good

[01:11:58] and bad and there are mistakes and there are uh shining moments and we can point to different

[01:12:04] things um as like good bad mixed all of that stuff so yeah um do you have any any thoughts or

[01:12:11] examples that um that pop into your mind of like um where asian representation is done really well

[01:12:18] maybe some what are some of your most hated uh representations i guess first i will point out

[01:12:26] that some of the most popular stuff with asians in it are not asian american yes you know

[01:12:31] your parasite uh squid games um things like that and it's great um i think the average american

[01:12:38] just thinks we're all the same and so it's one thing to celebrate things from other countries

[01:12:44] you know from china from japan from you know k-pop um cool um but i'm more interested in

[01:12:52] asian american representation and so to your point that is getting better um we've kind of

[01:13:01] it's not a contest but you know hispanic roles are the lowest that the representation in tv and

[01:13:07] medias the lowest for hispanic it's it's it's terrible it's like three percent of main cast

[01:13:12] members um are hispanic um asians are a little higher uh a little closer to the actual um proportion

[01:13:22] of of the population but still you know it's it's never enough and it's and it's

[01:13:27] it's but to your point it's getting to the point where yeah we have things that are great

[01:13:31] and things that are okay and it's all subjective too right like i wasn't thrilled about crazy rich

[01:13:37] asians but i was glad it was successful and um we can talk offline about some of the stories

[01:13:44] behind that um some of the people involved um yeah you know seeing simu lu rise um

[01:13:53] um and and it's not a secret you know simu lu has been attached to some problematic things on the

[01:14:00] internet yeah in his past um but you know i'm not gonna badmouth him and i'm not you know i will

[01:14:07] celebrate the success because it gives representation to us um my dear friend keiko again i feel like

[01:14:14] is a trailblazer she was in gilmore girls and then she was in a show with lude iman phillips

[01:14:19] during the pandemic called prodigal son and it's just a character she just plays a person

[01:14:24] it's not like and here is the asian character and you know and this is why she's different than

[01:14:31] everyone else just you're seeing asian roles they're they're just part of the culture you know

[01:14:37] part of their communities and their their friend groups and yeah it's not like an after

[01:14:41] school special where it's you feel like they're trying to educate you on something about

[01:14:46] this culture yeah because that's kind of how it was in the 80s whenever there was like an asian

[01:14:50] it was you were gonna get a lesson from from a white perspective but a lesson on this isn't

[01:14:55] this is a chinese person and this is the food they eat they eat with sticks and um i'll

[01:15:02] insert all stereotypes yeah so yeah so you and i you did a great uh video essay about um shogun

[01:15:11] um and i think that's great because there's a couple of asian americans in that cast and

[01:15:17] people from japan yeah um i'm blanking there's there's a lot the good thing is it's kind of

[01:15:23] like my asians in baseball podcasts there's so many now that i can't keep track you know

[01:15:27] i don't even know who all the asian american actors you know are in on the scene and that's

[01:15:35] that's cool some of it's great so it's yeah yeah i'll say um as far as like some specific

[01:15:44] points where i felt like really resonated um with me were some of the uh recent kind of

[01:15:54] diaspora based stories uh one of them being past lives i think that was a more recent one and

[01:16:01] i think it was nominated and i don't know if it won if it won anything this year not that it matters

[01:16:07] yeah but it's just nice to see awards just yeah it up there listed with other other things yeah oh

[01:16:13] absolutely the past lives was was such a great such a great film um and that's very much like a

[01:16:23] an immigrant story it's Korean american but it also incorporates a little bit of Korean canadian

[01:16:31] and that sort of the struggle of somebody who has immigrated as a child and the the yearning that they

[01:16:41] have for the motherland quote-unquote but then the the sense that like is that where i belong

[01:16:49] do the do i really connect to that anymore i'm now someone very different um and am i a

[01:16:57] my trailblazer am i am i like pioneering my own identity now um you know while also sort of

[01:17:06] pining for that previous life um there's also one that i still like every time i think of it

[01:17:15] i i choke up um the farewell uh with aquafina um that one that one hits yeah i'm so bad i i i

[01:17:27] need to turn in my asian card sometimes because it's just like oh there's all these great movies out there

[01:17:32] i haven't seen go go get your asian card renewed uh by you know watch past lives and um the farewell

[01:17:39] for sure okay yeah can i say any of mine yeah yeah should i be quick i love manati manati i hope

[01:17:47] i'm not butchering oh yeah manati that one was uh choked me up and also was funny and beautiful

[01:17:56] and just yeah the grandmother that's all i gotta say about that one is just a grandmother it was

[01:18:03] yeah beautiful story did you see that one scott i i've seen parts of it um so so too many i know

[01:18:12] too much about like the behind the scenes sometimes and so too connected to the la scene out there in

[01:18:18] the actors yeah but you know i i i didn't hear anything negative about manati and

[01:18:25] steven youn is a supposed supposedly a very decent dude it's very christian too so i think i'm

[01:18:33] just you know spoiler alert if you care about like super like super minute

[01:18:37] detailed spoilers this is not going to spoil anything in the story per se but

[01:18:41] so the the the korean family they you know they're living in the south and uh the south of the us

[01:18:48] and they go to this church um and they meet like the white people at the church and the kid

[01:18:56] he's trying to make friends with the other kids at this church and the first thing out of the

[01:19:01] white kid's mouth is why is your face flat oh shit and i remember like i had this moment where

[01:19:09] i was like that was my nickname when i was little i remember they the kids called me flat face

[01:19:17] i had this very like intense emotional reaction to that moment on screen like oh oh that hits hard

[01:19:23] i want to sack him for you just like like bop that little kid in the nose like the the five

[01:19:28] year old nate was just like wanting to you know just suck your butt the kid i mean and that

[01:19:32] was relatable to your name coming being that you grew up among white people as an asian

[01:19:38] american like he didn't you didn't have a lot of amazing asian american friends in your class or

[01:19:42] or share that experience yeah um did y'all watch beef i couldn't watch it like i'm glad it's there

[01:19:49] and i watched the first episode i'm like i'm out i don't like either of these people they're just

[01:19:55] horrible human beings and like i get the appeals like it's like fuck your asian

[01:20:01] stereotypes in your model minority myth i didn't even it's too far man it's like

[01:20:06] do you have to make these the two worst human beings on the planet to to to like it it's just

[01:20:11] like for me and a lot of about half my friends were on my side and the other half just loved it

[01:20:16] and so i'm not going to yuck their yum like cool yeah you liked it it wasn't for me i couldn't

[01:20:21] it was like nails on the chalkboard for me but i put to your earlier point it's cool that

[01:20:26] there's stuff out it doesn't mean we will never get something made again if if something's

[01:20:30] not great but that one you know by and large everyone loved it so i mean i heard so many

[01:20:34] good things about it i didn't even bother with it because i did hear a lot of the behind the scene

[01:20:38] stuff and when i saw that that sort of that turned me off um there was i was like i don't know what i

[01:20:44] want to uh the actor that was brought in simply because he had a friendship and then there was

[01:20:51] that stuff from that podcast he was i don't even remember all the details but it just david

[01:20:55] david yeah it's just that bad bad human that is a bad person that all that all of that

[01:21:01] stuff left a bad taste in my mouth i'm like yeah maybe i'll steer clear of it yeah i have more stories

[01:21:07] about him often okay um you know you mentioned yeah breaking the the myth of the model model my own

[01:21:14] minority um if i want to see that i'll go and rewatch harold and kumar because hell yeah

[01:21:23] that's i saw the trailer when it first came out and i cried i was like yeah oh my god this

[01:21:30] is the move this is the sort of raunchy comedy that we've never had before exactly yeah i what's

[01:21:38] interesting is like when i when i first saw it i didn't even really embrace any of my

[01:21:45] asian identity at that point i hadn't even like started to consider my you know who i am ethnically

[01:21:54] there was still i still felt this draw to that movie but there was a part of me that didn't want to

[01:22:02] watch it because i could hear my friends and not that anybody said anything to me but from growing

[01:22:10] up and hearing all of the language from them over the many years that i've lived you know amongst

[01:22:16] white people uh i could hear my friend saying well of course nat you have to watch this movie

[01:22:22] it's your people and i didn't want i didn't want to to hear any of that um so i pretended

[01:22:31] like that movie didn't exist until like it had been on dvd for a long time and i went and rented it

[01:22:36] and watched it and laughed my ass off but when you saw it you didn't have that feeling right

[01:22:41] because we'd never been portrayed that way right you know the romantic lead the the funny

[01:22:48] raunchy humor you know all that's we had never been portrayed that way we're always over the

[01:22:54] overachiever the the nerd yeah the or the complete bumbling fob idiot you know funny yeah falling

[01:23:01] down long duck dong right right we'd never we'd never seen ourselves as like the lead a little

[01:23:09] bit of a deadbeat a little bit of a moron but the lead still don't have the lead character

[01:23:15] stoner the you know it just yeah and and both for east asians and south asians see exactly

[01:23:23] yeah to see us because there used to be the rule of one you could have one asian on the cast but

[01:23:27] you can't have two yeah or and that was just like blue past everything yeah by so far i think and i'm

[01:23:35] embarrassed to say i i loved long duck dong in 16 candles yeah because it was like at least he

[01:23:43] looked like me and he was on a major major move we was just like well just taking the crumbs off the

[01:23:49] table and be like that's all we had but that wasn't even crumbs that was like yeah you know the girl

[01:23:55] i i consoled myself in that that's true yeah question for you nate based on some a comment

[01:24:02] that you just made about you know how you had not even um at that point embraced your asian

[01:24:08] american identity i did want to ask that question because you brought it up wanted to ask it to

[01:24:12] both of you want to interject to just take a moment to be like at what point in your life

[01:24:18] did you do the i'm a me i'm asian american and i want to embrace that piece of my identity i

[01:24:23] acknowledge it i i want to learn i want to embrace that piece of who i am both of you i'd

[01:24:29] love to hear your here when when did that happen that's a two-parter for me because i was an

[01:24:36] inner varsity christian fellowship in college in the early 90s late 80s early 90s when the first

[01:24:42] wave of like diversity was hitting even in some sections of evangelical christianity so that was

[01:24:50] where i was told it's it's good and important that you're japanese american you should explore that

[01:24:55] but it was in the context of evangelical christianity so it was kind of like half-assed

[01:25:02] it wasn't until elaborate elaborate please for for people because we have lots of people

[01:25:07] that listen that are coming out of that kind of a background and maybe are not aware of all

[01:25:10] the pitfalls or starting to come to terms with it i was lucky it was mostly good other chapters of

[01:25:15] inner varsity were not as good about it we had a lot of asian folks in at uc san diego so it was

[01:25:22] good in that it was it did force me to find like pride in in my being japanese american and

[01:25:33] but it was always in the context of well but that's secondary to

[01:25:37] your salvation and your identity as a christian and there was still this sort of underlying white

[01:25:43] supremacy thing you know it was i was diversity it wasn't like i was learning this so i could you

[01:25:50] know be centered it was more like celebrated as one of a myriad of identities all worshiping

[01:25:58] jesus in heaven because that was the idea it was like you know heaven minded in

[01:26:02] in the descriptions of very few that we have in the bible of you know like people of all nations

[01:26:07] praising god forever it sounds like a terrible um revival meeting that just goes on forever

[01:26:16] so like i said in that sense part two forever asbury

[01:26:22] that doesn't sound like fun and yeah and it and it didn't and i was lucky we did get into

[01:26:32] things like racism and systemic racism so it introduced me to it but like i said it was

[01:26:36] kind of half-assed it was like let's not dwell on this you know this you know christ

[01:26:42] jesus has redeemed us all and blah blah blah so it wasn't until later where it was just like

[01:26:46] stripping away the christianity and just diving into like nate brought up the idea of asian american

[01:26:52] earlier it's like it's a it's problematic it doesn't describe anything specific but it's what we have

[01:26:59] as a political force in this country and it's our only way to have a voice at the table in politics

[01:27:05] and in systems of capitalism um and so having that without the the shackles of evangelical christianity

[01:27:17] happened when i was closer to like in my early 30s so um and that's how i became the sort of bitter

[01:27:24] angry cynical person than i am today that has so much fun to be around that's not true i mean

[01:27:30] the cynical but not fun to be around person is not true at all but um i do i think i do want to

[01:27:37] say your book is a great i know i've read your book or i've actually heard you narrate it which is

[01:27:42] even cooler for people like audiobooks you have that version available as well but you definitely

[01:27:47] do tell the story of your uh so i do sort of know some of the answer to this of your

[01:27:53] learning about your own heritage and embracing it in the community you've been a part of out

[01:27:57] there and um how that's been an important part of here if the listeners want to hear more

[01:28:01] yes that's what i'm trying to do you gotta go check out uh Scott's book this book

[01:28:05] Asian-American apostate it made deconstructing very easy because i had this other community

[01:28:12] that had so much more love and and support than i ever had in the church yeah i unfortunately didn't

[01:28:20] have any of that um the at bob jones they didn't teach you to be proud to be asian-american

[01:28:28] oh gosh listen to Nate's episode yeah unchoppeled probation yeah apparently even the asians the

[01:28:35] asians at bob jones he had a lot of koreans i think uh that came in from korea where like

[01:28:41] had to be careful about speaking korean yeah there were rules for the bob jones academy students

[01:28:46] who were living on campus they were not allowed to speak korean um you know there were limits on

[01:28:52] yeah right no it's because they're in exchange and they want to make sure they learn english

[01:28:57] properly yeah well omit the language that jesus spoke what your dorm rooms are named after at

[01:29:02] bob jones university we'll just leave out you know the history and that yeah yeah learn american

[01:29:07] like jesus exactly um yeah i think for me it really like scott there were two parts to it but um

[01:29:17] there was the part where i realized that i had been actively fighting my asian identity

[01:29:28] and it was like i my family was privileged enough to be able to go to japan um quite a few

[01:29:34] times over the course of my life um like every few years we would go back my grandfather would

[01:29:40] you know try to get family reunions when i was uh when i was a kid he passed away when i was in late

[01:29:45] elementary school but we would still go back like um our our family just made it a point to get

[01:29:50] together uh every grandma was still there and she was still alive yeah and every few years we would

[01:29:55] go we would go back to japan but i always remember as a as a kid every time i went to japan

[01:30:01] just feeling the need to assert my american identity yeah every time i went you know um whether it was

[01:30:11] through the clothes that i wore um you know like i just i would always wear i would always bring

[01:30:18] my new york Yankees like yeah ball cap or t-shirt or something oh sorry asians in baseball

[01:30:25] just as a way to like you know assert this is where i'm from you know but then of course

[01:30:32] there were other people around there who just had yankees apparel because Hideki Matsui was playing

[01:30:37] and like hey Matsui um but yeah i i felt i always felt like america was superior i mean i wouldn't

[01:30:44] have put it in in so many words but there was that was the thought that was running through my mind

[01:30:49] um at a subconscious level and i i remember one of the last times that i was one of the

[01:31:00] more recent times that i was in japan it coincided with my dissatisfaction with church with

[01:31:09] frustrations i was having as a volunteer i was attending hill song at the time

[01:31:13] and just a lot of the frustrations i was having there and my growing interest in interfaith conversation

[01:31:22] and growing interest in conversations from from like outside of christianity embracing ideas or

[01:31:29] learning about ideas coming from buddhism and um uh other other faith practices and so

[01:31:37] well that time i was in japan i looked at everything through a different lens and rather than looking

[01:31:43] at the statues of the buddha and the statues of the kami with this sense of fear about which

[01:31:50] was your fundamentalist sort of outlook on a lot of that probably going to this you know as a

[01:31:55] christian i had this fear of like the kami in in japan as demonic spirits demonic influences

[01:32:03] and that last time well not last time but one of the one of the more recent times that i went

[01:32:09] i walked around in those temples and i i observed and i watched people expressing a different

[01:32:16] kind of belief system a different kind of faith practice um and they might not even call it faith

[01:32:23] it's just this is our tradition this is how we uh view the world how we exist in in nature

[01:32:29] and in society and so on and i went home and i bought a book about shinto and i read through it

[01:32:36] and i just started to really try to embrace that side of myself and that was sort of that

[01:32:43] discovery of what it meant to be ethnically japanese the part about being asian-american

[01:32:51] that awakening came about in the pandemic and that awakening came about as the just

[01:32:58] the anger towards you know like that and that's when i discovered the connection that i had to

[01:33:03] korean-americans to chinese-americans to we all we were because we were all looked at the same way

[01:33:09] it didn't matter that no people weren't going to look at me and and think and ask oh are you

[01:33:15] chinese-american no to me to them i was one of the ones that brought the brought covid here so

[01:33:22] like when i made that sort of discovery that's when i started diving into the history of

[01:33:29] asian-america that's when i went and read about vincent chin which ironically enough is a similar

[01:33:34] sort of story right vincent chin was killed because those guys thought he was japanese and

[01:33:39] they targeted him because they were out of a job because of the japanese auto industry

[01:33:43] taking over and putting a lot of the american auto workers out of jobs so and they were not

[01:33:49] convicted right and if you're listening to this episode you should go back and check out the

[01:33:52] episode that you guys did on uh on yeah well this time last year asian-americans i think that's

[01:33:59] the title of it that you guys are both in uh on our podcast and one of the talked about

[01:34:03] one of the first episodes of full mutuality that i ever listened to was going over your

[01:34:09] asian-american identity during the pandemic it was very moving and that was very early on

[01:34:13] that was when i was starting to sort my thoughts on on all of this and when i was starting

[01:34:17] to come to some realizations about who i am because i think i was also wrestling with the

[01:34:22] fact that i'm not i'm i'm ethnically japanese i'm not culturally japanese so i i don't i don't

[01:34:29] understand that culture i don't live and breathe in that culture but there is something that i am

[01:34:34] a part of and i was discovering it unfortunately through circumstances that were very painful and

[01:34:41] and difficult to see unfold in front of me but it was something that that like opened my eyes to a

[01:34:48] community that i was a part of here um you know and i went to uh uh my brother and i went to a

[01:34:55] stop asian hate rally um in minhatten and uh that was it was it was powerful you know

[01:35:02] i remember during the pandemic how much you were um when you were here when you we were

[01:35:07] living together for during the pandemic and we were sort of locked down for a bit too cooking cooking

[01:35:13] so many asian dishes and like just cooking for my kids and they were exploring you know the stuff

[01:35:19] that you were making for the first time and coming up with their own favorite like having

[01:35:23] their own favorite dishes that you make that are asian and uh i remember that like being

[01:35:28] something really important at the time for you like i just remember a whole side of you just coming

[01:35:33] out where that just had a different meaning to you yeah uh yeah it was it was an interesting time

[01:35:43] but yeah i would say that's that was probably like where where that awakening came about and

[01:35:47] since then it's just been more like when i educate myself you know as much as possible

[01:35:52] you know reading like voraciously reading about the the vincent chin incident and

[01:35:58] and the aftermath voraciously reading about uh yuri kuchiyama and her friendship with melcomax um

[01:36:05] and this is like that doesn't get talked about enough no no it really doesn't um like you're i

[01:36:11] read about yuri kuchiyama and i'm like oh she's she would be like if she were my oba chan

[01:36:16] imagine the kind of person i would be you know oba chan being grandma i know that yeah um

[01:36:23] but anyway so we've been going for a while i want to have a little bit of fun with you

[01:36:29] so uh oh before we do before we do that i do want to mention to our listeners that

[01:36:34] scott you have a sub stack and there is a piece that you wrote in your sub stack that moved me to

[01:36:40] tears and it was um your reflection on open hymer yeah not the not the film itself but like

[01:36:48] the the the kind of excitement around and the hype around oppenheimer because same moved to tears

[01:36:56] listening to that oh yeah that's right you recorded it as well um oh yeah in one of my episodes yeah

[01:37:02] yeah yeah i listen to that on your from your podcast and yeah i think everyone needs to go check

[01:37:07] that out go listen to that it's moving it's powerful if if people are still listening to this i know

[01:37:13] if you're still listening at this point here's one more way to feel bad no it's important

[01:37:18] the movie buff and you saw that movie go listen to like you know like you were saying you know

[01:37:23] i don't want to yuck your yum if if you enjoyed oppenheimer if you're like a big christ venolan

[01:37:29] fan fine you know i i think i wrote about it as well uh you know shared shared some of my own

[01:37:35] thoughts and like there there are reasons that i'm i've steered clear of that movie and probably

[01:37:43] will never watch it um yeah i didn't watch it yeah and that's not a surprise i don't watch

[01:37:48] that many movies um but but i think you you shared it so so powerfully how you felt about

[01:37:58] about that movie and about the lessons that we can learn from the sort of furor around that movie

[01:38:05] but yeah it was just about asian erasure it's just that if if you're gonna make a movie about

[01:38:11] the guy who who directly affected all japan in that way by inventing this bomb that gets tested

[01:38:21] at the end of the war did they need to probably not but it was just like this big moment in history

[01:38:27] and you're not going to even like show the humanity of the people that affected you know

[01:38:32] that that was the problem i had it was just like and and people are saying oh it was such a good

[01:38:37] performance and new but in the end you're celebrating him right you're lionizing him yeah as this

[01:38:44] historical figure who played by an a-list actor who you know who will be your sympathetic to him

[01:38:51] oh it must have been so hard for him to to invent this and have that on his conscience oh poor guy

[01:38:58] you know wow that's that's deep it's like sure and also the hundreds of thousand people who who

[01:39:05] died because of the bomb you know like but there is none of that there's there's it's just it's not even

[01:39:11] an afterthought really i think i think that was something so someone had brought up to me like

[01:39:15] well that wasn't the story they were telling i'm like right then why tell it if you're not

[01:39:21] if if you have this massive moment in world global history you want to tell this that

[01:39:28] that story why why leave out why leave out the japanese why not even bring them in like

[01:39:37] that's not the story that you're telling yeah but that's a decision that you're making

[01:39:43] to right to ignore that side of the story yeah so yeah that's anyway go go check out

[01:39:51] go check out scott's um either if you want to listen to it as a podcast episode or if you

[01:39:55] want to read it um he's got it on the sub stack um and well i'll i'll i'll look link to both um but

[01:40:02] anyway i do want to kind of pivot to some fun stuff okay to give you a chance to plug your other work

[01:40:08] so you are one of the hosts of the asians in baseball podcast um which you have been on

[01:40:15] i have been on uh and so i don't want to steal your thunder i'm way way behind on on the show

[01:40:20] so i hope to catch up at some point but like i said i don't want to steal your thunder so i

[01:40:24] don't know if you guys have talked about this yet on your show but you had mentioned manzanar

[01:40:29] which is uh probably one of the the most well known japanese american concentration camps um

[01:40:36] but there's a project that uh someone named dan kwang is organizing yeah i know dan oh okay cool

[01:40:44] so um so then you're aware of the of the project then yeah we're gonna there's another

[01:40:51] podcaster quincy sirrismith who has a podcast called asian americana and he and i are gonna team up to

[01:40:57] do something around this event so they're restoring the baseball field and i've i've been there many

[01:41:03] times i've i've run the bases and i have pictures of me posing on the mound and oh nice pretending

[01:41:09] to hit um it's just a dirt lot that you can kind of see used to be a ball field um so what

[01:41:15] they've for the last couple years they've been restoring the baseball field to be an actual

[01:41:20] field you could play on because the dirt is real loose it's like a sand lot right now

[01:41:25] or it was it and uh they're gonna have a game um next month in may it maybe it's already happened

[01:41:34] when you're listening to this but it's kind of a sentimental thing because despite all the

[01:41:39] atrocities of about camp the japanese americans made the best of it you know they started

[01:41:45] growing their own crops and they had boy scouts and they had school and they had hospitals and

[01:41:49] they had a post office they had they tried to create all of the trappings of normal quote unquote

[01:41:56] life inside these camps and one of those was baseball they had baseball teams and they had

[01:42:01] football teams and they had basketball teams and in manzanar it's next to a series of towns

[01:42:06] that lead up to mammoth and they would play against these these other teams these white

[01:42:12] teams they would get bused in or they would bust them out to to play um so baseball was a

[01:42:18] big part of the culture of pretty much all the camps as long as the weather permitted

[01:42:24] and there've been already there've been movies made um about this and books written stories

[01:42:28] written about the the culture of baseball in in the incarceration camps so yeah it's gonna be cool

[01:42:35] I I um I'll probably get a little weepy when watching them play baseball that's really exciting

[01:42:42] on this field so uh if you aren't if you are interested um go check out asians and baseball

[01:42:50] co-hosted by scott and uh kim and neomy yeah it's a fun podcast um it could also be subtitled

[01:43:00] the shohai otani fans yeah um it's it's calmed down because neomy was was gonna marry him

[01:43:07] and then turned out he was already married so that's kind of taken some of the thunder

[01:43:11] and the will there won't they aspect of the podcast is kind of killed um

[01:43:18] and he's not pitching this year he's rehabbing his arm um but it's great it's and it's kind

[01:43:24] of like along the themes of what we've been talking about there's so many asian and asian

[01:43:27] american players now we've clocked 46 oh wow a lot of them are hoppa so they have you know

[01:43:33] not asian last names but um in addition to the famous players from japan and and korea

[01:43:40] you have a whole host of asian americans who are kicking ass and doing great and so

[01:43:46] it's uh it's and we talk about race and identity and and just life and we make one of the Yankees

[01:43:53] a lot which i need to bring you on so you can defend yourself as part of the reason why i haven't

[01:43:57] tuned in in a while i'm like oh there's just so much yankee hate i'm just like

[01:44:00] yeah yeah no we talk shit about the yankees in every episode it's it's true so we need we need some

[01:44:06] east coast representation yeah i'll come back in um and and do what i can to defend yeah the team

[01:44:12] that i grew up with and i'll say this the dodgers suck right now as of this recording

[01:44:18] april 23rd it's april 23rd as we're recording this yeah like they suck that how can you

[01:44:25] how can you make any judgment call but they're not playing great you can't make a judgment call

[01:44:32] on on a baseball team in april no you can't because they and i'll tell you why because they

[01:44:38] spent a billion dollars that's fair to sort this this lineup and the the royals have a better

[01:44:46] the pirates are better than the dodgers right now

[01:44:52] so um they'll be fine but yeah it's really hilarious i mean i'm a baseball fan i'm a dodger fan but

[01:44:58] like you know i have much mad respect for the yankees in the history you know i i know all of the

[01:45:05] story players so it's it's off he's a baseball guy Nate i think we need to move

[01:45:11] back into we need to have questions for scott that i do here i go yeah i know like i know your

[01:45:16] baseball focus but you know we got to broaden your you know yeah you know yeah yeah so this puck

[01:45:24] sport so i want to i i know you don't have much knowledge i'm not expecting you know a very high

[01:45:30] score i'm setting my expectations and i didn't see you saw me the questions and i didn't look

[01:45:35] anything cool you didn't go looking at okay so these are these are um hockey and um i'll give you one

[01:45:43] because i because i'm a huge english premier league so there's a soccer one in here uh or you know

[01:45:49] global football football so we'll ask the hockey ones first um so the first question who was the

[01:45:57] first japanese player drafted by an nhl team and this is a little bit of a trick question because

[01:46:03] there are two possible correct answers for this is paul korea one of them no this uh this player

[01:46:10] predates paul korea by a little bit i don't know the answer to this yeah i don't know okay that was

[01:46:16] my only so the guy's name is um hirayuki mura he was drafted in 1992 in the 11th round 260th overall

[01:46:26] by the montreal canadians um the other possibly correct answer would have been

[01:46:34] taro tsujimoto in 1974 he was drafted in the 11th round 183rd overall by the buffalo sabers however

[01:46:45] he doesn't really exist um he was drafted as a joke because the sabers gm wanted to

[01:46:51] point out the absurdity of how long the nhl draft was yeah um so he was like i'm just gonna like he

[01:46:59] got one of his uh front office people to make up a name and the guy uh don't remember the whole

[01:47:07] story but i think he had like a favorite japanese restaurant and so he named this guy after his

[01:47:11] favorite japanese restaurant or something like that and gave him this whole backstory about how

[01:47:17] he used to play for the tokyo katanas or something made up a japanese hockey name uh team name okay but

[01:47:25] i gotta give credit for that they actually used a real japanese name that could actually yes exist

[01:47:31] it wasn't one of those just like gibberish sounding right that people make up so yeah um ironically

[01:47:37] enough two picks later on uh dav lumley who was drafted 199th overall by montreal

[01:47:44] and stefan person who was drafted 214th overall by the new york islanders were both instrumental

[01:47:51] in winning the standley cup multiple times for each of their respective teams so

[01:47:58] the sabers kind of missed out just to make a point yep just to make a point um okay next

[01:48:06] question how many current nhl players are there of japanese descent i'll give you some

[01:48:11] bonus points for each one that you can name and like half bonus points or if you can name a team

[01:48:16] that has a player of japanese descent do i'm gonna guess four wow you got it there are four there are

[01:48:25] only four in the whole nhl there are four players of japanese so i know a quarter of all the japanese

[01:48:32] players is what you're saying to me i could name a quarter of all the japanese players in the nhl

[01:48:36] well you used to have the jerseys behind you when when you oh well i had one of the players yeah but

[01:48:42] but now i move to tomayasu oh that that's that's not a hockey player i was a soccer player that

[01:48:48] soccer yeah so you said now you've got an answer to a later question but um suzuki oh you got it

[01:48:56] that's only what i know suzuki nicks suzuki i was literally just guessing a japanese name

[01:49:05] related to he is actually related to david suzuki who is a really famous canadian japanese canadian

[01:49:12] who environmentalist right i remember that story but i honestly didn't remember that it was suzuki

[01:49:19] okay yeah so nicks suzuki is the captain currently of the montreal canadians which

[01:49:25] i absolutely love you know they're the team that i that i follow in root there are team yeah

[01:49:29] and it's so so much fun that the captain of our team cool well what's fun is to like obviously when

[01:49:35] suzuki hit the hit the ground running he was doing great from the get go when he when he got signed

[01:49:40] on to the canaians and you are a fan of his and of course being japanese american but he was not

[01:49:44] yet the captain when you bought your suzuki jersey when you oh yeah he was not yet made

[01:49:49] the captain of the team at that point so it's kind of been fun to watch not only his run to like

[01:49:56] he they made it to the finals with suzuki which is incredible because like n hl has 30 something

[01:50:01] teams and so to make it to the finals is kind of a big deal it's kind of a rare thing so especially

[01:50:06] for a team that was not doing that well going oh they were having a really crap season they were

[01:50:10] the wild card team they made it yeah that they made it all the way but suzuki was was he the

[01:50:15] captain the year that they made there no he wasn't he wasn't was the year after yeah he was

[01:50:19] named captain the year after that yeah so he's japanese canadian he is he's japanese canadian

[01:50:24] yeah so yeah very cool you got that there are four i'll just go ahead and give you the names because

[01:50:29] i just guessed i told you i didn't cheat and i did it i'm literally just throwing well done you saw

[01:50:34] it on nate's jersey when we entered at our wedding at reception with our habs jerseys so i'll i'll

[01:50:42] give you the other uh the other three players so um kyler yamamoto who is japanese american plays

[01:50:48] for the seattle kraken um keifer sure would who is japanese american plays for the nash national

[01:50:55] presiders and his brother cole sure would uh who's currently a free agent but most recently was

[01:51:01] signed with the columbus blue jackets so there are um there's a brand new league um women's hockey

[01:51:11] league and there are so it's a little bit harder to get stats on asian or like to get

[01:51:18] histories on asian americans because um these players don't have like full entries on like

[01:51:25] you know sports websites so i had a harder time finding you know japanese american and japanese

[01:51:31] or well asian american and asian canadian um players and getting any sort of definitive

[01:51:38] information on that um but what i did find is that there are two players in the pwhl

[01:51:46] that represent asian countries the pwhl being the professional women's hockey league um

[01:51:54] can you name the two countries and you literally could just take a shot in the dark and you'll

[01:51:59] probably get them both right i'm gonna guess they're east asian so japan yep that's one of them

[01:52:06] korea not korea i'll let you taiwan not taiwan china china so japan and china and the two players

[01:52:18] are lia lum who plays for pwhl montreal she was actually born in british columbia and played

[01:52:27] hockey at yukon but declares for the chinese national team and then the other player is akane

[01:52:34] shiga okay um who plays for otawa was born in hokkaido previously played for the obihiro ladies club

[01:52:42] and currently plays for the japanese national team so there's hockey in japan there is hockey in japan

[01:52:49] is there there's a hockey in korea uh there is hockey in korea yeah the um japan is especially

[01:52:56] on the women's side they're actually i wouldn't say excelling but they're probably the best in

[01:53:01] east asia um cool yeah yeah um they cannot compete against the us or canada but they can hold their

[01:53:13] own pretty well against um switzerland and sweden oh okay some of those other teams yeah yeah

[01:53:22] okay and then i will pivot to english premier league soccer or football just going into all

[01:53:30] your favorite sports yeah basically you got your baseball podcast with all the stuff you know

[01:53:34] baseball now i'm gonna take you out of your sport well you're on our podcast now i'm growing i'm

[01:53:39] taking you out of your zone and it's fine it's good get to finish off with your english premier

[01:53:48] league we'll wrap it up with the with english premier league um how many current japanese

[01:53:52] footballers play in the english premier league i know one i know one i'm a guest there's more than

[01:54:01] there would be in hockey so because because football is huge in japan it is japan only or asian just

[01:54:08] japan right just japan i mean it's okay yeah they're not that great so uh i'm gonna say two no

[01:54:15] there are i'll i'll give you a hint it's the same same number as nhl players oh it's four it's

[01:54:20] four yeah so specifically i mean there's a little bit of like background here as well because

[01:54:24] specifically the english premier league there are four um japanese players but in european football

[01:54:30] in general there are more players i just don't know them off the top of my head because they don't

[01:54:33] pay as much attention to the other leagues most of the japanese players um who are playing in europe

[01:54:39] play in uh in the the german bundesliga but yeah i was asking you where do the job

[01:54:45] japanese players tend to gravitate more towards i was like is it is it mostly the premier league in

[01:54:50] in england and you're like no it was germany yeah they're style axis connection

[01:54:57] i read that as i was reading up when i was reading on the interming camps i read that the

[01:55:02] italians were also putting them as well um i did not know that in canada at least so a few

[01:55:08] not like in mass right no not at the same level absolutely not yeah so interestingly enough

[01:55:15] japan um is the has the highest coefficient rank in asia among fifa countries um and they

[01:55:26] they are most likely if you look at like the the the statistics and everything out of the asian

[01:55:33] teams they are the ones most likely to next win the world cup um if you know if they could

[01:55:40] you know ever get to that point they made it pretty far at the last world cup um and they are

[01:55:47] you know the when it comes to asia they are the country to beat um and then i'll just quickly

[01:55:52] name the the players so um what do i do yeah uh so takahiro tomiyasu plays for arsenal

[01:56:01] um wataru ando plays for liverpool daiki hashioka plays for lutein town and kaoru

[01:56:08] mitoma plays for brighton so there you go there's all there's all the little japanese sports trivia

[01:56:17] we've got some points in there you had some names scott it's not swirling around up there

[01:56:22] it happens i'll i'll clip this segment and and send it to your co-hosts and be like hey

[01:56:27] check it out your uh your other co-host knows something about now and my co-host kim she's our

[01:56:33] she's our racial profiler she literally goes through every picture of every baseball player to see if

[01:56:37] there's some asianness in the face so if you want her to go through the the women's hockey league

[01:56:44] she's she's really good at this sniffing out the asians maybe i'll do that positive racial

[01:56:49] profiling so when are you getting asians and hockey going Nate when is that happening

[01:56:55] hey there aren't enough and i can't seem to find somebody who wants to solely four of them

[01:56:59] well no they're all they're only for current nhlers but there is a lot of history like you know

[01:57:06] scott mentioned paul korea um you know matt and and those are only the the players of japanese

[01:57:12] descent yeah i didn't even go into the players of asian descent in general right yeah um because

[01:57:18] there are still there are still quite a few more um but yeah anyway i think we've rambled on on this

[01:57:27] long enough we gotta go off after two hours i know right to all this you should get a prize these

[01:57:32] are you get you get your ally points yeah yeah i totally up as ally if you're not asian you get

[01:57:37] ally points you know what we'll do is uh we'll put a secret code here um like a word and if you

[01:57:43] text us a word we'll send you a free copy of scott's book uh if you if you message it to us if you

[01:57:49] send you send an email to nat at full mutuality dot com with the word what's what's the secret we're

[01:57:56] gonna be oppenheimer if you send a message to nat at full mutuality dot com and mention oppenheimer

[01:58:11] uh you need to be educated you're gonna get a copy of scott's book i'll have a i'll have scott send

[01:58:17] you a copy of his book cool all right scott thank you so much for for doing this with us this was

[01:58:25] this was a lot of fun no i love you guys it's it's always great hanging talking yeah sharing life

[01:58:30] all right now let's talk about the juicy stuff thanks for listening to another episode of the

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