The Japanese American Story…Part 15

Part 15 — A Japanese American’s Perspective

This article was written and printed in a memorial booklet for a Japanese group in Washington, D.C. They are mostly Japanese Nationals and wanted to include an article from an American of Japanese descent. They asked for information about my life and experiences. It was originally printed in June 2008.

Having never previously lived on the East Coast, the prospect of moving to Washington, DC in the year 2005 seemed a somewhat exciting adventure. Although I was at an age when many of my friends who were my contemporaries were retiring, and I had actually been semi-retired myself while I was an International Business consultant in Utah for a number of years, I was anxious to start a new adventure.

I accepted the position of director of public policy when an opening came up for the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) in the Washington, DC office. I had some experience with public policy while working in government and had many years of volunteer leadership roles on the local and national levels within the JACL. Founded in 1929, the JACL is the nation’s oldest and largest Asian American civil and human rights organization.

Leaving family and friends behind, my wife and I pulled up stakes in Utah, where I was born and raised, and moved across the country to work in Washington, DC and live in Virginia. The job for the JACL was busy, demanding, and stimulating. I found that Washington, DC was a great place to work and live.

Although I had anticipated staying for only two years when I began working for the JACL (a job, which at the time was not considered a full-time position for me, although the actual work was more than full time), unforeseen circumstances brought about an opportunity to continue to work for the JACL as the national executive director/CEO when John Tateishi, who held the position previously suddenly became ill while at the office around the end of 2006. John had already given notice of his impending resignation and had agreed to keep working until a replacement was found.

After serving as the interim national executive director, I then took over the regular position with the understanding and stipulation that I would be able to remain with an office in Washington, DC where I feel most of the action takes place for nonprofit organizations such as the JACL. It is important for the JACL to maintain an active presence in the nation’s capital.

Although the JACL has had a Washington, DC representative for many years, Mike Masaoka, an early leader in the JACL, advocated some fifty years ago that the JACL headquarters should be in Washington, DC with the national executive director housed there. The coalition-building aspects and visibility in the nation’s capital of having the executive head of the JACL there seem especially beneficial for the JACL although the National JACL headquarters building is located in San Francisco with some staff there.

I anticipated living in the Washington, DC area for another few years while serving in the position of the JACL’s national executive director.

Many years earlier, not long before the start of World War II, my life began on a small farm just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, in what was then a rural area. I was born on Memorial Day when May 30 was a national holiday. Although I had been told by my mother that the rain was leaking through the roof on her as she gave birth, my older brother told me many years later that the weather was sunny that day, and my siblings were upset at the time of my birth because it meant they had to miss the annual Memorial Day picnic held by the Japanese community. My mother may have gotten my birth mixed up in her memory with my younger brother Steve who was born in May four years later.

My parents were immigrants from Kagoshima, Japan, and I was the seventh of eight children. My father had settled in Utah early on and farmed with the help of all his children. Because my family lived in an inland state at the outbreak of World War II, we were not forcibly removed from our home as were those of Japanese ancestry, who had been living on the West Coast of the United States, and were incarcerated in the American concentration camps during the war.

I do recall that relatives from California came to our home, having “voluntarily evacuated” in order to avoid being locked up in the camps. Being a small boy during the period of the war, I remember hearing people talk about “camp” although I did not understand much about what it actually entailed.

My entire childhood was spent in Utah, but I did experience discrimination and prejudice as did my Japanese American counterparts in other areas of the country. There were some kind neighbors, but there were occasions when people were unkind and hateful toward me and others of Japanese ancestry.

I grew up in a white community among people who predominantly belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I joined the Church myself when I was an older child, not yet a teenager. Most of my family eventually joined the Church as well.

The discrimination against me and my family came mostly and understandably from people who did not know us personally.

Some of my brothers and sisters were considerably older than me. My oldest brother, Shigeru, was a college student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City when the war broke out. He was an excellent student and hoped to attend Harvard University at some later time. He joined the United States Army when I was still a young child not yet in school. He was trained in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) of the United States Army. His unit served in the Pacific as translators and interpreters. At the war’s end, my brother was in Japan for the occupation to help Japan recover from the effects of the war.

He wrote a letter to our family while he was stationed in Kobe, Japan, to announce that he would be going to Harvard after his tour in the army was completed, which he expected to be soon. He indicated that he had made the necessary arrangements. However, he never had the chance to return to college as he did not come back alive from the service. He was traveling as a passenger in a US Army plane in Japan when it crashed, and he was killed. I remember when the unfortunate news arrived at our home. It was a horrifying and devastating day for all of us, especially my mother.

Although almost all of my associates and friends from school and church were white, I had some interaction with other people who were of Japanese descent occasionally as my family participated in the picnics and activities held by Japanese people in the community. Since my older brothers and sisters were involved with the JACL, I was able to attend local JACL social and athletic events with them from childhood. This gave me some associations with other Japanese Americans as I grew up. Most of my school days, however, were spent generally as the only ethnic minority until high school where there were a few others.

After graduating from high school, spending six months on active duty with the US Army Reserves, beginning college in California, and serving a two-year mission to Hawaii for the Church, I entered Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah.

I had married and had a young child by the time I received my graduate degree after which I embarked on my first real career job at Chabot College in Hayward, California. I taught Economics to college freshmen and sophomores. My wife, son Brent, and I drove to California in our first new car, pulling a trailer containing the sum of our earthly possessions.

I enjoyed teaching college students, and I felt it was a good position at which I fully intended that I might stay until retirement. However, my life has taken many turns since then. Experiences have come to me that I would never have imagined in those early days. While I was busily involved with teaching and working with college students in 1972, an opportunity came up to run for the city council of Pleasanton, California, where we were living. It was a small town of around thirty thousand at the time with some older areas and lots of new homes.

I had been interested in the political arena for some time, mainly since my own college days when a group of economics students conducted political polls with our college advisor, Richard Wirthlin, who later became the pollster and chief strategist for President Ronald Reagan. I decided to throw my hat in the ring. There were about a dozen people running for three seats, but I knocked on doors throughout the small city and campaigned heavily.

Although relatively unknown, I became the top vote getter in that election. After being elected, I was immediately made mayor pro tem and later served as mayor of the City of Pleasanton. That was a period when there were three Japanese American mayors in the Bay Area of California. Norman Y. Mineta was mayor of San Jose (the first Japanese American mayor of a major city), Tom Kitayama was mayor of Union City, and I served as mayor of Pleasanton. Norman Mineta went on to serve in high positions as a US congressman as well as secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton and secretary of transportation under President George W. Bush. Tom Kitayama was a successful businessman who served as mayor of Union City for over thirty years.

I was fortunate to be able to develop lifelong friendships with both of these great Japanese American gentlemen.

At Thanksgiving in 1975, the local California state assemblyman from the area where I lived suddenly passed away after just having been reelected to a position he had held for many years. I decided to run for his seat in the Assembly of what was then the 15th District in California which encompassed the communities of and areas around Hayward, Castro Valley, Pleasanton, Livermore, and Dublin. Although I was given only an extremely slim chance of winning, I again campaigned heavily and knocked on many doors.

Some Democrats who were leaders in the community had been planning on running for the seat whenever the assemblyman, who had been in poor health, stepped down. However, I became the Democratic nominee after a primary victory. Then the Democratic Party stepped in to help me. I won the election to become the state assemblyman and was soon immersed in legislation and politics.

Paul Bannai (a Republican Japanese American from Southern California) had just been elected that fall as the first Japanese American in the California State Assembly. He and I were the only Japanese Americans in the Assembly at the time with only a handful of Asian Americans serving in elective office in the State Legislature and throughout the state.

I became a friend and advocate for the Japanese American community, for the JACL, and for Japanese and Asian businesses and organizations within the State of California.

During this time, I was able to make my first visit to the land of my ancestry, and I thoroughly enjoyed this first trip to Japan. As a television commercial about people visiting the country of their ancestors mentioned at the time, it was something like “going home.” It was an emotional time for me as I visited the village of my parents and met relatives I had never known.

It was the first of many trips to Japan over the years as my business subsequently has taken me there often during certain periods of my life. I was traveling to Japan nearly once a month at one point. At the current time, I have two sons who live and work in Tokyo.

After serving six years in the State Assembly, I became the director of the Office of International Trade for the State of California, which was a newly formed department at the time which I had actually helped create. This position gave me many more opportunities to interact with executives of various Japanese businesses and other Asian American groups.

When I finished serving in that position, I moved back to Utah where I became involved with business, later primarily international business working mostly with Japanese businesses until the move to Washington, DC a few years ago. My partners and I worked on taking Pennzoil and Subway Sandwiches to Japan, among other ventures.

Many friends and contacts, which I had from the past in the California State Assembly in the late 1970s and early 1980s, are now members of the United States House of Representatives or are United States senators. I also had the opportunity to become personally acquainted with some of the members of other state delegations over the years, including my home state of Utah. These friendships and those with the Asian American elected officials have given me strong contacts within Washington, DC. This has been very helpful as I have served the JACL and other Asian American organizations in trying to further the work in which we are engaged.

It has been a distinct privilege and pleasure for me to become personally acquainted with the Honorable Ryozo Kato, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Japan to the United States of America, and with other Japan Embassy officials.

Over the years, I have had the honor of becoming friends with several consuls general of Japan to the United States and have met with some of Japan’s prime ministers. While I was national president of the JACL in 2001, I was able to represent the JACL and Japanese Americans on an A-50 ceremony program in Tokyo with former Prime Minister Koizumi and Dan Quayle, former Vice President of the United States, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the US, Japan Peace Treaty of 1951. My wife and I arrived home in Utah the night before 9–11 happened.

Working for the JACL in Washington, DC allows me to continue to nurture increased interaction of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans. Our ancestral heritage can allow Japanese Americans to be key players in the ongoing process of bilateral relations with Japan. Being part of the American society for a century and a half has allowed Japanese Americans to be seen as trusted and productive citizens of the United States.

Although the history of Japanese Americans has been tarnished with the experience of being incarcerated in American concentration camps by our own government, we have overcome the difficulties to a large degree. The Japanese American veterans of World War II did much to help the cause of acceptance by showing great dedication and patriotism to our nation. Japanese Americans have a rich cultural heritage of our Japanese ancestry which is now embraced more fully by the younger generations of Japanese Americans.

This mix of positive experiences can be the source of maintaining peaceful and productive bilateral relationships between the two nations. Strong ties can become stronger through our continued and increased involvement with each other. My past work experience has also afforded me the opportunity to meet many high level people in Japanese businesses in the United States and in Japan.

I feel that the future holds good things for Japan’s commerce and for the Japanese society in Washington, DC. My advice would be for Japanese business people in the United States to become more involved with Japanese American individuals and groups such as the JACL whenever possible. There is much we can gain from each other, and there can only be benefit derived from our interaction.

The JACL has been a chapter-based organization, and chapters are located throughout the United States including in Washington, DC and with a chapter in Japan. The JACL offers opportunities for social and cultural interaction between the Japanese Americans, Japanese nationals, and any others who are interested in our common goals. The JACL would wholeheartedly welcome the participation of more native Japanese as well as all others into the organization. We can learn much from each other, and the association is sure to be enjoyable.

[This is an excerpt from the book: The Japanese American Story as Told Through a Collection of Speeches and Articles. www.thejapaneseamericanstory.com]