(Interviewer) But you set the tone, you know, I mean, you started with something you initiated.

Well, for myself in my classroom and wherever I try to be here as a school board member, you know, I was a member of the let's see, I think it was called BABLE, which is what does it stand for? It was a bilingual, no, Bilingual Association of Bilingual Educators or something like that, and it started out locally and then became a state and then on national, you know, teachers organization that recognized language and to his credit, you know, Governor Brown, when he first time he was governor, supported the bilingual education bills and he may not have understood it completely, but he understood its importance. And so that allowed other people to piggyback on his on his decisions and make the language, language learning and language instruction more important.

(Interviewer) Now, you remember around what year those bills were being discussed?

Oh, I think Lau versus Nichols 70. It was 74, 75 somewhere around there. And then during Brown's administration was the late seventies, early eighties.

(Interviewer) So then was there an impact when you put it in that English only or English is the language of the state of California.

That was what was that guy's name, that promoted the language, English language only. [Bruce] Bochy? But yeah, yeah, yeah. He he was from Palo Alto. He had his own money and he decided to do this initiative, you know, English only in the classroom, which was given a lot of support by Senator Hayakawa, who had some credentials in terms of instruction, in terms of the whole field of what the word meaning of words. What is that? Semantics. You know, he was a semanticist, but he wasn’t a linguist. And then I think some students at Harvard called me that used that came from San Jose asked me to debate this guy in Harvard. So we did. And that was oh, pretty impactful. It was nerve wracking. But, you know, when you when you know, you know, your stuff, you can defend it. Then a debate becomes kind of an inviting activity. Did you find the guy's name?

(Interviewer) Newt Gingrich? No wasn't it Bochy?

Bochy, he was a court decision on on affirmative action. …

(Interviewer) What did you do in the Peace Corps. Where were you?

I was, I was in El Salvador and since I didn't have any degrees, I didn't have anything that I could see was a specialty. I know one thing I did was speak English, so? So I figured out how to teach English to youngsters so that it would be meaningful. And it's as a result, I learned to speak Spanish, and I also learned that these kids will walk six kilometers a day round trip to go to school. And so they can tell me these kids don't, you know, embrace education. It's just that putting beans and rice on the table kind of becomes foremost when push comes to shove. But I knew kids that would walk three kilometers in a morning, go back to work from, well, 12 to 2, and they come back after to work another three kilometers uphill to go to class and they go home again. So three, six, nine. Well, they're walking 12 kilometers, you know. Yeah, I don't think that was exceptional. It was the rule. So, you know, and then you wonder why, you know, countries become stay poorest because those who have don't share. But, you know, after a certain point, when people get more information and they start to see stuff on TV and listen to the radio, some other people my town knew more was going out outside than I did. I mean, they're all looking at, one night they were looking up at the sky. Said what you guys looking at? This is your satellites. Oh okay. Or when they blew up, you know, they knew about the L.A. riots in the sixties before I did. You know, so. And they also were impacted by TV whenever they saw it. Assuming that I knew Marilyn Monroe. Oh, you know John Wayne. Oh, the Bonanza Boy. See on Bonanza or The Fugitive. And I told them I didn't know they could speak Spanish because they would watch these TV things. It'd be dubbed in Spanish. And so I explained to them that, you know,

(Interviewer) There were very few Asian Americans who joined the Peace Corps. You were one of the few actually.

Less than five, you know. In 65, I only knew three, you know, one was Filipino and myself. And I think there was another guy that came back the same time I did. But since then, you know, my nephew went to South Africa, my cousin went to Solomon Islands and was a volunteer, then a director and then a trainer. Then he went to Vanuatu, became regional director, then he worked in D.C. and in the national office.

(Interviewer) But for you, did people look at you and consider you an American like the El Salvadorians?

They said no he's a Chino, you know, because when I got to my town, the bus stops about two kilometers outside of town because you're on the road. So I was carrying my suitcase, but I was the only one with boots, Levi pants and Levi jacket. A nice shirt and a hat, you know? And that's like wearing a tuxedo, you know, because Levi's were pretty expensive in those days. And the word got out that the the gringo was here. They all ran past me looking for the gringo, and I was carrying my bags. They thought, Oh, he's the helper. You know, in about a week later, when they heard my Spanish, they said, Oh, yeah, maybe he is an American. You know.

Well, community involvement is a broad, I mean, you know, when I was in Cub Scouts, I was in community involvement, you know, and Boy Scouts, church, it's all about being with people and knowing your own community and all its idiosyncrasies, how old people behave, how, you know, your peers behave and how we get away with things. And then in Peace Corps, I learned to understand and find out what is it that they need or want, not what it is that I think they need. And determine what they need. You know, that's pretty area, you know, it's it's, yeah, it's kind of the old-fashioned way of we know better. If I were white, I guess it would be "us white folks know better and that and I'm glad I'm white" but I learned how to do a sociogram know I didn't know it was a sociogram but I ask a bunch of questions as part of my learning language and asking him your questions that required short answers from people like who would you go to the movies with? Who would you go to the beach with? Who do you go to when you need help? Who do you go to? If you need advice or money and wherever the name or whatever names that came up, I would put them down and then draw lines to each one. And then finally you see two or three people that had the most lines going to, people that they basically trust and usually is not an elected official or the mayor. Anybody else, this is your thought leader. And I work with them and so and then I applied that when I came back when I worked in migrant and then worked in War on Poverty as I was a student, well I became a student.

So those skills were very helpful, and the big skill was speaking Spanish and learning that Spanish is different from different folks, from different countries, you know, so and then developing friendships, you know, I have a friend that was in a migrant camp in Gilroy. He was 18 and he got recruited by Opal Clark, who was the wife of the president of the campus of. She took him in to the house. And when I found out where you live, this is pretty cool. You know, living the campus president's home, he was a migrant student, but he's bright. And so I learned a lot from him about students and attitudes and stuff like that.

I then using all those skills in the classroom my first-year teaching, I didn't wait till school started. I visited every parent of the students I had on my roster, and I tried to study all the names, different names and anticipate what's going to happen in the classroom when I call roll and so there was four girls, all Chinese, and their name was Wong, Gong, Wong, and another one, and they all set right behind each other. So I knew that something was going to happen. So when I called roll, you know, and I would call out the names and I went through one, two, three, and I could hear the kids giggling. And I stopped and said, So what's so funny? You know? And I said, Is that because you heard names in sequence that was different? The kids were pretty honest. Oh, so we talked about what's in a name, and I had them go home and find out what their names meant. Oh, a lot of them know. But, you know, it was a way of teaching them that, you know, the final instruction was you only come into this world with your name, you're naked in a name, you die naked with your name and your reputation.

And so I was hoping that that would, you know, impress them. But meeting their parents first were critical because when I first started my class in science, I told the kids, look, bell rang, everybody sit down. And it was a science class where you had, you know, all the Bunsen burners and the water faucets in the black caps on both sides. And I had one kid laying on the blacktop and his name was Terry. He one of identical twin who trained all summer with his brothers in Oakland with the Black Panthers. And I said, everybody, take a seat. Now, they all sat down and I said, so and so you take your seat and he said, "make me." I said, oh, Jesus. You know, he was bigger than me, stronger than me. I said, well, take your seat. Again he said, "Make me" so I was okay. Walked over to the phone, call the office, "get Mrs. Kelley on the phone." The kid was in the seat right away, on the verge of tears. "Don't call Mom." It's too late. I asked you twice, called Mrs. Kelley. You know, and I explained what's going on as she said some things, you know.

He said she said, put the boy on the phone. "Yes, mama, yes mama." Never had a problem after. The power of parents is critical if you can find a parent that's influential and powerful you know and but you got to touch base with them first before you're their colleagues you and so and there's all kinds of parents that are influential but weak in follow in through stuff, and uninformed. Or weak and uninfluential. Sure they have no power, so you have to figure out how to work with those kids. So that's all part of communal organizing or they would call it classroom management, you know, but they're always trying to teach you how to manage kids in class without, you know, without the idea that you have to go beyond the classroom walls to be able to have that kind of influence, you know, because I wasn't that charismatic. I wasn't that charismatic.

You know, I came back from Peace Corp looking for a way to remain engaged because our third mandate, Peace Corps, is to take what you learn and apply it back home. And part of it is teach people what Peace Corps is about. But I want us to use the skills that I learned in I guess we call organizing. And so I told my father, you know, I wanted to sort of get involved in JACL, Japanese American Citizens League. And I did. And I got involved with a lot of local community leaders, but also learned from them that they had their own history of organizing things in the community based upon the needs of the community since before the war. And that was a it was a good lesson to understand why they behave the way they did when there was an evacuation.

And but the other thing was, I learned to look at people with different skills and try to not emulate them but emulate the skills that they have and sort of try to figure out how I can internalize and learn those skills and make it part of my repertoire. And one of the first ones I watched was Norman Mineta when he was councilmen and then mayor. But he always met with guys like Jim Arno, who was the legal aid attorney. Real funny, but a serious guy. And then Mike Morrison, who's a pastor of Leslie Methodist Church. So those three guys, I used to watch them, I guess, talk about issues and try to figure out what they're going to do. But I never could hear what they're saying because I was in the uh, wasn't on the dais where they were sitting, but I knew that they were doing things. And so that collaboration in the community, that was the church. Or social services or law enforcement or, you know, legal services for poor folks and himself, you know, and I'd try to figure out what they can do as a group to engage other people. And what they did was they really opened up city government to Latinos, to African Americans. They made sure that there were folks in the city structure that were elevated. Also and were in leadership position, just white guys and women too.

And education, I heard about this principal at Sunnyvale High School. One guy named Paul Sakamoto. So I was part I was part of the process, the organizing for and recruiting students for our EOP program. And I had recruited Warren Furutani to be part of this effort because he was kicked out of the city of San Mateo City College because he was part of the protest helping the college professors get their contract. Somehow he got kicked out because he put a blazing fire, a blazing garbage can and tossed it somewhere. So I wanted to know who that guy is. So we found him. Talked to him, said, you know, how would you like to come to San Jose State, and also be a recruiter? And you could stay at my place. Together we went to see this guy named Paul Sakamoto was a principal of Sunnyvale High School and so this was pretty cool. And we parked in a parking lot, and I saw him through the window in his office. But I also saw this British racing green jaguar parked up there. It was a cool car. And we went inside and got introduced to Paul Sakamoto. And I said, whose car is that? He said, oh that's mine. Found out he was not married. He's single. Cool car. Cool job. But we and we we told him what we were about. You know, we're recruiting students who didn't get a high school diploma or dropped out of college or have potential in or they're students right now that we could look at that we may want to recruit to come to San Jose State. So he was pretty helpful. And it turns out that that was the year that I was trying to get my credentials, and I was going to get kicked out of the credentialing program because I didn't go to class. It was boring. But the dean caught me and said, I'm going to put you in the internship program where you will work five days a week on Friday. You come to class, you come to class, and then at the end of one year, you get your credentials deal. I say I can do that.

So 1969, I taught summer school and that's the year that we went to the moon. And then my summer class was three Asian guys. One of them was Robert Handa, and he didn't act like a typical Asian kid. I mean, he was outspoken, fun loving, you know, kind of refreshing, you know, one of the three broke the glass in the classroom by throwing a can of coke or something and hit the edge of the rim with the garbage can, bounced off, hit the glass, broke it. They're not typical Asian students and that ingratiated them to me but that's how I got to know Paul Sakamoto and then the end of that intern year, I applied for a job there and Paul left his job to go to Michigan to get his doctorate, but he left instruction to his assistant, a guy named, I think it was Freddie. And it didn't matter how I did in the interview the instruction was to hire me. So the idea about, you know, who you know and you know, you have to judge Paul on his ability to figure out, is this person worthwhile hiring and does he have the potential to do the things he likes to do. So, you know, the next three years I was at Sunnyvale High School, and after that, he came back, became assistant dean of students at San Jose State. And there I was ready to be hired as ombudsman. So it all sort of came together. Pete Mesa was another mentor, brilliant guy. African American and Mexican. He pitched for the Cleveland Indians, but he ended up being the principal of San Jose High School, my alma mater. I got my credentials in some fieldwork field experience in counseling. But, you know, Paul and Pete Mercer were the two mentors in education. Norm Mineta and Jim Mono were, and Mike Marzano was the community political. And they were all good mentors. I don't think they knew. But, you know, I try to grab things from them and, you know, learn what kind of skills they had. So they were extremely helpful. So anyway, and that goes into that next question. What was it.

(Interviewer) Yeah, I guess to to ask a follow up question, would you say that your relationship with these men and that community that kind of helped pave your way and without them, do you think you would have found a position in education and moved up?

No, I don't think I would have. I don't think I would have. I met certain people as I went along because as I went along, other people who were instrumental in helping me in and my progression and education are. You know when I took Spanish classes. There was these brothers called the Nava brothers, and one of them ended up being principal of Silvendale School, which is a middle school. And he hired me out of Stanford to come to be his vice principal. At Stanford, I was working with Pete Mesa, who hired me as I left the ombudsman position. So people took care of me in. I took advantage of this because I was constantly learning from from them and the opportunity being a vice principal of a middle school. The thought was there to put into, put into action the theories that I was talking about in education. Can we organize the instruction, language? You know, obviously it was an opportunity to get into the field now at a position where I can make some academic decisions at a middle school and also be able to figure out how you become an administrator on behalf of the kids, not on behalf of the system.

So as a result, the superintendent that did not hire me, who became superintendent for seven years, tried to fire me because I was insubordinate for the good word, insubordinate. so and then when we got a good superintendent, it was a woman. She was smart, brassy, confident. And she came to see me one night after a parents meeting. And she was standing in the back with this tall Mexican guy who turned out to be her husband, who was a Ph.D., taught at USC, California, and I think south central in the border. She just I just came by to see who this guy was as she pulls out of her purse that has a what do you call that, a jacket, you know, a file, employment file this thick. You know. It was all reprimands. I said, Oh, that's what it looks like. She said you've been reprimanded almost weekly for all these years. So I said, “But you don't have any, you know, you have the right to respond.” I don't have the time, you know. And how do you, well, the board I had five votes out of six on the board, so I didn't care what the superintendent did because parents and the board, but you have to communicate with them. You know, and the kids were the best communicators to tell their parents. You know. And the board was, well, you know, as well connected with the the community in different different schools. Ida Williams is one of them. She ended up being vice mayor.

AACI was put together by this fellow by the name of Dr. Allan Seid, who was a psychiatrist. He was he had a very successful practice in Palo Alto off a California street, and he pulled together, you know, folks like Paul Sakamoto and Paul Fong and some other guys. So, Connie [Young Yu], and but it was about half woman. [Jeanette Arakawa and Eimi Okano]. Yeah, it was a whole bunch of women and they they were well written and well, I think they were published too, probably more than the men were. None of the men were published. There were more. Victor Wong. There was a school psychologist Cam. Well Bob Cam, Ed Kawazoe and Nino Sarmiento.

(Interviewer) So there were a lot of guys, too.

Yeah, but it wasn't. It wasn't just one gender. And so and this was prior to 75. So, you know, we got together and who was the superintendent. of the Chinese American woman. I remember she was… Aggie Agemoto. She wasn't original, but some of those they were in education. But it was a ragtag group of middle class Asian Americans. [73?] Yeah, that had some social consciousness about talking about, oh, institutionalized racism, talking about presence, inclusion of Asian Americans. And so that group was engaging other people in the community to do talks in different schools and colleges. And then the fall of Vietnam came along in 75.

And so Allan Seid convened this meeting and said, we're going to have to become organized and we have to become a a political party. We have to become a body that's going to have to let people know that the the newcomers are going to be needing services in a language that they're going to understand. And we have nobody they can do that. The county system, you're lucky to have a Spanish speakers in social services, let alone a Vietnamese or Cambodian, Laotian. You know, so he sort of presented a scenario that was scary. Scary if you were coming in without any grassroots help from from local government and so AACI got formed as a formal I think as a 501C3 group or something. But we became politically involved in getting things done at the county, the city level, making sure that and then AACI became a provider of services and Allan was sort of like the trainer. And and Kawazoe I was sort of like that guy that smoothed everything over if people's feathers ruffled, whether in government or not, and Ed was…he was a contradiction because what you saw was a terrorist. But when he opens his mouth, he's a philosopher, you know. A guy who thinks deeply. His language is very colorful, you know. And so he was kind of like the governor, you know, of an engine that sort of modulated Allan. And one of the things he wanted to do but allowed him to express and do the things that he needed to do. And he was right on the money. So he started training social workers. And but we had to he had to find people that could speak the language to the train people. And that that became a big test. But over time, in the last 30 or 40 years, a whole bunch of folks ended up in the county social services and law enforcement and places like that whose transition would not have been, transition would not have been as smooth had it not been for him seeing that need. And then so AACI sort of grew and became one of the social service providers along with Boxa in the Valley. And by that time, I was on the Board of Supervisors, so we were able to have some oversight and help organizations that provide the services that the county couldn't. You know, so, you know, working with the unions and social services, you know, we're able to have AACI, do what it needs to do. And AACI at one point was very influential and the Board of Supervisor, folks who wanted to be a supervisor, you know, really had to work with AACI because Allan sort of organized the group to become politically savvy.

And then it started to grow so that a change in leadership became evident then Michele Lew took over after that and took it to another level. Yeah, I give Alan his due for being out there in front figuring out what needs to happen but as and I never wanted to be on the board, I refused to be on the board for a lot of different reasons. Edward knew most of the reasons. Sakamoto knew some of the other reasons. But, you know, I just think there's a balance between the executive director and the board. And the board got to a certain point where they they were, they could be self-directed, and they didn't need to be led by an executive director on on major policies. But the…what I what I told Allan was that you can't run AACI like a Chinese family grocery store. It ain't your business, you know, and AACI's grown so that now you've kind of tried to become AACI, but you're not AACI. So you can't be that. And there were all kinds of signs like how money was handled because you know, I sat on the board. I, you know, I get calls from the feds and from the state and from local. How money's been handled. David Mineta and Hubris, what was his first name, they led a walkout. You know of the staff. And I said, look, things are becoming broken. So I try to understand what's going on. So I was on the phone with Allan about 2 hours with my engine running and my battery dying on my phone and saying that you, I went through some of the issues and I said to Allan, you have a choice of resigning or being moved out because there's too many questions being made out there that are legitimate. And there's a lot of things that are questionable. So he said, let me talk to the board and he got back to me again. He says the board's sustaining their support for me. I said, okay. So I called Gordon Chan and told Gordon, you know, if you want AACI to just survive, Allan's got to go. I talk to Allan again. I'm trying to be transparent, let you know what I'm doing and the bottom line, you just have to go. It is time or AACI's going to fold under the weight of investigations and stuff like that. And one of the things I don't want to happen in our communities there to be an embarrassment. You know. And then we'll never be able to have influence. So I guess a couple of days later, they made that, the board made that decision, and Gordon was was very adamant. And I was glad that he trusted me. But I think he also trusted everything else he was seeing that was not going right. But without going into a lot of details, yeah, he had people, there was nepotism. It was, you know, the possibility of manipulating funds. The folks who were supposed to be primary manager of their accounts were not. It was all under Alan. And so that frustrated a lot of the the different directors of different programs. They can't run it without knowing what they got, you know, so with that, you know, there was some housecleaning and it was like flushing a toilet. And Michele did a good job of, you know, getting their stuff together.

The other thing was Paul Fong and Gordon Chan. A couple other guys took a personal risk, financial risk of getting the building for AACI. We had to figure out how do we do that with Bob Ceylan, who was head of Health and Human Services and and Bob Ceylan, he understood all this stuff in his relationship with Ed Kawazoe was crucial for trust to be able to work together. But they worked it out. It was legal and everything went and it happened. Gordon and Paul the risks they took, you know, paid off, you know. So that's an element that a lot of community organizations don't have is their own facility, you know.

(Interviewer) You know, but you were key in this, in saving AACI and also doing the right thing for the county.

Well, for our community.

(Interviewer) Community, yeah. Yeah. And despite our friendship and the good old boys’ network, that had nothing to do with finding…

Right. I mean when you when you lose your way. You know. Authoritarianism has no place in an organization like AACI. You know? And you know, I think the other thing is, we continue to do these kinds of things and it's evident that He's getting away with it and calling you a fool, you know, for and if this ever hit the public that we all look foolish you know and so know it's you know, people of color can't manage their own shit. Right? So, you know, I was just one of the shadow warriors that, you know. Oh, yeah, it was. It was, you know, it's Gordon and Paul [Fong] and Paul Sakamoto. I think Sakamoto left by then. But even when I was a principal of elementary school and I had Cambodian, Vietnamese and Spanish bilingual strads in my school, and I hired community organizers in the Cambodian place. And AACI's Cambodian organizer didn't like this lady, so he badmouthed their place and, well, and so, you know, Allan came over one time with Ed Kawazoe to tell me that I had to fire this lady. I said, Allan, I'm the principal here. I decide. You're the Executive Director of AACI, you decide. You know, I'll tell you that you shouldn't trust so-and-so, a community organizer who wears gold chains, gold rings, gold necklace and drives a Mercedes. What kind of community organizer is that? You know in a community that's basically refugees you know. It's a wrong message. He said, “No this is well, you know you are AACI.” I said I support AACI. But I don't support your requests. I look at Edwards. He goes, because Edward what I was saying. He didn't agree, you know. But that's why I said Edward was critical daily component of AACI to keep it on the straight and narrow and provide the services that needed to provide it. You know, so.

(Interviewer) So just a question of about justice. Allan was asked to resign, that he resigned, correct?

After he was asked a couple times, yeah.

(Interviewer) And did he have to do anything you know, get back to the, pay back the community. Was there any retribution?

Not retribution. But I don't know whether there was any. You know. What's the word? Reparations that needed to be done. A lot of was probably done by correcting the way paperwork was done and reorganizing. But that's between the board and him. I don't know what the, the details. I just know that I was being called by the feds and the state.

(Interviewer) And it was handled. It was handled.

I assume so. Yeah. Because we had some smart lawyers on the board, you know. And you know, Gordon Chan was no pushover.

(Interviewer) About influences, we haven't talked about your family and your parents. At this time, we're talking about 1970s. What did your mother and father think of this time, about your work? Did they support your education and going into possibly going into politics?

My mother didn't understand. She says, what do you do? All you do is talk. I mean, you know, you can make a living. I said, well, it's a bit more complicated than I am now. And you talk about other people like Mexican-jins and hakujin and how other people. Well, I said, you know, I talk about Asian Americans too and as she's told me, stories of how I behaved like in Chicago, you know, it snows right in the first day of snow. My mother knew that I didn't have enough clothing for us. So she walked to school, bought me a coat and spoke to me, says, "Here, wear this when you go home. " And then she said to me as an adult later on and she says, "And you told me to speak English." I said, "Oh, I don't remember it." "Well, I think I embarrassed you because I didn't speak English." And I said to you, and I remember the instructions, but I remember it clearly, you know, here's this jacket, wear it because it's going to be cold, it's going to snow. But I can't remember it was Japanese or English, you know. But she said it in Japanese and she she said, I told her, "Speak English." Yes. So the whole idea of language, the pride in language, in making sure the kids know that language is okay, it's basically a teacher's job to make that appreciation of language in the classroom. And so, you know, as a teacher, I think of different ways of, you know, honoring language. You know, what's in a name, what does it mean in your language?

(Interviewer) And your father?

But yeah. You took classes from him, didn't you? You didn't take classes from him? About your dad's influence on you. Well, when I was a kid, he. I saw his foil and the mask, and so, you know, I said "what's this." This was this is fencing, you know? Oh, I didn't know a fencing was. But he showed me pictures of him being on the Pan-American fencing team. There was, he was number seven, I think it was the someone drops out or someone gets hurt. He became a replacement, you know, he was on the bench, but he was good enough to be on the bench. So when I was a kid, he, you know, put the foil on my hand and told me, you know, just put the mask on so that I wouldn't get poked in the eye. And he says, okay, as they was trying to tell me how to, you know, I would just, you know crashing him around.

But then I poked him in the nuts, and he goes, "Oh, that's enough." But in college, I took fencing class, fencing from Dr. Springer, short lady. And that's where I met the Filipino guy that went to Peace Corps. He and I took it together and we stayed with the class long enough to develop enough skills to start the to help start the team. We weren't on the team, but we helped and then we got out an instructor from Hungary. He was a political prisoner for seven years in solitary confinement, so his eyes were bad, but he still could fence and he could, he could feel who was opponents were. So today's fencing when you watch a competition, I don't know if that's fencing and just charging each other trying to make points.

(Interviewer) It's electric so but anyway your father was seemed to be a very compassionate, very encouraging kind of person to the students. You would be the kind of person that.

Yeah, yeah, he's like me. I pay more attention to other kids than my own kids. That that is the the, you know, my, my regret as a father that I hear my kids say things like, Mom, how come he doesn't help here? Like he helps other people's homes or how come he talks that way there? But he doesn't talk that way here, you're, you know, you know, you're here or you weren't there when I needed you, you know, those kinds of things. So, you know, those are kind of indictments of children, of parents who don't pay attention that could pay more attention. You know.

(Interviewer) What was your father's profession?

He didn't have one. He was, he wanted to be a doctor, but we got sent to camp. And then he tried to survive. And so he was an assistant manager of a club store in Chicago. Tried to start a couple of businesses himself. We moved back to California, and he worked at a co-op store in Berkeley, he commuted to Berkeley every day. Or then he worked at something in Palo Alto. Then he tried to start a restaurant, but that didn't work. And then finally we ended up being sharecroppers, strawberries, because he saw that a lot of strawberry folks were making money. But the thing was that the strawberry people that made money, they own their own land.

(Interviewer) Did you pick strawberries?

Oh, yeah. You know where Hayes Mansion is?

(Interviewer) Oh, yes.

That's where we sharecropped.

(Interviewer) And how many siblings did you have?

Three. I'm the oldest, my brother acts the oldest. Then I got a sister and then youngest sister. So, boy, boy, girl, girl.

(Interviewer) Your kids?

Who, me?

(Interviewer) Your kids. How many kids?

How many kids do I have?

(Interviewer) That you know?

You said I didn't say it. I have two, boy and a girl. My son's an aerospace engineer in Torrance down south. My daughter works for the county. She does children first. Oh, a lot of the social stuff. And then the health and the health arena. And then she has three kids. So Trey, who's a freshman in Pomona, Malisa, she's 16. Yeah, I know because she just got her driver's permit. And then Zach, who's 14, they were going to Pioneer High School, you know, so Trey is a water poloist. He's 6'4. Melissa's 5'10 and growing and she's only 16. Zach is 5'8-5'9, 14. So they're all going tall.

(Interviewer) They got all that from you. (jokingly)

No, from their father so you know genetic manipulation through exchange of bodily fluids can end up with youngsters who are taller, better looking than the last generation.

Yeah, since I was born in 41, nine months later. Well, in February 42, a few months later, you know. Executive Order 9066 came about. And then they established all these camps, tent camps from the War Relocation Authority. There were more camps from the DOJ, but we were in Amache which is southeast Colorado, right outside a little town called Granada, where Calamity Jane used to service the cowboys that drove cattle through that area. Anyways, it was about 7000 people. There is probably the largest, second largest population in the state of Colorado at the time. So we were at Amache and the thing is, my brother found my father's diary. And so the story goes from we were in camp. How long were we in camp? Four years, we went in and 42 and came out in 44, but that's not true either because my father got a contract. He was teaching Japanese to the MIS to naval intelligence in Boulder, so we were not in camp during the time he was teaching. We were in Boulder, Colorado. We escaped the inclement weather of winter in those shacks. And my brother and sister were born in Boulder. Then the contract expired, and we went back to Amache and my father went to Chicago because he got another appointment to teach Japanese to naval intelligence in Northwestern University. Then he called us down. So with a lot of other people who were in Amache, like my cousins, everybody, we didn't stay two, three, four years it was in, out, back in and out again. So our, our experience was different because of my father's involvement with MIS and teaching Japanese language to naval intelligence.

But in general, you know, being born in this country, I'm a naturalized citizen, right? When we went to camp, I was redesignated as “enemy alien”. You know, 3266C. C means enemy alien. So I was not an American citizen for two years. But, you know, we're working on that right now because the law that allows the president to do that was passed in 1798. It's called Enemy Alien Act of 1798 that President Adams passed over the objections of Jefferson and those guys. But there were four laws, two were repealed and one was sunsetted. And the only one that remains is the one that allows presidents to do that. That's why Trump was able to talk about Muslim travel ban, but they blocked him because Muslims are a religion.

You can't do that. So he out of Venezuela and North Korea, and it became appropriate. Yeah but the law is there to allow the president, the executive branch, to be able to deport, detain, or incarcerate individuals who are enemy aliens. So enemy aliens are anybody whose nationality resembles or is like the country that you declared war against. So we declared war on Japan. So we became enemy aliens. So that's why the poster says all persons of Japanese ancestry, aliens and non-aliens. They didn't have the guts to say aliens and citizens are deemed enemy aliens here. So in politics words matter. So I told I said I have an education bill pending that was able to work with Omar, Ilhan Omar. She, she took up the bill to repeal this in the Alien Act of 1798. I tried to do it, but I didn't get anywhere. I argued with the AG oh, what's his name? Under Obama? What was his name? He's in the state of California now. Oh, was it William, Bill or anyways. He said no, the president needs the bill, needs the law, says you know, that you have to declare war in order for it to be effective.

I said, well, under the oh War Act, the declaration of war is against terrorists. And so what country does a terrorist come from? Any country. So therefore, this law can be applied to anybody that the president deems. And so Trump, through Barr, went after John Kerry because John Kerry was a leader on the Iranian agreement and John Kerry was saying, you don't do this. You know, don't leave the agreement. So Barr was going to go after John Kerry under that law because it was contrary to what the president wants to do. That's how loose that law is, you know. So and I got Mayjee Rona? to carry it on the Senate side to repeal that. But we'll see what happens. I mean, they have been preoccupied with other stuff, but.

(Interviewer) You are an educator. You are such a hero. (Interviewer) Just last closing. Can you state your, the name of your elementary school, high school, college, and then your major?

Well, kindergarten???

(Interviewer) You're a comedian, too

This. Oh geez I had it before is slips me now but there was Mrs. Jeffries, Miss Jefferson in the third grade and in the fourth and fifth grade I had sewing and woodwork, and that was a woman. I forget her name, but she was beautiful. I used. I followed her home on a paper route one time.

(Interviewer) Yes, the name of the school.

That was Motley's School, only two blocks from the University of Chicago in Hyde Park. And then there was in seventh grade was Mr. Flanagan. Eighth grade was Mr. McClanahan, who was a superintendent of the elementary school that hired me as a VP and his assistant became superintendent. He's the one that aided me, but so and then the principal of that school was Mr. Oh, shoot, I forget, he was a chunky guy and, but he taught me that, you know, you could be a principal, so play with the kids. And I remember seeing him kick a football. Mr. It was Mr. McNutt.

(Interviewer) What was the name of the high school?

Well, I went to James Lick, Andrew Hill in San Jose High. I went to James, which is a freshman second part of freshman year. They split the class into Samuel and Andrew Hill. So the next year and my sophomore year I went to Andrew Hill was their first class president and we only had freshmen and sophomores. And my claim to fame as class president was taking my school to the sock hop on TV at least three times a year. You know, in front of, I forget the guy's name, but you remember Spartan's Spartan Dodge. He is a slashing and hacking, and a human was him. And then college. You know, I didn't go to junior college because I thought it was below me. And that's a terrible thought because community colleges is a way for people to reassess themselves, get the GED or or or establish themselves for first two years with general education. You know, to take Foothill/De Anza, this probably the Ivy League of community colleges and the I went to San Jose State from 1959 to 1969. Yeah. In 1969 I wrote the NEA grant that she was talking about to hire our own professors to get our master's in counseling because they weren't, they were training people to be counselors. And I wanted the concept to change from helping youngsters and saying, society is sick, you're healthy, and your struggles about maintaining your health and looking at peer counselors where children of color will be able to understand themselves. They use themselves as a unit of instruction and counseling because if you know yourself that you can recognize the kids how can you be a more effective peer counselor. And that was my dissertation, and I applied to San Jose State for the Ed.D. but I got rejected.