Okay. My dad's full name is Sergio Reg Ragsag. That's the birth name with a G at the end. It was changed later to Ragsac with a C. That was done by his brothers when they were living here in the mainland. Now, my dad was born, I think in 1907, is that, no sorry, yeah 1907 because he was 17 when in 1924. And my mom was born in La Paz, Abra. My mom's name is Mary Vidal. There's a question as to actually is that correct? Because my mom refused to talk about her childhood. That's another story we can go into that if if you want. But yeah, she was born in La Paz, but now. Well, I'll go into it anyway. So. So that she you can see how she ended up in Kauai. So my mom in those days, Abra is a mountain province in northern Luzon. In those days, it's almost like a I guess it's sort of like a tribe and all the youngsters were required to work on a farm. My mom told us very briefly she didn't, she was not allowed to go to school and was required to work on that farm. So she ran away, and she ended up somehow, we are not sure supposedly by with her uncles she migrated to Kauai. There she met my dad.

(Interviewer) After Sergio?

Yes, that's. That's right. After. Now, she was married. Already to Sergio Barres. And I think. Let's see. Oh, yeah. My mom ran away when she was 14. And that struck us because at 14 years old, she must have hated her family so much that she just plain fat ran away.

(Interviewer) Just because we rarely hear about the women's experiences on the farms as well. So I think it's really important for us to also, you know, recognize the work of your mother and all the other women who were out on the farms.

Yes. Right now, remember in 1927, what happened two years later? The Depression. So life was really very, very tough for all, for everybody, and in particular for the laborers. But somehow, we survived and probably due to my mom because she knew how to cook the leanest meals possible that did not cost so much, as typical for most Asian families, I would presume of course.

My legal name is Robert Ragsac. Now, I did not take the middle name until I was asked to sign documents. So I took the my mom's middle name. Okay. I was born in November 1931, in a house at 648 North Fourth Street, just a couple of blocks from here. And the, my mom was assisted in the birth by Ms. Iwu Kawamura. She was the midwife to myself and to another Filipino boy. Strangely enough, I tried to find the Kawamura family some years ago, but there were none, because I wanted to thank her. But of course, by when I became interested, which you can talk about later, when I became older, I said, "Gee, I ought to talk, see if there Kawamura families around?" I asked and nobody knew of Iwu Kawamura. The knew of Doctor Kawamura because that was the wife of Dr. Kawamura. But that's an inside story. But anyways thanks to her, I'm here. Because according to my mom, the birth was very difficult and and supposedly it was in the house because we couldn't make it to the county hospital where my older sister was born. My older sister is Helen Ragsac.

(Interviewer) When was she born?

She was born in County Hospital.

(Interviewer) Oh when?

Oh, 1928.

(Interviewer) So you came three years after?

Yeah, right. She yeah. She essentially she was born right after my parents had landed here, just. Essentially.

(Interviewer) And so how many siblings do you have?

Well, my older sister is Helen, as I said, born in 1928. Then I came in 1931. Then my brother Ruben in 1933, 31, 32. Two years difference. Ruben. Then my younger sister, Elaine. Legal name is Eleanor. And of course, we all took the middle name of the maiden name of my mom as a middle name later in life. And she was born in 1935, and all here in San Jose.

(Interviewer) That same house on Fourth Street?

No, I was the only one on the house on Fourth Street. Yes. That's where we were living at the time, 1931, and the early thirties. Yes.

Now you're talking about my brothers’/sisters’ with their education level. Do you want me to go through there?

(Interviewer) Just briefly, however much you want to share.

Oh, yeah. Well, all of us, all four of us in the day there were a few schools, so we all went to Jefferson Elementary School, and we all went to Peter Burnett Junior High School, and we all attended San Jose High School. And my brother, my sister, I think she was the last one. I think she graduated in 50. She was 3 or 4 years, 55 or 56 from San Jose High because there were only two high schools then at the time here: Lincoln High School and San Jose High School – cross town rivals. So. Okay is that.

Okay briefly my brother and I are the only two that went to college. In general, my sisters were worked in the offices. My sister worked for the ultimately for the state of California. My sister Helen, she worked for the State of California. And my youngest sister Elaine was a housewife until she got older, and the kids went off and she became an exec secretary of Intel. So they did really well. My brother and I went to San Jose State College and got college degrees, and my brother went on to be a CPA, and I went off to graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, earned a master's degree in what's called jet propulsion, which is rockets, ramjet, turbojet engines, solid propellant rockets. So I became an aerospace engineer, and I can talk more about that later. Yes, actually, in general, we stayed here until all the kids left. So that had to be, for me I left in 1955 to go, no 1954 to go to graduate school. My brother, I think, yes, subsequently got a job and got married. I think then he was in the Army, so he left. My sister Elaine married young to a Filipino boy named Rudy. Rudy Quiblin, who was in the Air Force. So she moved out and they ended up wherever he was stationed.

Oh, yes. The Ilocanos, I noticed any way, that they're very sociable. So every time my dad when we have friends over, or my mom, and of course they would they would have plenty to eat. There was always, regardless of how tough times were, there was a plenty to eat. However, having worked in the farms and knowing a lot of the Filipinos who worked in the farms, we get all the vegetables and fruits that we want. So that was not a problem. There were many times that the local Filipino organizations, what we call the townmate organizations and the prominent were like the Sons of Cabugao from the province of the municipality of Cabugao in Ilocos Sur, Philippines. And the Sons of Santa Catalina, my dad's group. And the Sons of Lopog also from Ilocos Sur. And then there would be the Caballeros de Masalang, which was a fraternal organization. So those groups would hold parties, celebrations, christenings, birthday parties, or commemorations. Rizal Day, which was Rizal being the hero of the Philippines in the in the early days of the Philippines. And so there was a lot of that that went on. And of course, there's the Filipino community building in 635 North's Six, which became the center for a lot of the celebration, these birthday parties.

Well in Jefferson Elementary School, I don't recall any organized activity other than what the school class was. So I remember in many classes we be doing arts and crafts. So it was just that – a topic of the class at the time. Then there were school sports, of course, out in the yard, you know, kickball, red rover and I think tetherball. I don't think we had softball. So it was playground type of activities. That's the only thing in elementary school. In junior high school, it was basketball and that was informal. We did not have a basketball team. So groups of us formed for basketball. We had a gym there at Burnett Junior High School, so that was our main participation. We had baseball. Yes, we had we had baseball. But that was informal. That was among the students. We just said, "Let's get together, see if we can scare up nine guys to play around." And so it was informal. We did not have any uniforms or anything like that. The only activity that I can recall that we participated in, both in elementary school and junior high school, was crossing guards.

They had crossing guards. The students were the crossing guards. And so in junior high school, I was a crossing guard for Hobson and First Street. And for junior high school, it was Fourth Street, Fourth Street and Mission. Yeah, Fourth Street and Mission. So you have the sign you had a little cap on both, from both schools at Jefferson and Peter Burnett, and we were the crossing guard. So that was I guess that would be called incredibly unusual now because they would not risk students doing crossing guards in today's traffic. So but that that would show you the what it was like then at the time. And that's the 1930 to 1940s.

In elementary school I remember seeing kids who looked poorer than us in kindergarten, first grade, second grade. And you can tell they came from very poor families because they were dressed really poorly. I thought we were dressed poorly, but it's not that they were different in race or color or anything like that. I remember them looking just so poorly. Well, I went to kindergarten in 1936, so that shows you, they still had the depression effects then at the time. And if I remember correctly, there were Mexicans, Italians, a Filipino kid who went, and I think one or two of the Nisei kids. One of my closest friends was Ed Kimura. We went to elementary school together until 9066 arrived. That's another story if you want to get into that too.

The high school was where I participated in the major sports. It was well organized. So particularly in basketball. And then I played baseball and track, I ran track. Now the only time that I felt like I was a leader was that in the relays, the track coach said, "Robert, you're going to lead the track, you're going to take the first lap." So that was the leadership for me – take the first lap for the relay. But that meant that I had to pick the random guess, I had to reach into a hat and pick out the lane number. So that was my leadership role. But participating, playing a part in sports, especially the three sports, the team sport that was really strong was basketball, where because you had to work with a bunch of other kids, not like it is in baseball and track. So there I found out that you got to work together as a team. And I did this for the three years I was in school. And I was lucky to letter in the three sports.

So what happened, I guess, after playing in those sports, somehow I became the senior manager of boys athletics in spring 1950. So which meant that you were looked upon as a person that represented the the Boys athletics. Not necessarily conducting anything that represented organizing, managing or anything like that. It just became a representative of the boys sports. And so I would give talks and I guess be part of the rally and encourage everybody else to support the team and attend the games. Well, that was essentially it.

(Interviewer) Did somebody appoint you to the position?

Yeah. No, it was an election, I think. I believe it was an election and it was supported by, of course, because I had played in the major sports. That actually became an honor for me. And by the way, this is probably an aside now here we go. When in the ensuing years, whenever I saw in an obituary, one of our athletes from San Jose High passed away. And I know where the ceremony is going to be. I would put on my block sweater. I would go to the ceremony and ask the family or whoever was in charge, "Could I speak and give a little talk about my buddy?" Whoever he was. And everybody said yes. So I did this because a lot of people there at any funeral would know the guy as he was an old man, but not when he was a teenager. And so I would give stories about the teenager's teenage years at San Jose High. And I did this for several of the old athletes. And by the way, I wanted to do this was Norm Mineta. Norm was on our basketball team. He played what was called 1-10 basketball. I played 1-20 basketball. And Norm and I just had just enough time a play time that we may or may not earn the block sweater. But we finally did. So Norm Roy wrote on my yearbook "To fellow basketball player who almost lost his block." Now, I wanted to do that for Norm, but of course, I couldn't know. It was a very formal ceremony, and I couldn't upstage Bill Clinton or course. So and and all the all the politicians. And of course, another basketball player was. [choking up] I'm sorry… I guess I must have felt that sort of responsibility because I was senior manager of boys’ athletics. But that was way back when in 1950s. So here we are in the 2000s. And I see a buddy of mine who, who was one of the football players I knew, or somebody who ran track or swam or whatever sport they were in at at high school, even those who followed that, I didn't know. But they were they played sports. But I was going to say before that I wanted to do it for Norm, because Norm and were really close in the day, in those days, and of course he became secretary transportation, you know that and and doing that I would wear my block sweater and I would say something about about the person. And I wanted to do that for Norm.

And then just a few weeks later, Earl Santo passed away. So I wanted to do this for Earl, but when they had the service for Earl, I was on vacation in Hawaii. Now, Earl and I played basketball together in the 1920s [sic 1940s], and I saw Earl a couple of times at our school reunion. And of course, Earl was at Santo Market there on the corner of Sixth and Taylor. And every one time when I'd shop there, I'd stop by, and I see Earl. And sometimes he'd be there with his wife, Helen, and we sit and talk old times. And then and about playing basketball. And that's why I felt, very sadly, that I couldn't attend his ceremony.

But then a couple of weeks after Earl passed away, Ben Yoshihara passed away. I don't know if you know him, but he was also a high school buddy and since junior high school through San Jose High, and he played basketball also. So I wanted to do his ceremony, but it was private, but that that was okay. But that was the intent to do that. And I guess you're right – that as senior manager boys that through the years I felt that way. And each time I do that, people come up afterwards and say, I didn't know he did those things. I said, "Well, he was never just an old man. He was a teenager like all of you." And sometimes when I recount some of the things that we did, when we were teenagers, you can see the family saying "What?" Well, because they didn't know him as a teenager. Right. So people didn't know Norm as a teen teenager. They knew him as being on the President's cabinet. And that's why I'm very proud of that, that he was some guy that we knew became very prominent.

(Interviewer) If I can just interject real quick. So I'm from the L.A. area, San Gabriel Valley, and I can just imagine around that time Pasadena, JPL, was that in its development or was that later?

Yes. It was in its formative years. JPL started with a bunch of graduate students at Caltech. Caltech at the time was all male and there were a lot of international students. We had several Chinese students. My roommate was Chinese. It was a Chinese scholar from China. And there was only one other Filipino there. But there were no Blacks. There's other Asian students, but I don't know if they were Chinese or Japanese. And that was it. And and in those days, Caltech was pretty small. There was only 500 or so undergrads and about 500 graduate students. And this is in 1954. I graduated San Jose State in '54. LA was quite a bit different than it is now in the 1950s. So the whole area was quite a bit different. Now, while I was in graduate school, even when we went off campus there in Pasadena, I don't recall at any time that there was any racial discrimination. We would go into the restaurants. There was no problems at all. And I would presume that because Caltech – the community was a little bit more like internationalized, I would assume. So there was no problems in any racial discrimination. Well, the only sympathy we got was our fellow graduate students. And it just we would commiserate. This is a tough course when we talk about the course of the classes and the professors. So I guess sharing frustrations was a way to that support. And then we had cases where we would have teams working together. So to try to get through the class. And in many cases or several cases, the professor is doing a research grant of some kind and required a lot of labor to do whatever computations, data analysis, or graphing in those days. And the graduate students did that. And of course, you did that kind of labor if you wanted a grade in this class. Of course we did that easily and we did that as a team.

Once I left San Jose State, my connection to engineering and the school was essentially gone. I did not go back on campus after graduation out of Caltech. Yes, that's right. I think I did not go back to campus.

(Interviewer) Did you stay in contact with your family at all during these times?

My family? Yes. Yeah. I wrote letters or telephone calls and they come down to visit at times on occasion. I think only once or twice. And then the second time was when I graduated. I didn't realize it at the time, but a degree from Caltech, and I guess I suppose degree a degree from M.I.T., or any of the top high-powered schools, you know, opens a lot of doors. So I remember when the recruiters would come on campus. I mean, you would be, they would want to talk to all of the high-powered graduate students, of course. The ones in PhDs, they were on top. And the ones who had master's degrees or bachelor's degrees. The recruiters were on campus, and you could name it wherever you wanted to work. And that was true. And I should say that I was lucky, that fortunate that I got a graduate scholarship because I could not have gone to Caltech, or Stanford for that reason, or even Cal Berkeley, because I was just too poor. And so that one year at Caltech changed my life. My professional career, or made my professional career, I should say.

Okay, so after I ended up looking over all the offers, and I went to work for Rocketdyne because they were working on rocket engines, and I wanted to become a rocket engineer. So I worked for Rocketdyne for about a couple of years, maybe two and a half or three years. And then I found out that a big corporation called Lockheed was building a facility in Sunnyvale, and this was my chance to come back home. So I sent a letter to the Lockheed responding to one of their ads. Well, of course, it was almost immediate that they sent back a letter saying that they would like to interview me. And so I came up and I got interviewed. And of course, it was perfunctory. They just said, "What did you do at Rocketdyne?" I did this and that. And then the next question was, "What are your salary requirements and when can you start?" I mean, those two questions blew me away because yeah, I had never thought about the salary requirement, and it's going to take a while to move from from from Canoga Park or Woodland Hills, where we were living at then to move up here. And I should say in 1955, I got married. So that changed things a lot too.

I married my sweetheart, Mardina Emband in 1955 during my graduate year, and we lived in Woodland Hills. Well, I work for Rocketdyne and she was also anxious to come back up here. So that started my career here at Lockheed in Sunnyvale.

(Interviewer) So you met her in high school? You say you're a sweetheart, so?

Oh, yes. Yeah, well, that that means going that means going back to the forties. So if I go back to the forties and during that time, in the 1940s, see I think it was '46 that some of the older Filipino teens said we form a youth club. So in November of 1946, we met at, I think it was the Dimansalang building next to the the existing Filipino community building. A group of us young teens decided to form a club, Filipino Youth Club. It was called the San Jose Agenda Club of Filipino Youth. Now, there were other Filipino clubs throughout the Bay Area, throughout Northern California like Vallejo, Sacramento, Stockton, Central Valley, Livingston, Salinas, San Francisco. So what happened was that they developed a relationship amongst those clubs via sports. So one club would organize the basketball tournament. So we would go up and play a basketball and compete. And then that night there would be awards and a dance to a live band. Well, here's a chance to meet all these girls from different cities, right. And through one of those groups, organizations, and develop relationships. And then, of course, you would say, "Hey, let's get together again" or whatever. And that's how I met Mardina. And by the way, like a whole lot of us met our wives from other cities. And of course, this was one those things where, "Wow, those gals from the other cities sure looked a lot cuter than ours." That's one of those things that that well, of course, there's just so many with a comment. Our girls were so attractive to the other guys.

Yes, I guess you'd say this was typical. Is that when you're working in aerospace, or I guess in any tech company. If you display some some ability to participate and then show that you're eager to get things done, then you become one of those that would be selected to lead a group, not necessarily a big formal group, but say we got a contract, we need somebody to work on trajectories and I said, "Yeah, well, I'll do that." So I would have who had worked knew astrodynamics and computers, and I remember this is the early age, so you had to get a group of people together. And so I did that several times. Maybe not necessarily because I was a great leader, but because I had an intense interest. And I guess in some eyes that management is equivalent to leading a group. So I did that in several projects, and I did that for several NASA projects. And I became either a system program project manager, or I was one of the leaders or project leader on certain topics. But nothing that led me to become a department manager or anything like that. And I think at that time I was not really interested in that kind of thing because then you get involved with working with a lot of people on a managerial status rather than one of the guys who has a great interests. And we all have interest in those. I'll get together and okay, I'll take, I'll take the lead now. I'll make sure we get all reports together and that we have all our briefings all tight and neat when we give our briefings to the NASA representative or to the Air Force or the Navy representatives, we worked on DOD contracts as well as Navy, as well as NASA.

I guess that part of being a part of a team, that's one. The other is experiencing, you know, life outside your professional life, you know, meeting other people, different other groups. The youth clubs, for instance right? The the technical project teams and the racial discrimination. Now, let me get to that one.

Let's see the I forgot the name of the organization that we're actually working with that I was working, that I volunteered for. And that's the poor part of my memory. I can't even think of some of the people that that I work with except for Cleto Anacleto. And that's only because of the incident with his what his his daughter, Emily. That so let me see that when I tried to get the I talked to each of the organizations and told them let's set up a a process whereby, you know, you're mutually supportive, don't want to take over the organizations or make you merge. Just say let's just coordinate. And so I came up with the idea of calling a coordinating council with the principal from each of the organizations has to meet occasionally and, and share their their activities and what they're doing and maybe help them feel that they're being mutually supportive. Well, one of the unhappy characteristics of the Filipino organizations in the early days in that that day, 1970s, is that they're very suspicious of anyone that they feel is going to either overly influence the group or take over leadership. It didn't matter how often I tried to assure them that that's not what we're doing. And so I had a tough time trying to get the coordinating council to coordinate, to be cooperative. And it's one of those things where I guess I didn't have the proper training to deal with the bunch of people who have different ideas and different perspectives. And so I was unable to get them to to actually be a viable organization at about that time, I decided that I really am not a community organizer, an activist or anything of that sort.

(Interviewer) All the films, all the art and stuff that you consume, and you didn't see and the studio, you didn't really see yourself reflected in the media. Did you ever think about that or did that thought ever crossed your mind?

Oh, well, you know, let me see. I guess the only time that it was that point came across to me was I think it was a war movie. It was “Back to Bataan,” John Wayne. Right. There was supposed to be Filipinos in there, right. Those Filipinos in a movie. Right. Well, I don't know if there were a few, few people. I think there was one or two that were actually there. Right. So the the thought that there was in the movie, there was a Filipino. Right, was striking to me. And then subsequently also and then now, of course, that's that's sort of common. There's Filipino movies. There's Asian movies, you know, as is these Bollywood movies and so on and so which I guess even now when I watch a movie that has Filipino and Chinese characters, I think that's pretty cool because I grew up in an era in the 1930s was all white, right? Or if they had a Black in it, it was a servant or a slave or something like that. So but that I thought, well, and here's the strange thing, is that when I saw those kind of movies, I thought, well, that's just the way it is, right? I didn't see all those poor Blacks. Hey it’s just part of the play that they're playing in the movie. The part to play in the movie. I didn't understand the larger world at that time.

(Interviewer) How did you kind of like come into your own with your activism and like your influence in organizing?

Well, I think I think that maybe when I started doing these Pinoytown tours and then as as I mentioned, I got involved with the Filipino American National Historical Society. So my horizon widened again as I didn't consider activism as such. But it became apparent to me that, you know, a lot of stories won't get told unless I do them, unless I capture them. And so that part of me says that, yeah, if somebody says, like you today, you want to get interviewed. Oh, yeah. Somebody says like previously, could you talk to this group of people? Oh, yeah, doesn't matter what time, when and how long. As long as it's is. You have a group there that is willing to hear my story or hear not my story, but the story I'm going to tell about other people. But the Filipino, Ilocano, or their travails or hardships or anything related to that. So it became the point to where sometimes I feel like gee, I hope I don't mess up my calendar and have two have to at the same time. But whatever it whatever it is now is being a point where I feel responsible that I should do what I can to make sure that the Filipino American history is told reasonably accurately. It can't be done totally accurately because a lot of his stories are hearsay. Well, maybe hearsay is better than none at all. I don't know. But you have to make that judgment. And so what I do is to the best of my ability to what information I have and what I've heard and learned and read, I coalesce into a story that I hope is was informative enough, forceful enough that maybe some of the students that are watching this will remember and they themselves will become interested in capturing, as I've said before, their parents history and their family tree. And every student, everyone I talked to, I hope, would take that very least, especially when I when I say this, I know I talked for 45 minutes. You probably won't remember too much. But remember this, you know, document your family's history, write it down, get their story and write a family tree.

I’m totally associated from Filipino history, community historian and all that sort of stuff. I'm also a member of the board of directors of the Moffett Field Historical Society, and we have a museum there. So I volunteer several years ago because I'm interested in military history. I thought, well, this is something I could get involved in as even though it's a it's an old base and it is shut down. But it was at one time in a U.S. Army Air Corps base and a U.S. Navy base where they had a lot of the anti-submarine warfare blimps come out. So I thought too that would be great. So I went to the one of the museums, one of the meetings, and often they are like to volunteer. And it turns out that one of the couple of things they are lacking was his historian. And I said, Oh, sure, I do that. I mean, because I am doing this history, that's Filipino American history. So I thought for sure of the history, they also don't have an armor. Well, yeah, my National Guard training gave me a training in in weapons. So I'm the armor for the for the for the museum. And I set up displays for ordnance, rifles, weapons, grenades, rockets, bombs, and I write histories. And when we get an artifact and it doesn't have to be ordnance, it could be any artifact. In fact, it expended like we had a pair of binocular. Okay, what's this about? So I look up the serial numbers and look at the at what numbers that are on there that would identify it. So I do a search through our books or or more easily on the Internet.

And then I write up a description we put up up on a display case somewhere and then make up a little sign that says shoes with this binoculars all about. Or Here's what this uniform is about for the visitors. And that's sort of a neat little thing because I am interested in military history, World War Two and Korean War history. And what’s sort of neat about this too is the people I work with which I call a bunch of characters because they're all veterans and they're retired and they have a bunch of stories too, which I help captures for, say, one of the displays. So one of our, say, a members would have a say, a vest that he wore while he was on an aircraft carrier and he wants to donate it to the museum. So I say, Oh, it is great. So I wrote up a story about that vest. And so those are the kinds of things that I that are peripheral.

(Interviewer) When you were young, when you were eight, nine, ten. Did you have heroes?

Oh, yeah, cowboy heroes. Because in the 1930s. Well, I'm eight, ten years old. It was easy. It was cheap to go to, say, the San Jose Theater, Downtown San Jose and go watch the movies. And our favorites were were cowboy movies. Right. Because they were very heroic.

(Interviewer) How about comic book heroes?

Comic books. The heroes, the the the common ones nowadays, you know. Superman, Captain Marvel, Great Wonder Woman. Those are comic book heroes, right? The movie heroes, of course, with the Cowboys. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy. But those were fictional heroes, right? You know, movie heroes like John Wayne, those kinds of heroes there. But but a real life hero, I wasn't aware at the time because I didn't read anything outside of comics or go to movies or see anything other than movies.

It's only because when I became interested in military history that, yeah, I read about real heroes in the medal of Honor Heroes, members of the 442 Battalion, first and second Philippine Infantry Regiment, the survival of the of the my uncles and who joined the Filipino regiments and fought in the Pacific. You know, unfortunately, I didn't get their stories only by coincidentally it was not a an intent to capture their stories. And that was a mistake. And I'm sure that was probably a mistake for a lot of the children of the of the Nisei soldiers to capture their stories. So the real heroes, I mean, the true heroes who served in the military, you know, their stories were forgotten unless unless they were heroic, like Medal of Honor winners. Yeah. Here's one story. A real a not a real hero, but a known fact. And that is the all Nissei 442nd Regimental Combat Team was not all Nisei. There's one Filipino in there. And I discovered that only because one of my colleagues Beverly Engkabo from the Filipino American National Historical Museum, we were at the Bataan legacy ceremony on the USS Hornet in Alameda, and they had a 442 and 100 battalion exhibit on the second on the on one of the decks on the museum. And I told this the docent there hey, my, my barber was a member of the 442 and they said, Yeah, what's his name? I says, Tek Fukuda is Curt Fukuda's uncle. So I said, Oh yeah. So he pulls out his tablet, we go through that and he says, Oh yeah, here he is. And I looked at that. I said, Holy smoke, let me take a picture of that. I'll send it to Curt, he was surprised. Beverly, who's next to me, says, my uncle was in the service, too, and I think she was in for he was in the 4442, and he looked at this in no way. He says, What's his name? And I forget the name. And she said, he told me his name. He goes unnoticed. He goes like this. He says, Holy smoke, he is in the 442. And I said, I'm standing there and I'm amazed. Now there's my real hero. One guy in the 442 is a documented Filipino in the 442 regiment combat team, and all Nisei unit. Is that something? Now, you talk about heroes. He's my unknown hero.

You know, there's one that, there could be that could be by doing something like that that you could find the basis for for fighting anti-Asian discrimination. It's a basis or a start. I don't think it's a solution, but it might be just a start because because when each of us becomes more self-aware and then that's an enlightenment for yourself, but then put that in a larger context and an even more larger context. So maybe each one of these kids, when they're growing up now, they have a seed within them that says, hey, yeah, you know, those, those guys from Korea, you know, they're not so different, you know, or maybe somebody from the South who had these kids now or attending here, you can say, you know, I think my dad was a little bit wrong about the the the Native Americans, you know. So maybe that's a seed. I don't know. But you got to start someplace. Maybe that's one way.