Minority Youth - Akira (1971)

e [Music] more [Music] fore Jo [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] at home I'm in a traditional Japanese atmosphere where we speak Japanese and we have occasionally have Japanese food and we have rice every night but then outside of the home it seems that I'm in kind of a different world at school and like being in the band and I feel that I'm in between that I I I don't know if I could readily get along if I had to be in one culture all the [Music] time like if I were to move out of my house and not to to have any kind of Japanese uh background or if I were to go to Japan and live there I sometimes ask myself if I could get along [Music] last summer I left school in June maybe week and a half early and my dad and I went camping we sat in the late afternoon and just talked about himself and about me something that was really good because being hassled in the everyday life you know the routine schedule it was really relaxing just talking about things in talking to him about my friends and about the American people is very quiet he feels that he really can't understand what people they're saying so he just kind of keeps quiet I think he's very wise he's seen a lot of life he knows you know what's going on and sometimes I guess I feel that way about life that I know really what's going on and I talk to him or I think about it some more and I find that I really don't my mom has been working in at cleaning houses in domestic work you know uh maybe since the early 50s as far as I can remember she does a lot of things around the house more than just cleaning house and keeping garden and things like that she writes a lot of ponk poetri and she's limited as to what she can do because she has to bring in the income and I wonder sometime I sometimes wonder how she can do it I mean she's up very late at night washing the dishes or cleaning up and still she has time to ride in Japan uh she was an elementary school teacher first and second grade and she couldn't speak English that well to teach here she often mentions that you know she would like to really learn engl [Music] English I think my mother would wouldn't believe that I've tried marijuana or smoked it I don't know why one time I mentioned that I smok marijuana anything said no she shook her head said no I'm sure my dad knows that I've tried it because I was rolling a a joint in my room and I was leaning on the telephone book and he came in and got the telephone book looked at me looked at him and looked at the desk and he just walked out like nothing was there maybe nothing was you know to him nothing was there but I was just trembling shaking you know after oh my God what you know what's going to happen because I hear of all these other people you know who whose parents bust them now that I look look back on it like I don't have really any desire to smoke in marijuana now but I look back on it just a passing thing that maybe to other people would be a passing thing and then then again the some it could you know lead to other things I don't know I really don't know it was something that I thought then would be really nice to you know do for a long time but it really wasn't and I guess I've changed since then eat some kill my father came over from Japan uh kind of like a [Music] missionary through Hawaii Taiwan and the Philippines he came to America with with my mother this was maybe late 30s maybe 1940 and the war broke out and they were all brought into the [Music] camps and my mom and dad were separated for maybe the duration of the war my dad was brought to New Mexico and my mom and my my older brothers were down in Southern California near Loke and the reason why they were separate was that since my dad was a minister or something to do with religion that the government thought that he might have something to do with spreading Japanese propaganda to the other Japanese people on one occasion I was talking to my mother about the living quarters they had one small room for three kids and herself and I One pretty large bed and they tried to make the best of it they made a lot of friends like still keeping in touch now they don't seem to hold any grudges or anything it's government and of the relocation centers that's about all I know [Music] about the Buddhist religion I just know some of the basic philosophies I don't know if I could really get into it and discuss them and one time a couple years ago I went and spoke at to a Sunday school class A Lutheran class they were studying the other religions of the world and I happened to know a person in that class and I was asked to go speak you know go talk about it and I talked to my dad and he tell me to say certain things about it and I did and like on on various VAR religious holidays the Buddhist religion we we pray before eating a long kind of thing sometimes I see no purpose in it now that I think of it because I've been brought up with it yet I really don't understand what it's saying and sometimes I talk to my dad I really don't know the meaning of being a Buddhist he said well you really don't have to if someone asks you just say that you're a Buddhist and that's [Music] enough I feel that I owe something to them not a debt but just a feeling I have my mother and my father have worked really hard and to look at my brothers see how far they've gone kind of feel that I'm kind of obligated to go just as [Music] far I guess it's customary in Japan like when you have a father who do does something the children usually follow what he does especially in being a minister cuz my my mother's father was a minister and her only brother is a minister down in Los Angeles and her sisters are are teachers in the religion my dad has you know let us do what we want to do rather than say well you're going to do this when you grow up and I think that's really good my father really didn't have a choice as to what he could do he he was restricted geographically and and otherwise for myself I I'm going to college and I have just the vast you know choice as to what to do and what I want to do with my life and he was saying he used well he used the term zaku which means kind of upper class you know and then I felt kind of a streak of guilt because you know he didn't have a choice and I do and I'm I'm not even thinking that I could have possibly been in a position like that and it makes me appreciate what I have and the position I'm in I guess before I was kind of going through without really thinking about it e [Music] must keep on the first