Episode # 138

Who Do We Call Americans? with John Tateishi

When we first thought about talking to our guest John Tateishi today, we thought about diving into the reparations process that he helped lead for Japanese survivors of the internment camps on American soil - especially as a great follow-up to our conversation with cameron whitten about reparations for slavery. Being biracial Japanese/White women, growing up in the United States meant that the history of internment camps, reparations, and the treatment of Japanese Americans as the “other” were things that we didn’t necessarily learn about in school, but knew through our communities. We thought we couldn’t speak to a better person about this than someone who had been deeply and critically involved in the Japanese American reparations process from the start.

What we didn’t expect, however, was the personal history lesson that we got - from what it was like in Manzanar, to coming back to postwar Los Angeles, to what it means to be an American. You won’t want to miss this conversation - in fact, we had to cut it short when we wanted to talk to John for several more hours. Get ready to learn everything you didn’t learn in school today.

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“It was a process that we went through. But you know, for kids growing up in those camps, and then coming out, it was a really confusing time trying to reconcile ourselves as American. We understood who we were. But you know, our understanding was, we were Japanese first, and then American, even though we were told you're American, and you happen to be Japanese. But because everything was stacked against us racially, it really turned us inward to ourselves. And so...we started articulating the experience with each other, and kept that memory alive.”
John Tateishi

What to listen for:

John’s personal experience as a young person incarcerated at Manzanar - and what it was like returning to society
The makeup of Los Angeles in the post-war period - and how different communities banded together
What John sees as the differences between the successful campaign he helped lead for Japanese American reparations, and what hurdles are facing Black Americans, starting with HR40

About John Tateishi: Incarcerated as a child in one of America’s WWII concentration camp, John Tateishi carried that memory with him when he launched the Japanese American reparations campaign in 1978. He directed the public affairs and legislative strategies of the campaign until 1986, two years before the campaign ultimately culminated with the signing of the Civil Liberties Act. Ten years later, he led the JACL’s challenge against the Bush administration’s policies that targeted Arab and Muslim communities and undermined the civil liberties of all Americans. He is the author of Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations (2020).

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