Interviews

1. Family interrelations between mother and father

2. Christian gatherings in homes

3. Nickname

4. Not bringing shame to family

5. Little interaction with parents

6. Life in camp as teenager

7. Politics in ethnic studies

8. Center for Japanese American Studies in community

9. Involvement with theater

10. Involvement with ethnic studies

11. Involvement with strike

12. Relationship with S.I. Hayakawa

13. How ethnic studies strike affected him

14. Context affects meaning

15. Past ties to present situation in Middle East

16. Role of the Japanese American National Museum

17. Gordon's parents' experience in prison

18. Testing assumptions of Japanese scholars

James Hirabayashi

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

Family interrelations between mother and father

And as a matter of fact, there had been interrelationship, in-law relationship, between my mother’s family and my father’s family prior to my father and mother getting married. Because my mother’s uncle, the mayor, married my father’s older sister. So that when the families decided that it was time for my father to get married, he was already in Seattle. And, well, I guess he had lived in Seattle for about seven years. And then the family decided it’s time for him to get married. They looked into my mother’s family for an available mate and picked my mother. So my mother came over as a picture bride. But, as I say, the families were already interrelated. And there’s a tendency in Japan to do that because in-law relationships entail a lot of duties and obligations, so that if you create too many of them, it becomes a burden. So there’s a tendency to reinforce ties that are already there.

arranged marriages brides marriages migration picture brides wives

Date: January 7, 2004

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Art Hansen

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum.

Interviewee Bio

James Hirabayashi, son of hardworking immigrant farmers in the Pacific Northwest, was a high school senior in 1942 when he was detained in the Pinedale Assembly Center before being transferred to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp in Northern California.

After World War II, he earned his Bachelor of Arts and Masters in Anthropology from the University of Washington, and eventually his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Hirabayashi is Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University where he was Dean of the nation’s first school of ethnic studies. He also held research and teaching positions at the University of Tokyo, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and Ahmadu Bellow Univerity, Zaria, Nigeria.

He passed away in May 2012 at age 85. (June 2014)