Interviews
Youth and Gidra
You know, we had a high school program too. Umm the Neighborhood Youth Corp. It was like a national program where the government was paying high school kids to work in community organizations. So we got some NYC kids, and they helped work on Gidra and then they also spread the word out to their friends.
And coincidentally at that time, I think it was the early 70’s, there was a drug epidemic in our community. And because of that, a lot of people, a lot of the community groups that were forming were aimed at working with young people, to try to prevent it. And you know a lot of people realized that it was related to a confusion and lack of identity, a sense of clear identity. And feeling ashamed of you know, who you were people used to talk about well my parents are immigrants and they never hug me.
Well, that’s because people don’t do that but, on TV you see the Brady Bunch and you know, people hugging so those kind of things, you know, were never explained to kids. So we, there was a lot of work done with young people. And I think that started being reflected in the newspaper too.
Date: September 28, 2011
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Kris Kuromitsu, John Esaki
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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