Ozawa, Alexander (6/24/2021)

JJ Ueunten: Today is June 24th, 2021, and this oral history is being recorded at the Japanese American Service Committee building at 4427 North Clark Street in Chicago, Illinois. The interviewer is JJ Ueunten and the interviewee is Alexander Ozawa. This interview is being recorded by the JA-- JASC Legacy Center in order to document the experiences of Japanese Americans in the Chicago area. Okay. What is your full name?

Alexander Ozawa: My full name is Alexander James Ozawa.

JJ Ueunten: What's your year of birth?

Alexander Ozawa: I was born in 1991.

JJ Ueunten: And where were you born?

Alexander Ozawa: I was born in Park Ridge, Illinois.

JJ Ueunten: And were any members of your family incarcerated during World War II?

Alexander Ozawa: Yes, they were.

JJ Ueunten: Okay. And if so, what camps were they in?

Alexander Ozawa: I'm not entirely sure what camps everyone was in. I know for certain that some family members were in Manzanar, Tule Lake and Fort Sill.

JJ Ueunten: And, when did your family first come to the U.S.?

Alexander Ozawa: Not exactly sure when all of my family came to the U.S. I know it was before my great-grandmother was born in Hawaii. I think that was the previous generation, was born in Japan and had immigrated to the United States. But I know since then some other family members have come from Japan in the previous two generations.

JJ Ueunten: And when and how did your family come to live in the Chicago area?

Alexander Ozawa: I think it was after World War II and relocation from the 00:02:00internment camps. I know most of my family was relocated to the East Coast. I think it might have been New York. And then they were put on a train out there, and then they wanted to make their way back to California where they were before the camps and I think on the way back from the East Coast to the West Coast, you know, just financially couldn't make it back. So I think once they got to Chicago, my understanding is that there was already an existing Japanese American community here you know that had like, wasn't quite as affected as my family was on the West Coast and a lot of other Japanese Americans were. So I think they met a lot of people here and end up settling and staying.

JJ Ueunten: Oh, thank you. Yeah. So I know you mentioned some of the, some of the places that your family was incarcerated in. Do, have you heard kind of any stories about any of, any of those?

Alexander Ozawa: Some stories. Because I know from, there's a bit of a generational gap too, of who was incarcerated. So I know my great-grandmother and her generation, along with some of the much younger children that would be like my grandfather's age, were in the camps. But then my grandma, her eldest brother were in Japan at the time, going to school and living with family and friends while the war was happening. So there's a little bit of gap in my understanding of what the experience was like because some of them were so little and a lot of them were older and I didn't get to spend a lot of time with them before they passed to hear stories directly from them. But it sounded like from people that were a lot younger in the camps, that it was a lot of like childhood absence of things like you get to do as a kid. One of my uncles, he went on to be an artist and created a lot of work that was informed by his experience growing up in Manzanar and just, you know, it wasn't the environment 00:04:00that I feel like children should be in anywhere from the sounds of it. Not getting to play with other kids or playing in a limited capacity, not getting together in community and have like the same foundational structure and just kind of feeling... It, I know there was like a feeling of lonesomeness in a way, or like, you know, just absence.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. Did, did your uncle who was an artist and, and kind of made work about it, talk about that to you? Or have you like seen his art or how, how do you know what you know?

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah, that was, that uncle's, Arthur Towata and he did an exhi-- a whole art series on Manzanar, which he brought back I think you know, probably with, like about 20 years ago to the site you know, and brought some of the works there and brought back to California and showed them in other places. But I know he's written several, you know, small pieces and been interviewed 00:05:00about the work where a lot of the colors and things like that are informed by like what the space looks like, where there's you know, a lot of use of like large black blocks in it you know, that represent like the buildings, but also kind of figuring out later on that there's a, a draw to painting like butterflies and dragonflies and a lot of things, you know, like wildlife and insects you see around the camps that as a kid like, is whimsical and you're playing with you know, in the place of like being able to play with other kids in the same way. So it seemed like there's this like, you know, a really long lasting emotional connection in creating things.

JJ Ueunten: Mhmm. So he was in Manzanar, like do you know other kind of specific family members that were there?

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah, my grandfather, George Towata, he was in Manzanar too. He was younger, so I think he was quite young when he was in the camps with great-grandmother. Other family members from my grandmother's side, I'm not sure 00:06:00exactly where they were located, but my understanding is it was likely Manzanar? And then I know some people were moved to Tule Lake and there was some family separation just between you know, who like, a lot of the children were U.S. citizens, and then some of the parents were not. So I know some people were moved, grandfather's father was moved to Fort Sill, and then I think that was the last time they ever saw him was then.

JJ Ueunten: Do you know, do they kind of know what happened to him or no?

Alexander Ozawa: No. I think this is where I'm not sure, and I, and it isn't talked about much, I, I don't, what I do know is that there isn't a lot known about his death at Fort Sill, but the understanding is that his life was taken by a soldier, a prison guard, and his remains were never returned to the family, 00:07:00and I don't think details were ever given to the family about what happened.

JJ Ueunten: Wow.

Alexander Ozawa: So not a lot of recognition.

JJ Ueunten: Do you kind of know anything about people moving to Tule Lake or the circumstances around that?

Alexander Ozawa: I, I do not. I'm not sure when, but I think that some of the family was moved from Manzanar to Tule Lake and I'm not, I'm not sure why.

JJ Ueunten: Thank you. I know you mentioned your great-grandmother was in, born in Hawai'i.

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. Any kind of pre-war things that you know about that you want to share?

Alexander Ozawa: I don't know a lot about before the war. I do know that my great-grandmother, they were in Hawaii and they had moved to like the Los 00:08:00Angeles area and were settled there and you know, had a business, had a home before everyone was moved, and they lost all of it at that time.

JJ Ueunten: Let's see. Yeah, so you mentioned that your, your family like, some of your family like went from camp to the East Coast and then kind of, on their way back to West Coast, like settled here in Chicago. Yeah, anything else that you kind of want to say about that or things that you've heard about that experience?

Alexander Ozawa: I don't know the specifics of what the experience was like for my family to be moved from the camps to the East Coast or what it was like 00:09:00trying to get back to what home was on the West Coast in California. But my understanding is that when they came across Chicago, I think adding to how tough the situation was, you know and probably how heartbreaking it was financially, but also emotionally and you know for so many reasons that the community in Chicago seems like it was really supportive for people. The Japanese community specifically in Chicago like really helped them out a lot and they realized that there's people here you know, that were supporting one another. So I think you know, on being able to find another place that wasn't as hostile as California, I think was a big draw to Calif-- staying in Chicago, but also you know, finding community seemed to be a big part of it, so, I know they became pretty rooted in you know, the area around here too, having, I know my dad always talked about when he was little, he'd worked, they had a little tofu factory, so... I can't 00:10:00remember. I think it was Halsted and Aberdeen... I want to say? And then I remember him telling stories about like working there, but I know they had like started a few businesses and I think tried different things. They had a dry cleaners too, which wasn't too far away. And then I know they also, my great-grandmother and my great-grandfather on the Tanaka side, they had a Japanese restaurant, I think it was called Tenkatsu, where my great-grandma worked in front and my great-grandpa worked in the kitchen in the back.

JJ Ueunten: Do you know if that was kind of in like Lakeview area too?

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah, really, really nearby because they all grew up by, I think my dad grew up on Broadway and Barry over there, so not too far away. So it all, it was all pretty nearby to this area.

JJ Ueunten: And yeah you, and so your family's pretty much been here, and then 00:11:00you were born in Park Ridge? Yeah. When did they kind of move?

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah, my, me and my sister were born at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. My dad grew up in Chicago. My mom, who is Caucasian, she grew up in Pekin, Illinois, in centr-- the Central Illinois area. They both met, I think around college and then had both lived in the city for a long time, I think kind of around this area too, around a lot of family that still lived in Chicago. And then before, me and my sister were born in 1989 was when my sister Sarah was born. I was born in 1991. Few years prior to that, they moved out to Prospect Heights, Illinois, and then that's where, where we grew up.

JJ Ueunten: Let's see. On, on the form, you mentioned you might be comfortable talking a little bit about the Redress movement. Was your family in-involved in 00:12:00that at all, do you know?

Alexander Ozawa: I don't know if they were involved in organizing or any part of the legislation, but I do know that they received reparations and I don't know to what extent, you know, how many people received it. Yeah, not, not very much talked about, but it is something that I know happened that my great-grandmother received it, and then I'm not sure to what capacity everyone else also received it for like, the kids... I, but I don't think they were involved in the organizing to-- for Redress.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. And you said they don't talk much about like whether like it meant something or anything like that?

Alexander Ozawa: No, not, not so much. I, I feel like it did, but that's also I think, my own assumption that any apology and you know, something does matter and make a difference. But yeah, it, it's not, it hasn't been talked about much 00:13:00with me or my sister to our understanding.

JJ Ueunten: Let's see. Maybe... I'm kind of curious about, it sounds like your family had a lot of kind of Japanese American community here in Chicago. What kind of was your experience growing up? Yeah. Did, did you kind of have connection to Japanese American community?

Alexander Ozawa: I think I did have a connection to the Japanese American community, maybe in a more assimilated way though. I grew up really close to all my family who was Japanese American around the Chicagoland area, so they've always kind of been like an anchor. You know, we always see each other regularly throughout the year, but also like being really little, I remember going to Ginza and that was always like a part of summer. Like summer was associated with like going to Ginza and also just having some activities like practicing Aikido 00:14:00you know, and having some, some smaller like activity based community that was culturally tied, but me and my sister didn't grow up speaking Japanese. We knew maybe a few words when we were really little enough to like say some things we wanted, but never enough to have a conversation and you know, develop into being bilingual in that way. We didn't attend Japanese school, and I think that was more of a conscious decision on, on my dad's part.

JJ Ueunten: What, can you say a little bit more about that decision?

Alexander Ozawa: I don't know. We, we've never talked about why we didn't like go to a Japanese school. I think some of it might have been like access too, like for you know, just signing up for it, where it was too, you know what accessibility would work for my folks, but I think... I think a part of it like is my own assumption that it's like kind of protective to just be more American 00:15:00and less Japanese, which you know, is, is a way to keep yourself safe in the face of discrimination and adversity.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. Let's see. Well, I'm, I'm curious, did your dad at all speak Japanese?

Alexander Ozawa: No, I don't think so. He definitely doesn't now. (laughs) And I know his sister, my, my aunt she, Amy Ozawa, she understands a bit and can speak a little bit, but I think in that generation, there's a few people that are bilingual, but people don't actively speak it as their, their language at home, I don't think.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. You've talked a little bit about how kind of a lot things weren't necessarily like discussed about the incarceration. I was wondering if 00:16:00you kind of see any changes of that over the generations, like certain generations being like more or less willing or wanting to talk about it?

Alexander Ozawa: I see a difference in wanting to talk about incarceration with younger generations. I feel like a lot's happening with like my peers, like within the group Nikkei Uprising. I feel like having those spaces where people want to talk about it and it feels like healing and in a way to like learn a lot more about ourselves and also history. Within my family, I, I do feel like the older generations that experienced it, I think there's a lot of unaddressed trauma from it and... A, a sense that it's in the past and there's nothing to do to fix it, so why bring back the pain? And it's kind of difficult to bring it up, like not wanting to cause you k-- painful emotions and feelings and memories 00:17:00and a lot of hardship, but also wanting to know more, kind of makes it difficult to figure out like you know, how, how to learn that family history. But as I'm getting older, I think I'm asking you know, my aunt, my dad and certain people a lot more questions about what happened, but also kind of talking about it in the sense of we're still going through a lot of those things too with you know, the way oppression looks in this country now. And I think opening up that conversation through like modern politics and events is... It, it's a different way of talking about it rather than just saying, "What was that like?" 'cause I think a lot of people don't want to talk about it, or they're not willingly bringing up the conversation. So I think figuring out, like, it's just hard to ask sometimes.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. Are, are you finding, like when you ask about it in terms of like things that are happening currently, yeah, how does that kind of change the 00:18:00conversation, or maybe the willingness?

Alexander Ozawa: I think, I think a lot of times it like changes the conversation into like looking at, I think one thing that sticks out is talking about Japanese American incarceration and why that's connected to child detention and you know separation of families and immigrant centers in the Southwest and throughout the country. That looking at like those policy and government decisions in a different way. I feel like by having like an empathetical approach to it and then looking back at like, you know, those things did happen to people we know, like some people that are still alive, that are close to us.

JJ Ueunten: Are there kind of behavioral patterns that you see in yourself or other people in, in your family that you think are, are or could be connected to 00:19:00kind of, your family's wartime experiences?

Alexander Ozawa: I think I've probably inherited a lot of like personality and behavioral traits from my family. I think we share a lot of the same, same things. Yeah, with avoiding, trying to avoid being too personal, I think there's a lot of lingering scarcity and like need for stability and security that I think comes directly from being, you know, losing your home, your business before relocation and forced detention during the camps. That still kind of exists now. I think from, in a way, being aware that a lot of things are necessities and having things is a privilege too, but wanting to like hold onto your things. I think a lot of times that becomes you know, where... More placed importance on ownership of property, you know, and seeing the value of like, you 00:20:00know, what the cost is to, to keep something or to like achieve something or reach something. I think there's a lot of... Yeah a, a lot of inherited trauma for, for you know, just maintaining resources, which sometimes I feel like can be equated with hoarding and having too many things, but that kind of recognizing that that comes from somewhere.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. I guess like in, in addition to kind of like the trauma or maybe some hard things, like are, are there also kind of like resilience things that you see kind of passed down?

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah, I think... I'd, I'd say everyone in my family's pretty tough. (laughs) Yeah, I, I think everyone's really hardworking too, and values 00:21:00that like in a way that what's, I don't know if it's from what happened, but everyone has like, I know that has raised me is incredibly hardworking and diligent and determined. So I think there's a lot of resilience in that, but also looking at... You know, I think a lot of people weren't broken by the experience and decided they weren't going to be broken by it, and you know use that stubbornness to like kind of hold onto the power they had over what they were going to do with their own lives.

JJ Ueunten: I wanted to ask too, if, if you wanted to share a little bit about your experiences being like mixed. And yeah. I don't know how you see kind of 00:22:00your, your family's different identities kind of showing up for you or anything around that.

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah that's a hard question. It, being, being mixed race is really weird, and I think it's really complicated, and I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm you know, 29 years old and it still doesn't make complete sense to me for identity, and, you know, just sense of self. I, it, there is a part of it where... I think there's a lot of imposter syndrome no matter what, in lots of different capacities. You know, I'm trying to think of how to explain this without like going into, like it's just such an intersectional like issue. I feel like the, that not feeling fully Japanese or not feeling fully white is kind of difficult because I do feel like it's, growing up, it's like, well, what lunch table do you sit at? And not speaking Japanese, not being culturally 00:23:00Japanese, but also ethnically not being either or is a little bit difficult. But at the same time, I feel like that a lot of those conflictions have made it easier to understand and like come to just better thinking about what it's like to be a person and that like, how made up races and how it's just a tool of like white supremacy to pit people against each other from not really knowing like, from not being able to choose a side. Yeah, it's, it's something that was really difficult being a kid, and I think now it's still something that's a little confusing to navigate, but, but still something like I'm always thinking about. It's not something I think that's ever going to be concretely decided on.

JJ Ueunten: Let's see. Well, I, I did also kind of want to ask, I, I know you're 00:24:00like pretty involved in certain political things, and I wanted to ask, like, I think you touched on it a little before, but like how, if you see kind of your family's incarceration history or any other parts of the, of your family's history like kind of informing that?

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah, I think... I think my family's history has definitely informed my politics, but not necessarily influenced my activism. I don't know if this is common with like other Japanese American families, but we, a lot of the more conservative people, they don't talk about politics quite as much. While, me or my sister, a lot of my peers, we like to talk about politics and issues and have difficult discussions. And I think a lot of times that with the 00:25:00older generation, we're not necessarily having difficult discussions. And I'm not sure exactly why. I have my own guesses for why that might be, but I think the experience of what my you know, great-grandparents, my grandparents, and my parents have gone through definitely informs why I want to be politically active and just looking at, I feel like history gives a better lens for what's happening now in what we can do.

JJ Ueunten: Let's see. Yeah, I guess, yeah, I'm just curious if, if there's anything that like, we haven't touched on that you want to share that feels important?

Alexander Ozawa: Oh, I don't know.

JJ Ueunten: That's totally fine. Let's see. Okay, c-can we pause it? [Break] All 00:26:00right. Can you share a little bit about your experiences growing up in Park Ridge?

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah. So me and my older sister, Sarah, were born in Park Ridge and grew up in Prospect Heights, which is about 30 minutes northwest of Chicago, still in Cook County. Growing up was really great, had really great parents and they like really provided and did so much for us that like we had like the essential like American kid like childhood. I mean we got to play sports and get into like arts and activities and really explore and figure out like what we liked as people and what like drew us into our curiosities. Like our parents were both like really great at like providing that environment for us, and you know like I think having a strong like family unit, you know there was a lot of 00:27:00like difficulty growing up and like going through our own things, but always felt supported by them. I think you know going to school and being around a lot of other kids, it was a very white area, and I think I didn't realize how you know segregated and different it was for different people. Just growing up in a middle class community and being mixed race, being half white, half Japanese, just kind of thinking I was one of the white kids you know, and it was never the sort of thing of thinking that like I am different and realizing as you get older that like you are treated differently for reasons that you don't fully understand as a kid, but become more apparent and a lot clearer as you become older and look back on it. And I think a lot of that was really hard growing up, is just being othered and being treated in a way that is somewhat tokenized or 00:28:00discriminated against by other kids you know in ways that like don't make sense when you're little. But then realizing that like these are culturally ingrained white supremacist behaviors towards people that you know, no one's taught how to hate other people, but like kids pick up on what their parents do and you know what their neighbors do and what the older kids do. So I think it was really difficult making sense of like not fitting in, being a lot younger and being bullied quite a lot. And it got a lot clearer, I think by the time getting to middle school where kids learn all of these awful words, all these awful things that they don't know how to contextualize and maybe don't have the built empathy yet to know that they're running around like psychopaths you know, saying these things against other people. You know and also partaking in that because of that reason of the way other people spoke to me and spoke to other people and thinking that it is acceptable, normal and forgivable, okay behavior when the 00:29:00case is that is completely isn't-- And I remember the first time that I ever heard the term "Jap" was in sixth grade in the lunchroom, and one of the few other minority students at my middle school, he was an Indian friend, well, somewhat friend acquaintance. He got upset about something and took out his anger and called me a stupid Jap at the lunchroom table. And I didn't know what it meant, but the way he said it like hurt, and I knew it was wrong and bad, and it just kind of felt a lot different, you know hearing it from someone that you know wasn't doing the like "chink eyed expression" to me as all the kids called it. You know like actually being direct and coming from another kid that was a person of color kind of threw me off. And immediately, another one of my friends who was white, just looked at me and he was always a good friend, just said 00:30:00like, like what, he's like, "Don't let him call you a Jap, you need to like, call him a sand N word." And the whole thing just escalated really quickly into this confusion of like I was paralyzed and I couldn't say anything. I didn't know what to do. And I'm pretty sure that I ended up like going and hiding somewhere and just left the table without saying anything to anyone. And I think from there like it just got worse as kids got older, got a lot more bold and learned a lot more words. And I think, were a lot more socially competitive in a way that was really difficult. I think at a lot of times of like encountering, you know, there's always going to be a bully. There's always going to be someone that's like flexing their power and you know, trying to dominate everyone and want the attention. And you know for whatever reason, you know like kids are like that. But like continuing through middle school, being called an Asian pig, 00:31:00Jap several times, and one kid did it so often to me in our Spanish class, and he sat right across the desk from me that I was just, would never say anything. I got fed up and I said, "You're a piece of white trash." And then I think that was kind of the point where like I realized what gaslighting was, where the kid got up and he was always really loud and yelled, "That's racist, you're a racist." And the whole thing got flipped on me. All these other kids joined in. I said, "Well, he's been calling me a Jap and an Asian pig like every day like in this period." And I got really mad. And you know, it was the sort of thing where like I tried to not get into scuffles in school, but like it was just difficult like with a lot of people acting like that. And that sort of thing continued for a long time. And I feel like through that it was like really painful. And also I think boys don't really, and still don't, men don't like synthesize emotions at all, and you're not taught to do that. You're supposed to 00:32:00just like give it back to them, you're supposed to like, they call you an epithet, you call them an epithet, you know you just escalate. That, I thought it was okay to be like that and to use words like that against other people because that's just how people were. At a certain point, it was just ingrained and like reprogrammed from peers who weren't actually peers. They were operating from a completely different place and not treating me like I was an equal, and that's something that still like really bums me out. Thinking about it makes me really sad that like I used any of that same language against other people as a kid, just because it became normalized and you know, that's, that's the way you fit in. So I think looking back, that's like really tough to think about.

JJ Ueunten: Wow. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. I'm mean, I'm curious if, I don't know if you've had any kind of support or just, you just figured out what you kind of had to do at that point. Like did you, did you have any, anywhere to 00:33:00kind of talk, talk to or process any of that stuff that was going on?

Alexander Ozawa: As, like as a kid?

JJ Ueunten: Yeah.

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah. I think I had support from my parents a lot, family, but I just think like back in the early 2000s, no one was really like paying much mind to some of those issues like it might be now where people are a lot more aware of those things. Like I even had an English teacher, what was her name? Mrs. Thomas. She gave me a pack of origami paper in class and said, "You're Japanese, like I bet you like this." And I called her out. I'm like, "Well, that's like, like a bit fucked up." I'm sorry. "That's a bit racist." And then I don't think she noticed, and then she came in the next day and apologized. "I'm like, you're one of the teachers?" like I'm like, "Yeah, I'll m-, I'll make a crane, but you don't know that I can do that." So I, I think that like schools weren't as equipped and they didn't really like intervene when those things happened. I think it would be more so like a principal might tell a kid that you 00:34:00need to apologize, but not actually like address the situation and find any accountability for it or change like the culture of what the school's like that like this is not a place for like where we're allowed to do that to each other.

JJ Ueunten: I mean it, it sounds like you've really kind of reflected on, on that time a lot and like... Yeah, have kind of like a different perspective about how you go about things. Yeah. Is there anything that you're kind of like willing to share about how... Yeah, how you've gotten to where you are?

Alexander Ozawa: I think it's just a lot of little things to get to like the point of like thinking about... I mean, I guess especially over the last year of what like the uprisings of 2020 looked like for racial justice, you know after the murder of George Floyd and you know, so many other people. And just knowing a lot of these things, and always, always feeling like making noise about stuff 00:35:00was kind of frowned upon by other people, mostly white people or by people that are more conservative. And just dealing with that and just deciding that like it's, it's enough, you know? Like doing, like being inactive and just dealing with like the blows that come from systems and people and places that are like not healthy and like good for anyone. It's better to be active against that. So I think it's just a lot of frustration and a lot of inaction leading to eventually doing more.

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. And you kind of talked about kind of how boys and men are socialized and I, I think, yeah, I, I guess I'm, I'm just kind of... Sorry, I'm 00:36:00getting stuck.

Alexander Ozawa: It's cool.

JJ Ueunten: Just kind of curious about like any of, of your thoughts about that, especially maybe related to being Japanese or maybe not.

Alexander Ozawa: Yeah... Yeah I think socialization's really weird and I don't, like I'm trying to think of how to like clarify my thoughts on it. I feel like they're a little all over the place. Yeah, I, I feel like for like the socialization of like specifically boys in like American culture, we're just not taught emotional intelligence in a structured way or really in any way. And I feel like it would be really beneficial, you know, especially if we are in like 00:37:00intersectional places where like not everyone looks the same. Not everyone speaks the same languages, people don't speak the same food-- eat the same foods, you know like-- There's just like people are different and like that's okay. Like we are all just people still. And I feel like some of that is cultural, and I feel like that's something that's like not specific to just like white supremacist American culture, but it's also, like I feel like looking at like Japanese culture, there's like such an emphasis on men and boys and in that position too, like I don't know, you know, where the overlap is, but I feel like that is generally like a cross-cultural issue... That I wish I had more answers to, like... I just think some of it like isn't talked about. It, I feel like is dismissed on like the American side of things in like our broader culture. But then on the Japanese side, I feel like things aren't often talked about, and I don't really want to say that in the way that it's part of that like silent, 00:38:00model minority myth sort of way. I just think that it's, it's just not talked about from my experience you know that like the, the firstborn son gets the inheritance, gets the name, gets the all these things. I just feel like there's a lot of like crossovers that are like really dominating on both sides. And I have an older sister, so it's like, you know it's like, "Well, it all goes to her then if you set these rules."

JJ Ueunten: Yeah. Yeah. I, I guess I don't have much more to ask. I don't know any, any I guess, again, is, is there any kind of other things that you'd like to share?

Alexander Ozawa: I guess the one thing I feel is really important is, just like still having time with like older family members and still having like that 00:39:00sense of community feels really important, but also having like this younger group of peers that are like really politically active and care a lot and do a ton of like social solidarity work, I feel like is like coming from two different directions on like identity and like looking at like being Japanese American and as a culture of like what our ancestors and people have gone through, but also what we're trying to do now has felt like really important. So just really appreciate like you know, everyone that's reaching out to other groups and, and working in solidarity.

JJ Ueunten: Cool. Thank you.