(gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for "Roots, Race & Culture" is provided in part by the Norman C. and Barbara L. Tanner Charitable Support Trust, and by donations to PBS Utah, from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hello my friends, and welcome to "Roots, Race & Culture" where we bring you into candid conversations about shared cultural experiences.

Aaron Asano Swenson, introduce yourself, my friend.

- Yeah, Aaron Asano Swenson.

I'm originally from Anchorage, Alaska, but I've been here in Utah for about 30 years, and I've been working as a professional actor, costume designer, doing some film and TV work.

And then recently started getting into a little bit more writing, and I was approached by Jerry Rapier from Plan-B to write this play for them.

- So I'm Bryan Kido, a local Utah actor.

I'm a native Utahn, lived here all my life.

I've been acting since college where I studied acting, and I've been very involved with the film, seeing film commercials throughout Utah.

And I've done some stage here and there, a lot through Plan-B, and then the show "Kilo-Wat", which I did.

- That's awesome.

Well, welcome and thank you for joining us on the show.

The playwright, the director, and the actor are all Japanese descent.

So here's the show's director, Jerry Rapier, explaining how this play came to be.

- "Kilo-Wat" focuses on the life and legacy of Wat Misaka, who led the University of Utah men's basketball team to its only two national championships in 1944 and 1947.

And I was shocked, as a Japanese-American man living in Utah, that I had never heard his story.

And I was fascinated by his standing as the first person of color to play in what is now known as the NBA, but I couldn't find a lot about him.

Wat waited to talk about his life until really late in his life.

And now that he has passed, the play became a search for his story.

And it made me think more about pieces that are missing in our history here in Utah.

- Can you tell us a little bit about, either one of you, about what life was like for him growing up in Ogden?

- Well, sure, I mean, you know, at that point in time, you know, even though we would've been talking about, you know, like late '20s, early '30s, you know, like anti-Japanese sentiment, you know, was still, you know, quite high, you know, in the United States and growing.

But you know Wat Misaka grew up in a part of Ogden, it's, you know, they call it Two-Bit Street, 25th Street.

It kind of had a reputation for being kind of a rougher part of town.

But as a result, it actually kind of ended up being a sort of a sanctuary, you know, for people from marginalized communities where they all kind of looked out for each other.

And it actually was one of the few places in Ogden where they experienced a lot less, you know, racial prejudice and felt a little safer.

It's actually a surprisingly great place to grow up in a lot of ways.

- But I just wanna know a little bit more about the sports side of him 'cause that's kind of where people get introduced to this story.

And he, the only championships for the University of Utah, where we sit right now on the campus of this school, were in basketball at least.

The only national championships were there with him and NCAA, NIT, what did his parents think of this sport and this event, like what he was doing?

- I mean, honestly at that point in time, you know, his father passed away when he was 15.

- Oh.

- You know, which really kinda left the family in a kind of a difficult position.

But his mother really did a phenomenal job of stepping up to the plate.

His father ran a barbershop, and so she, you know, to keep the business going, got her license, you know, like learned how to cut hair, ran that business, and supported like all three sons through college.

And they all played sports and they all attended college.

But, but yeah, so like, I mean, she was incredibly supportive.

The heartbreaking thing is that she never actually got a chance to see him play.

You know, as awesome as he was, you know, like during his collegiate career, yeah.

But I mean, the barbershop, you know, was a hub for the Japanese-American community.

'Cause you know, it wasn't just a barbershop, they also had like traditional Japanese baths, you know, it was a place where people from the Japanese-American community could, you know, like feel a little bit of home when they were here.

- Wow, in Ogden, Utah.

That's amazing.

- Yeah, so where did the name "Kilowatt" come from?

- Yeah, what- - Bryan.

Like, what, why, where does that originate from?

- It was his nickname that was given to him.

And that's what kind of, which goes by an unlikely hero in an unexpected sport.

And that kind of was like his nickname through, you know, his playing style, which is like connected, focused, energetic, and fast as lightning.

- Oh, cool.

- And he rarely, mainly he went by Wat.

That was the shortened version of his, of Wataru but he never went by Wataru.

He was, even though that was his given name at birth.

- So he was mostly just called Wat.

And then he got the nickname "Kilowatt" from his- - Yes.

- Playing style.

And between '44 and '47, we have World War II, we have- - The Japanese internment camps.

We have- - The Japanese internment camps.

- Like Topaz.

Yeah, so tell us more about like what was happening at that time - Pearl Harbor.

- especially with Kilowatt and Japanese Americans around that moment of World War II and you know, with these internment camps, particularly here in Utah.

- Well, yeah, I mean, by that point in time, you know, so like in, it was in 1942, you know, that President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066, that authorized, you know, the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in coastal cities, you know, in sort of like strategically, you know, strategically important, strategically vulnerable places.

And so, you know, as a result of that, we have Wat Misaka and his family, you know, his father when choosing to come to the US chose not to go to California where most people were going at that point in time.

Instead, he chose to go to Northern Utah, which was kind of an odd choice but in retrospect, like, you know, he thought it was gonna be safer, and he was 100% right.

He just didn't know how right he was that that was gonna be a choice that exempted his family from incarceration so.

- And why is that?

Why did it exempt them?

Because in California, the California versus Utah.

- Oh yeah, because, you know, Utah was outside of what they called the exclusion zone.

The exclusion zone ran basically just like right along the western coast of the United States.

- [Lonzo] Oh, okay.

- Yeah, just because that would be the most likely place for Japanese-Americans who might be, you know- - Spies.

- Yeah, to militarily interfere, you know, in the conflict so.

- Wow.

Bryan, he, Wat was drafted into the war, correct?

- Yes.

- [Lonzo] Tell us more about that.

- So he was drafted twice.

So the first time was in 1944 by the US military, you know, after, and they, he was, you know, the army sent him to Japan, you know, after training him for an invasion that never happened.

And then he was drafted again in 1947, that same year, you know, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

- Oh, you mean drafted into the league?

(laughing).

- Yeah, yeah.

- I see where I see what you did there (laughing).

- And then at near the end of 1945, he was, he went into the United States Strategic Bombing Survey where he was, you know, asked to where he was, you know, ordered to ask questions for bombing survivors of Hiroshima.

- You know, that begs the question for me, why don't we hear more about him in the media?

We hear about Jackie Robinson.

But why aren't we hearing more about Kilowatt, Aaron?

- That's a huge question and there are a ton of different answers.

I mean, one major thing that, you know, that I had to consider as I was looking back at this, you know, 'cause I'm looking, you know, I'm looking through like a seven decade telescope, you know, like through the wrong end, you know.

And so there are all these ideas that I have about professional basketball and about, you know, about my assumptions about history.

And the more research I did, the more I realized I had to adjust my expectations 'cause like professional basketball at that point in time was a totally different animal, you know, it was in its infancy.

Like, I mean, you know, the, like you said, you know, the, I don't know if we said it just yet, but the NBA, you know, didn't actually become a thing until, you know, until two years after Wat Misaka was drafted by the Knicks.

You know, up until that point, you know, professional basketball had been, you know, like barnstormers, you know, had been like leagues that or teams that were sponsored by like local businesses, you know?

And so, you know, for the most part, and no one grew up thinking that they were going to be a pro ball player.

Like no one thought that that was a way you could make a living.

- It was just a way to get through school or something at that point in time.

- Yeah, I mean, it was an interesting point in history where like they were, you know, sort of just starting to figure things out.

And I mean, that's definitely part of it.

He only played three games, and he didn't really talk about it because, you know, because, you know, professional basketball at that point in time didn't seem like that big a deal to the people involved.

You know, to him it also kind of didn't seem like as big a deal, plus a bunch of other factors, you know, about the way that he was let go and everything.

But he went on to live this incredibly rich life, you know, afterward.

And it didn't seem, you know, from his point of view, it didn't seem like as big a deal.

- Wow.

I mean, to break the color barrier into sport.

Yeah, you, like you said, now it seems like a big deal, back then he just didn't even think twice about it.

- Yeah, it's like breaking the color barrier in like cricket or something (laughing).

- Right, right.

Well, and I- - The first Black ventriloquist or something.

(both laughing) - And there other social factors of course but like, you know, the fact that it happened, you know, before the NBA became a thing, you know, sort of like reduced the visibility and then like the much more visible, you know, like integration of the NBA itself, you know, like in 1950, like really to precedence so.

- So do you guys know anything about how he got let go from the Knicks, the New York Knicks?

Is there any information out there that you can share about like how his career came to an end?

- I don't know if they had too many point guards or so or so, but I don't know why they, you know, ousted him out.

I mean, and then he was offered a contract with the Harlem Globetrotters, and we don't know- - What?

The Harlem Globetrotters, come on!

- Which I mean, but he, you know, he declined that.

And we don't know, you know, the details of it, or if numbers or terms were discussed at all.

But, you know, they were on the road constantly and, you know, they would play like, you know, 200 away games in like one season, or multiple games in a single day.

And, you know, I mean, and maybe that, I don't know how he'd feel about doing that, really.

I mean, he wanted to start a family that was, you know, and have kids.

- That's interesting.

- I mean, there are a couple other factors too that could have played into it, you know, as well.

Like the way that he was hired, he was hired by Ned Irish, you know, the president of the Knicks Association at that point in time, probably to sell tickets.

You know, like, 'cause he'd been, you know, he was, he played a couple games at Madison Square Garden, right.

And, you've got this New York crowd that's used to like, these teams pretty much all being away teams.

They're gonna be a lot more welcoming.

And then there was an opinion out there that I read that everything was going pretty well until his third game, which was his last game, when they did a road game in Providence.

And suddenly you have a basketball crowd that is nowhere near as welcoming.

That was incredibly abusive.

And it was a horrible experience, not just for Wat, but also for the, you know, the rest of the team.

- Wow.

- And that, and that it's possible that, you know, Ned Irish realized he'd made a miscalculation, you know?

'Cause when you think about like the process of Jackie Robinson.

You know, like, I mean, that, that was such a, you know, like well thought out, you know, strategically, you know, executed integration plan, and not at all for Wat.

- We have, we have a clip from the show, from the play earlier this year.

- Let's take a look.

- [Lonzo] Let's see this.

- But every now and then at night, when lightning tethered sky to earth, and thunder filled the space in between.

The villagers wished him well, but not all.

Great deeds cast long shadows.

But the knot was strong and lightning could not pass.

Thinking quickly, Tatsuyo tied a second knot behind the light, trapping it in place.

It was a no-man's land for me, all of Japan, but especially Hiroshima.

The Japanese, they saw the uniform, and hated it, and me in it.

But I had to wear it to remind the Americans they could trust me.

Everywhere I turned, I looked, I felt like a traitor in someone's eyes.

I don't remember thinking about fallout or radiation until much later.

My wife and I, it took us 12 years to have kids.

We had them eventually, but sometimes you wonder.

Some things you'll never know.

Staff Sergeant Wataru Misaka, June 17th, 1945.

- What is his legacy here in Utah?

You know, I don't, like I said, this is some of the first things that I've heard about his story.

So are there any sort of historical places or things that are based on him here in Utah?

Can you talk about that, Aaron?

- Oh yeah, well, I mean, yeah, the basketball court in Liberty- - Liberty Park?

- Sorry Liberty Park, in Ogden got recently renamed after him.

They called it Kilowatt Court" which is something you haven't mentioned in the show.

And you know, there are, especially in Ogden, you know, there are historical markers, there's a monument.

I think there was an artist who did a project with a, you know, sort of like different horses that were, you know, painted or decorated in different ways to represent, you know, Ogden history.

And there's one in front of a sushi restaurant that occupies the space where the barbershop used to be.

- [Lonzo] Oh, that's cool.

- And the University of Utah retired his jersey.

It's one of the few that- - Ah, that's right.

University of Utah retired his jersey.

- [Aaron] Yeah, absolutely.

- He was always, he was kind of a motivational speaker, I guess you could say, in some parts of Utah and he was always busy.

He, I think, and I mean, being a basketball player, which I couldn't imagine the performance anxiety of that.

I mean, he was good.

He was so good.

And, you know, and when he played, it would've been something to see for sure.

- Yeah, you know, I'm really curious about this military service because, and that actually is a, feels like as much or more a part of the story of his life as the basketball was.

So what were some of the significant moments or experiences that we can glean from what he did in the military?

You talked about this survey, and it's very powerful in the play when you talk about that.

Can one of you share a little bit about what he did and what that experience was like for him?

- So, I mean, like, actually like Bryan's grandfather, your grandfather, correct?

Who was, he was trained as an intelligence officer.

- Military intelligence.

- Yeah so Wat was originally trained for military intelligence, you know, for some translator duties.

He was also like initially being prepped for, you know, a planned invasion of Japan, which of course never happened because of the, you know, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So instead, you know, when he was deployed, after he'd been there for a little bit, he was assigned to this project called the United States Strategic Bombing Survey.

And one part of that was a survey that was to be administered by Japanese speakers to Japanese nationals.

And it was the, to study the effects of strategic bombing on civilian morale.

So he's asking, I mean, basically, and you know, the people that he's asking are the people who are in Hiroshima who are still in like, some kind of condition to like get around, to get themselves to an interview.

'Cause anybody who'd really suffered the major impacts of the bombing had been evacuated to other cities that still had hospitals.

And so he's this 21-year-old kid, you know, with like minimal training, conversational Japanese that had been kind of, you know, bolstered through some training, you know, beforehand.

But, you know, sitting across the table from, you know, Japanese nationals, asking these very clinical, you know, sociological, you know, survey questions of them about the effectiveness of the bomb, you know, and it's, yeah, I mean, basically it's like, "How well did our bomb work?

Did it work the way we wanted it to, you know?"

- Give us an example.

- When he was asking the questions to some of the interview subjects, he would, I mean, he was obviously ordered to not sympathize, or, you know, with them, they were ordered to not sympathize with them, but to put them at ease if they seem nervous, you know?

And some of the questions were just like, "How are things going with you now?

Are you better or worse off now than you were during the war?

What did you think about the atomic bomb?"

Which was, when you look at that question now, it's just like, of course it was awful.

And, you know, but I mean, for Wat then, I think I mentioned it in the play, he says like, "If I write things down by hand, they could see that I'm listening, even though I can't sympathize with them or console with them."

- Yeah, you mentioned other people were using a typewriter- - Because it's faster.

- It's faster.

- But I think he wanted to do it by hand to show them that he was, that, you know, I'm sure he did sympathize with them deep down just to show them that even though he was ordered not to.

- Well, and to be surrounded for the first time, I mean, he grew up in Ogden, Utah.

It's the first time he was surrounded by people who looked like him.

- I mean, granted there was a big, you know, Japanese-American population in Ogden, but they did very much consider themselves like Americans.

- Well, you know, I have a question for you.

So Kilowatt was, you know, basically at his, at the height of his life and his career in the 1940s, for Japanese-Americans here in Utah.

How much do you think that life has changed from the 1940s for Japanese-Americans that in Utah at that time, that it has for today?

You know, when you look at today and you think, you know, what's really changed and what really hasn't changed.

- It's "Roots, Race & Culture," say it like it is.

So tell us how you really feel.

- Hmm, let me think on that.

The, I'd say it's for the Japanese community, the small Japanese community, here in Utah, it's, I'd say it's changed quite a bit.

I mean, it's obviously different from, you know, since World War II and since the internment.

I think I mean, it's a part of history I think that no one really talks about as well.

Most Japanese, you know, are aware of it, especially the old, especially the ones who are Wat's generation who don't like to talk about it.

And most of you know, my generation, the, you know, Yonsei generation, I mean, we have an, most of us have an understanding of it.

I mean, I don't think we fully understand the struggles and the hardships, you know, that generation went through.

But to me, and me being a native Utahn, I mean, I think we always, most of us, we just always feel, even though a lot of us were born and raised here in Utah, we always feel like the minority.

I mean, we're always- - You always feel - The Asian face.

- More Japanese?

- In the general population.

I mean, and that's not a bad thing in any ways.

It's just, you know, how people see us.

We're, you know, we're not white so.

(all laughing) - There's kind of the, and maybe this does factor in, you know, I mean, not, I'll go with maybe, that this does factor into, you know, some of why, you know, like Wat's story sort of like slips through the cracks historically, is that there is a certain invisibility that kind of comes with the sort of model minority status of, you know, of yeah, Japanese, where you're sort of like othered but also not necessarily considered disadvantaged.

- I just want you to expand upon that term so our audience understands that a little bit more.

Expand upon the term "model minority."

- Ooh.

- And also you mentioned the generation, there's a name for depending on how many generations there are between you, and Japan, and your family.

Like, there's a term for that that you guys talk about, but go ahead.

- Yes please.

- His first.

- Expand upon that for our audience.

- First the model minority.

- Okay, and, you know, like bear in mind I'm like by no means like an expert on this, but my understanding of it, which really deepened, you know, as I was you know, doing the research on this.

You know, it actually, a lot of it started like right after, this idea of like model minorities started, you know, in a big way for Japanese populations right after World War II, where you saw so many, you know, Japanese families, you know, coming out of incarceration and finding, you know, sort of like finding their way back to great success, you know, through... And so, you know, the Japanese population was often held up, you know, like in newspaper editorials and in, you know, like public opinion pieces as, you know, sort of like an exemplar of like what could be accomplished, you know.

But through like hard work and so on, and so forth, which, you know, sounds like kind of a great thing, except that, you know, it also really, you know, like fundamentally oversimplifies, you know, like, it just, it leaves out, you know, like all the factors that kind of like went into, you know, making that happen.

You know, like how much was required to, you know, to like find their way back to that after everything had been taken from them, - From Wat's story, from his experience, is there anything that we can learn about perseverance and identity, especially when it relates to things like barriers in sports or dealing with like, very strong political barriers, and separations between us, and polarization?

Can we learn anything about how to handle these situations in our current climate or in our own personal lives from what Wat went through because he was successful even after the NBA experience?

- I mean, you know, frankly, like the, you know, the two biggest things... Well, I mean, yeah, if I can be so audacious as to have like two, I mean, one major thing is that, you know, connection and community are... Those will be the things that, you know, that, you know, that save us.

So if it sort of like determine, you know, what the path is gonna look like forward.

You know, there were so many ways, you know, like Wat referred to himself as a really lucky guy.

And when you look at the events of his life, you know, it's hard, it can be hard not to disagree, you know, it can be hard to disagree.

Like it, because so many things had, like, so many things went right, you know, in order for him to get to where he got.

But then from another standpoint, you know, you think about that, you have to kind of think about that as like, look how many things had to go right to level the playing field enough so that someone of like obvious, you know, extraordinary skill, you know, could be given, you know, the opportunity, you know, the same opportunities as other people.

And that all those opportunities came from connections with other people in his community, inside the Japanese-American community, and, you know, his school community, in the athletic community that really was, you know, like, it really did, you know, like take a village to, you know, to get him to where he got.

And he, you know, and I think that was part of why he, you know, also downplayed his accomplishments because he realized how much they, you know, depended on the support of other people.

And that when we look at somebody, you know, who has a story that seems simple, that seems legendary, or that seems tragic, you know, that there is, there are deeper stories in there, specific stories about human connection, and that those moments of connection are gonna be what, you know, what shape our stories going forward.

- Nice.

- Well that's beautiful.

- Bryan, what are your final thoughts?

- And then just as Aaron said, I mean, that's one of the meanings.

I mean, his name has multiple meanings, but one that struck me was to connect, basically.

That's the name of what I was, the meaning of his name was to connect.

And the way he connected with, you know, with everything, with his family, with his teammates, his friends, and how he touched the community, and the Japanese community in that way to this day.

- Connection is wonderful.

You know, and I think that's what community is all about.

And I think this is a great story that people need to know about.

I think it's a great story that has been told.

Wonderful job on both of your parts, and the part of Plan-B Theater.

And we thank you so much for being a part of our show today, guys.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, thanks for connecting us with him and with history.

From all of us at PBS Utah, we want to thank you for joining this conversation.

As always, other episodes can be found on our website, PBSutah.org/roots, or on the PBS Utah YouTube channel.

- And if you have feedback, or ideas for other episodes, be sure to give us a shout out on social media.

Until next time, for "Roots, Race & Culture" y'all, we are out.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for "Roots, Race & Culture" is provided in part by the Norman C. and Barbara L. Tanner Charitable Support Trust, and by donations to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(gentle upbeat music)