keep writing different things and try to find the ending and make it end up right. that's simply hellish. that is awful. i'm pretty careful now that by the time i go into rehearsals the play is usually done. but it's interesting is i thought this play was done done and it's turned out to be quite plastic still in the best possible sense, literally to take a scene from act 2 and put it into act 1, did that, and to -- just a lot of interesting things are still happening. but it's making the play better in a very concrete way. it feels very different. everything is about making the play tighter, getting of any kind of excess stuff. you really have to kill your darlings in that you have all this great dialogue that i wrote maybe 3 1/2 years ago that just has to get basically

thrown and cut off and taken away because in the end it really is -- less is more and if you can make a scene sort of happen with less speaking, it's better. in fact, we just did one today where we now have the kind of whole play ending with -- you'll see, when you see the play, you'll see if we still have it. we have chet playing his horn, just playing his horn, kind of a bluesy jazz thing. that's supposed to speak to where else at that moment at the end of the play. as i watched it, i thought of some stuff we cut before. he used to say simple things. i come into your house, you come into mine. trust, that's all, just a little trust. i thought that would work really well. but i sort of brought it up and everyone was saying, no, if -- the music seems to say it all. i thought, well, that's right.

if the music can say it without any words, then that's what we should go with. so that's a moment where hopefully if you have lined everything up correctly, at that moment that chet pulls out his or not after he's a blow out with earl and everyone, he pulls out this horn and it's the first time he plays, it's whatever he feels at that moment and sums up where he's at at the end of the play. that's what we tried today. the tricky thing is it's a built of a stretch of reality. ever have a character in theater ever pick up a horn and play who is not a horn player? unless you do it right, it always looks phony. i had originally scripted the play so that we wouldn't have that problem. i thought i'd come up with a clever sort of solution and that is his love interest,

lillian, goes and gets the 78 and plays it and while she's listening to it, chet has his horn for the first time, kind of fingers it but he doesn't actually play it. yet we hear him playing 5 years earlier on the record. it's a way of hearing him without the mime playing. anthony brown, who is a composer, is going to get a horn player to play something that is good but it's also someone who hasn't played in a while so it's a bit rusty. that's kind of tricky, but it had to be that because it couldn't be anything too complicated. he couldn't come up with this extraordinary riff set that made everyone kind of stand up and cheer. it had to be this sort of ragedy and yet truthful and sum up everything that's happened in the course of the play. but that's anthony brown's

problem, not mine. >> so, anyway, i guess we should open this out to everyone out here. i'm sure you've got some questions that you'd like to ask phillip, so i'll be happy to take questions from the floor. over there in the red. >> can you explain again why the no no boys were rejected by the japanese community? i can understand if they said that they did not want to -- if they answered no no that the caucasian community would reject them, but i'm not sure where the japanese community rejected them. i felt like they were making a stand for the community. >> i think what's happened in the last 15 or 20 years as we've looked back on history and the community has looked back on it, it's able it look at these characters in a different light, through a different lens. they are seen now in people who in their own ways made heroic choices.

at the time, again, i didn't live through it, but my sense is in having talked to people, the 422nd battalion, these people went out and they were killed in very high rates. these were your fathers and brothers. i think it by and large was true, they were trying to prove that they deserved to be americans, it prove to the country that we belonged here, that we didn't belong behind these barbed wire fences. and they did. they did that and they paid with their blood. i think that was sort of the general feeling of the community. our brothers, our fathers, our uncles, our sons, paid with their blood, literally, not figuratively, literally, so that we could be americans and live our lives and get out of camp and just go about our ways. so i think it's because it was such a heightened state and so

much like -- to do with life and death that those who -- and they were in a minority who had signed no no were treated as if they had, in fact, kind of turned on their own people. their brothers went off to war and died trying to prove we were loyal and here you did something which made us look disloyal. here you did something which made us look bad. so as a consequence of your bad behavior, maybe more boys had to die. maybe we had to work even harder. but i think it was because of the extreme circumstance of the time and the stakes were incredibly high that you did have a community that looked at these men as if they had, in fact, turned against their own community and had worked against those who had served and died. and that was the case.

i know it's still a problem now. i have a friend who is a no no boy and he talks about how, even now, 60-something years later, there are people in the community who won't talk to him because he was a no no boy. but, again, it's through the lens of present day politics, how we've begun to look at the events and studied them that the resistors from heart mountain who were another group who on constitutional grounds contested being -- serving. they refused to serve, as opposed to the no no boys, who signed no no. the resistors actually went to federal prisons. they went to leavenworth. they are now looked at and studied and interviewed in a much different light, even though in the community itself there is still strong feelings and deviciveness about how they should be viewed.

a lot of my research was pulled from the no no boys and resistors was pulled from the japanese american national museum. my wife and i went down there and they have on file a bunch of interviews with people, frank ami, a variety of folks who were part of the heart mountain resistors and also the no no boys. these interviews were done by frank chen, frank abe and other folks and they are all on file. i used those to make sure i created real live characters. hope that answers the question. >> who else wants to ask a question? . >> when you do research, are you able to compare the (inaudible). >> i have to admit i haven't done as much research into that area because there were germans also who went through the same

thing and no i didn't. that certainly is a story that should be looked into. i know in my early works, a character would say why didn't they do this to the germans and italians but at the time i wrote this play, i wasn't aware that the other things were going on in the country also. so i don't know a lot about that. . >> is there any one or any group that you studied in particular for your sort of art piece japanese artist character? . >> no, but i feel like i sort of have it inside of me, my body, that i've actually played this type of character in one of my films where he wears very odd glasses and has a bow tie and fashions himself as a bit of an intellectual. he actually represents a kind of character that you do find in the community and in

communities, someone who is sort of outside of it, marginalized, who is part of the community yet he's never fit in. he's a bachelor. his interests are very un-japanese american. he can't find relationships with a female, he's been introduced by the marriage broker and it doesn't work. but in fact his character, if he were in present-day society, he would be gay. it's sort of interesting and in fact the character whom i wrote it for, gregory wallace, is a gay actor. it's sort of interesting, francis jew, who plays him now, is gay. but you have a type of character who at a particular point in history had to sort of play out a different role but if he were in present day society, he would be, you know, gay and living life and going about his business. so that is sort of interesting

about that character. . >> yes, gentleman here. . >> do you think with all the writing and examination of relocation camps that the country has actually learned from the experience, what it's done to the extent that it wouldn't happen again? . >> like arab americans? you know, i'd like to think i could say yes, but i would think not. though in fact there is more information out there and more people know about the internment camps than ever before, it certainly seems evident to me that at least in certain like individual cases it's still going on and that, you know, certainly after post-911 in relationship to

arab and muslim americans, gee. but my response would be i don't think we have learned, unfortunately. . >> i think we have time for one more question. >> i think this is a great subject but because of the education, we have so much (inaudible) i think so many people have no idea of what happened in the internment and at least we're talking. >> well, you know what's interesting is the exhibit and

the project that ruth was talking about, and that's upstairs and which i participated in, what made it so moving was the idea that you had young san francisco students who were not japanese american, who were african american, who were a variety of folks who were aware of the experience and in some way were making it part of their own life, exactly what we're talking about. how do you make something that happened 65 years ago relevant to young people today so that there is something to be learned from it, that there is something that can be taken from it. that's what's so interesting about the exhibition. it's called if they came for us today -- am i saying it correctly? if they came for me today? which is a great, great title. that accomplishes that. because that's the key to me, how do you take an event that happened 65 years ago that was so important in terms of american history -- that's the

thing, it's such a critical moment where the constitution was really tested. how do you keep it relevant in terms of its history to today and make sure that in some way it's related to cases like the aaron watata case or what happens after post-911? that to me is the tricky thing is how do you keep it alive and my hope is with the play that in some way it takes an incident, an event that happened, at least in my case it's 1948, the story that i tell, that it has relevancy to today in terms of how people can get along with each other. the most basic terms, ultimately can people from different backgrounds really get along with push comes to shove. when bottom lines are drawn, can you in fact make that bridge and get across that, quote, racial and cultural divide that is so, so deeply

embedded in those of us who live in this particular generation. i feel like my generation, i have lived in a world that is so racialized that as much as intellectually i'd lake to think of a society where all of us could just be, i can't see it in my own head. when i look at younger folks and how they interact and how they go about their way and their life, i have hope. but certainly in my own sort of generation, in my life line, my timeline, my lens of the country is very much a highly racialized one. >> thank you for coming and thanks very much to phillip.

on the same page is our monthly actually bimonthly book club that the library sponsors. this month, march, the book of the month is the samari gardens. how many are you have read this book in >> that's fabulous and gale is blushing in front of me. it's my pleasure to introduce gale. gale was born and raised in san francisco. her combined ancestory a chinese mother from hong kong and japanese father from hawaii gave her a unique asspect much the language of threads, dreaming water and others. please, help me welcome gale sukiama. [applause]

>> so that means if you have read the book you will not be buying the book? [laughter]. i'm always feel a little embarrassed because i looked back and i kept think thanksgiving book was published in 1993 who wants to hear about it now? i feel honored that we call it those in the know or good friends of mine call at this time energizer bunny. it's the book that somehow kept going all these yeersz. i will tell you up front it was a book i thought that may be they wouldn't publish. my very first book was women of the silk. i knew that i was writing about something that was a little bit different because i didn't know about the women of the silk until i wanted to write something telling their story much the second book is the test

book for us writers you hear that a lot where the publishers are wondering if the author has a second book. everybody here i feel sitting here all of you have one book in you. whether it's a family story or your story whether it's ancestors whether it's your history you want to write about. but it's the second one that's hard. i felt that when i turnod the computer and thought, now i have to write book number 2. i had in mind that i wanted to write something very different from women of the silk that was strictly about the feminist chinese women during the turn of the century and i wanted to write about my japanese culter. i didn't have the story or the culture unfortunately because i was born in san francisco, half

chinese and half japanese but raised in the chinese culture. when it was time to write the second book and i knew i wanted to explore my japanese side it was going to be difficult in the way that i didn't know the culture. right away i had to learn a lot. it was something that was not engrained in me besides the story. i sat down and thought about the story my mother told me about her brother being ill. he at one point went from hong kong to japan to recuperate. he was the one that wanted to be an artist and wanted to paint. i thought about that because it must have been hard growing up in hong kong to be far away from everything and have a dream and

get sick at this point. i thought u is there a story here? that's the way it begins for writers. people think things jump out and we have it in our head. it's the opposite we have nothing in our head. we turn on the machine and praying for something to come. with women of the silk i researched for 6 amongs and read and read and read. in one book i found 2 lines about the woman silk workers and knew immediately that's hai wanted to write about. it came to me like a dream that every writer prays for that you just knew you wanted to write about this. with the second book it was difficult i sat down and didn't know what i was going to write for about 6 months. which was fearful for me because of the fact i knew i didn't have the second book. steven's story, i asked myself

questions. a lot of writers do that that's usually how i begin. what did he do? who did he meet when he got off the train? who was this man servant? what was his life about? it all began with the seeds and the particular questions, as simple as that. although, then, i had to answer them. what i had done is i usual low don't work with an out line. a lot of writers do they will out line what will happen and sometimes they have to because like if you are writing a mystery you need to write out the plot. i write about characters the characters drive the story. when that hatched i sat down and said, what happens is, a, he arrived and gets off the train what's going to happen. >> i know z, he would get on the train and leave at the evented book.

i didn't know the alphabet in between. i was nervous and i took one step at a time very japanese like. i began to study and read everything i could find on the japanese culture. the incredible thing was not having everything that went into it and it still became a quiet book. there is a tsunami. there's tv and lep easier and a fire. i call it my zen book i think it's because as i was learning about the japanese culture, all of that started to go into the book. and it gave me the structure of what the book would become, which was very much taking after what a japanese garden it. early on a read about gardens. you don't know where you are going you just read. because japanese gardens are a huge aspect on the culture i

started reading on gardens. i love the natural and the idea on how they use the gardens and how much it reads to them i started reading. i read a line like the silk worker line where it embraced me and i thought, that's what i would write about. you never walk from the front gate to the front door in a straight line it's always a curving path in which you discover things along the way. i said, that's it. he lands, he gets off the train and slowly he would walk down this path and discover the story of this caretaker along the way. it began to move. but, you know, when i speak of it it seems like it's simple. it was not simple. this month of thinking about things. this is times of writing things down and thinking it doesn't work. and i'm incredibly fortunate i

have a writer's group i have written with and shown my work to for the last. we are trying to figure it out on the way over. i brought some of the audience with me. this is what you do when you are a writer. you never know who will come who read a book in 1985 so you bring audience with you. when did we get together? then we thought, how old are we? we can't be that old. we have been together pushing 20 years, is it? something like that. they have seen things from the very beginning of my career. and they have told me thing in which i could just kill them for. down the line it's like water off my back. not that i don't listen:the difference is everything they tell me i know it for my own

good like a member of your family like your mother or brother would tell you or somebody who loves you a lot tells you. you may not like it but you take it. so many of the books are their books because that. even though when i'm not writing because sometimes they don't see the entire book all the way through because i'm rush to get it. but they are so there because as i'm writing and turn on the computer they are sitting on my shoulder. i hear them say, don't do that. or, if you do that, you will be in trouble when you bring did to the group. it's the learning process and they have done that with me for every book. with women of the sill ik they were good in helping with that and samurai of the garden i thought they would say, what's she doing. >> i'm writing a quiet book

about a japanese seaside village and the man has tb and the woman had leparcy. it doesn't matter. my editor doesn't get to see it until it's finished but these ladies do. even if she said put it in your drawer and take it out when you are 80, which is around the corner, it would be fine because they wouldn't say they liked it if they didn't kind of thing. i felt comfortable to keep going. i'm not adjust saying this because they are in the audience but because when i see them i think of the things going back. i don't say that every time samurai garden come up and i see it. i say it because it brings up memories even though it was 1990. it brings back writing process memories that's very helpful to me now even as a writer.

if i didn't have them i don't know what i would do, kind of thing. with samurai's garden i brought it and they never know what to expect from me. one said today, you never write the same story. i always feel i am writing the same story in all the books i have written because there are themes that go through my books consciously i don't sit down and say i will write about duty. or i will write about family. or i will write about world war ii god forbid. it somehow goes through every book i have done even when i tried not to. samurai garden is an example of quintessential set before world war ii, both of my cultures and everything i wanted to do and taught me what it meant to be japanese. that's taking liberty to saying taught me what it

means to be japanese. i can't know exactly what it means to be japanese but it gave me a culture. a culture i realize that was a lot japanese. even though i hadn't grownup in it and i was as american as apple pie in so many ways that i started to learn more about the culture and i thought, i'm more japanese than chinese in many ways. this book gave that to me. that was the greatest gift of the samurai's garden. that and the fact that somehow people kept reading it. it was the book i was worried about and i had sent it to my editor and she called. i'm telling you the gossip stuff now. i think in a way that's more interesting. i was very nervous because i didn't know how she would receive this book. she called and said to me, well, it's very different. [laughter]