When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day — but by the minute.

The whole story of the comfort women, the system of forced sexual slavery, the medical experiments of Unit 731, is not something that is in the US psyche. That is changing because many books are coming out.

When the Chinese first came to San Francisco, they were actually welcomed by the mayor and they had special ceremonies for them-again this is when their colony was very small, only a few Chinese.

Often, what you see in the media is driven by economic forces.

Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances.

If the conditions were right there could be great acceptance. Often it is only when they pose an economic or political threat that it turns really ugly.

For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.