What do collaboration and empathy look like when lives and liberty are on the line, not just workplace culture? Today, you’re going to hear what happens when people come together across cultures to support each other – amidst a backdrop of World War, racism, fear, and segregation in 1940s America.
Janice Munemitsu shares her family’s inspiring story of kindness, collaboration, and empathy. Her book, The Kindness of Color, is the true story of multicultural collaboration between the Mendez and Munemitsu families, two immigrant families who came to Southern California for better lives, only to face their own separate battles against racism in the midst of World War II.
Today, Janice shares this story with you – why she wrote the book, how children and young people have responded, and most importantly how kindness leads to a brighter future that lifts everyone up.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- All children are born with empathy. It is an exercise to continue to keep it strong.
- Kindness isn’t done for fame or accolades. Kindness is done because of character, honesty, integrity, and desire to help a friend.
- DEIB is about more than just strategy and benefits. There is an ethos that comes when groups come together in collaboration with each other – and it is kindness.
“It’s not a Mexican and Japanese story. It’s a multicultural story, of people doing what they could, given the circumstances, and not just thinking of themselves, but of thinking more of the whole.”
— Janice Munemitsu
MARIA’S COURSE
Learn more about Maria’s new Brand Story Breakthrough course, starting September 8. Spots are limited so grab yours before it’s gone to start attracting more of your ideal customers and boosting revenue and growth: https://bit.ly/BSBcourse
About Janice Munemitsu, Author, The Kindness of Color
Janice Munemitsu is the author of The Kindness of Color. This is the true story of two immigrant families who came to Southern California for better lives, only to face their own separate battles against racism in the midst of World War II. One family came by land from Mexico and the other by sea from Japan. Little did they expect their paths would meet and lead to justice and desegregation for all the school children of California in Mendez, et. al v. Westminster (1947) – seven years before Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Janice is a third-generation Japanese American Sansei. A native of Orange County, California, she worked on the family farm from age five through high school. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Biola University. Janice’s book may be purchased on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Connect with Janice Munemitsu:
Book: The Kindness of Color: https://www.thekindnessofcolor.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaniceMunemitsu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janice-munemitsu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekindnessofcolor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekindnessofcolor/
References Mentioned:
- Silvia and Aki
- Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation
- Separados No Somos Iguales (Spanish Language version)
Don’t forget to download your free guide! Discover The 5 Business Benefits of Empathy: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy
Connect with Maria:
Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com
Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Twitter: @redslice
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. What does collaboration and empathy look like when lives and liberty are on the line, not just workplace culture? Today, you’re going to hear what happens when people come together across cultures and backgrounds to support each other. Amidst a backdrop of World War, racism, fear and segregation in 1940s. America, Janice Munna Mitsu shares her family’s inspiring story of kindness, collaboration and empathy. Her book the kindness of color, is the true story of multicultural collaboration between the Mendez and Muna Mitsu families, to immigrant families who came to Southern California for better lives, only to face their own separate battles against racism. In the midst of World War Two. One family came by land from Mexico, and the other by sea from Japan. Little did they expect their paths would meet and lead to justice and desegregation for all the schoolchildren of California, in Mendez at all versus Westminster 1947. Seven years before Brown versus Board of Education in 1954. Janice is a third generation Japanese American Sansei, a native of Orange County, California, she worked on the family farm from age five through high school. Today, Janice shares this story with you why she wrote the book, how children and young people have responded, and most importantly, how kindness leads to a brighter future that lifts everyone up. You will leave inspired. Take a listen. Hello, Janice. Welcome to the empathy edge podcast to share your incredible story and book with us about the importance of kindness.
03:11
Thank you so much, Maria. Thanks for having me on your podcast.
Maria Ross 03:16
So let’s talk a little bit about your story. Tell us your story. And when it intersected with the Mendez family and what that how that looked like and how that relationship developed.
Janice Munemitsu 03:28
Our story is one that started with my grandfather coming to America in 1916. And just to fast forward, he ends up farming in Westminster, California, in the 1930s. Right before World War Two he was farming had a family of four children. And when Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan, that changed everything. My grandfather was first generation immigrant, as was my grandmother, but their four children were US citizens. My father at that time was about 20 years old, he was enrolled in the local community college part time and working full time on the farm. But when Pearl Harbor happened, and there had been racism before, but not to the degree after Jin Han obviously bombed Pearl Harbor, and now our family looks like the enemy were Japanese heritage, even though only my grandfather and grandmother had been to Japan ever. My dad and his siblings had not. And so their allegiance was really to America. It was not to Japan at all. But because of that and executive order 9066 That was signed by President Roosevelt. The Japanese Americans along the west coast of the US, Washington, Oregon and California, were forcibly removed from their homes and communities into incarceration camps. That’s the point where the Mendez family is injured. reduced because my father, he did not know them before World War Two, but through the kindness of the local banker here, he is introduced to Gonzalo Mendez, Gonzalo Mendez always wanted to farm. And so he leases our farm on a yearly lease, because you didn’t know how long the World War Two would last. And what would happen to the Japanese, but this seemed like the best outcome to secure the farm. And when the Dalai Lama and his wife felicitous moved from Santa Ana, California to Westminster, which I don’t know if that’s even 10 miles, it’s a pretty short distance. They come to work, the farm, they’re excited about it. But their children, they find out when the school year starts, cannot attend the Westminster 17 Street School, which is where my father and his siblings went. Instead, because of the color of their skin and their last name, they have to go to the Mexican school in that school district. And it wasn’t just segregated. The Hoover school, the Mexican school did not have a normal curriculum. They assumed that the children didn’t know English and could not be challenged by regular academic courses. And so the biggest difference was there was no academics, which Sylvia and her two brothers had already been acquainted with in their former school district. So that sets off what becomes a class action lawsuit that led to the desegregation of California public schools in 1947, seven years before Brown versus education across the US.
Maria Ross 06:38
Well, and I was so excited to meet you when I got introduced to you. Because a couple of years ago, I think I told you in our pre call, I read a children’s book to my son about I believe it was called separate but equal, I will look up the actual name and put a link to the book in the show notes. But it was about Sylvia Mendez and her family’s courageous fight to desegregate the schools and the conditions of the school they were forced to go to sounded horrendous. It sounded like they didn’t have a place to sit down and eat. It sounded like the facilities were a little subpar. And in this children’s book, you can even sense Sylvia’s confusion of like, but there’s a really nice school closer to us, I don’t understand, you know, as a little kid not understanding why they couldn’t go to this other school. So their case was groundbreaking. And and I have to admit, I didn’t know a lot about it either. Until I read that book to my son. And I remember reading it to my son and having him you know, at five, six years old, saying, but I don’t understand and having to explain to him, why adults can be so hurtful to each other. It was really hard. And so when I met you, and I found out your connection and how the Mendes family helped your family by basically keeping the farm while your family was in the internment camp, and while they were there fighting this courageous court battle, you know, enrolling and empowering other families who were not as brave as they were, who didn’t want to speak up, but they were able to rally them. It was just so amazing to see two groups of people both suffering from injustices and from racism come together in kindness to help each other.
Janice Munemitsu 08:23
Yes. And actually, at that time, in California, there was a state law that actually allowed segregated schools for Native Americans, Chinese and Japanese, and the school districts could decide. So the school districts also made a decision on Mexican and it just depended on where you live, and what school district you’re in. Right. And so that’s what makes this case really groundbreaking because it led to California Assembly and Senate saying, No, we’re going to have one law for the whole state. Every district is going to desegregate their schools, whether it be Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, or Mexican. At that time.
Maria Ross 09:10
Now your book is called the kindness of color. And tell us a little bit about that book. And what prompted you to write it based on your history?
Janice Munemitsu 09:21
Well, Sylvia has been speaking on this probably about 30 to 35 years since she retired from her nursing career. And I’ve known Silvia now for just over 20 years. And in that time, every once in a while she would get invited to speak and he also asked me to come and speak as well. And so it became more of a multicultural convent and multicultural story. Because there is a background to the story. A lot of people know the Mendes versus Westminster story, but they don’t know what led up to it. And I think that’s what gives this story in the 1940s so much What makes it so significant? Because it was many different people who encountered racism. I mean, the attorney who fought this case in federal court is of Jewish descent. But he was known as the Mexican attorney because he was bilingual. He was married to the daughter of a prominent Mexico City physician. And he worked for the Mexican counselors. So even though he was Jewish at Heritage and had encountered racism against his Jewish race, he was fighting for the, in this case for Mexican children, but really, for all children, just saying that all schools should be desegregated in California. And then subsequently, it had a ripple effect that leads to later on to Brown versus education in 1954. And so
Maria Ross 10:52
with your book, what do you hope to achieve with the book? What do you hope readers will take away from it? And more importantly, what do you hope they will do? After they read your book? And after they learn this story?
Janice Munemitsu 11:04
That’s kind of an evolving question. I didn’t really have a vision for this, Silvio, and I would talk about it verbally, but there wasn’t anything written from start to finish about the story. And several people, including our local superintendent of schools, and Department of Education here, were really, really prompting me and pushing me to do this. And I’m like, I’ve never written a book. So this has all been one grand adventure of figuring this whole thing out. But I think when I really felt like this story needed to be written was when Sylvia and I had a corporate event that we spoke at. And we found out everybody wants to know more about our family’s story. We could talk about the case, but they kept going back to well tell us more about how did your parents meet? And how did this all happen? And that’s when I saw the beauty of telling a story, a family story that was more than just a legal case. And I think when she and I talked about it after that, she says, Wow, they really want to know, what about our families? I said, I know Sophie, I said, I didn’t expect that. And they’re like, Well, you know, what did they were and where did they live? And how did they do this? And we’re like, wow, so but I think that makes this a human story. This is not just about a law case. This is a human story of all the different people in my book that did something, it was not always tangible. Either. It could have just been to listen, or to encourage or to say, let me know what I can help you do. But all those things, all those kindnesses lead up to something that really changed our state and education, no classes, I often speak at classes now that are so multicultural. And the kids can’t even imagine that had early. Yeah, most of that classroom would not be there. Whether it be Mendes versus Westminster, or some case that came after that, if it hadn’t been for that most of the classes would be a third maybe array of white children. And in subclasses, that depending on where it is, most of the children are of Asian or Latino heritage, here in our local area. So it really makes an impact. They all look at each other like wow, we wouldn’t be friends. And I think that’s one of the that’s what I want to get across this book is very inclusive, because the story is inclusive. I mentioned attorney Marcus, who is of Jewish descent, obviously Sylvia’s family, our family. And but one of the key figures in this story is a man named Frank Monroe. And he was the banker of the local small town bank manager, who actually was very, very kind to my father, even as a little boy, he was basically my dad’s mentor for the rest of my dad’s life. And he also was a very, very good friendship. Mr. Mendez to Gonzalo man was also his banker. And he played a major role, I think, in both encouraging both families, serving both families without any kind of prejudice or bias, and was a great counselor and friend, my dad said about Mr. Monroe, he was about the best friend you could ever had. He didn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body. So that kind of gives you just a glimpse of one man, Mr. Monroe, in this case, did and he passed before I was born, so I’d never met him. I did meet his wife, and as a little girl, I didn’t really understand the whole gist of what he had done. But that family and my dad and our family were lifelong friends.
Maria Ross 14:58
Did he help facilitate Are the two of them. Mendes taking over the farm while you were away? Was he instrumental in funding tell us about his role
Janice Munemitsu 15:06
a little bit. Yeah, his role was really one of I would say true friendship of knowing what was really going on with his customers, as well as he was. My father had never met Gonzalo before Mr. Monroe said, Gonzalo would like to lease the farm. And so he would made the introduction he went to Gonzalo, Sylvia said that Mr. Monroe went to Gonzalo her dad and said, Gonzalo, you’ve always wanted to be the boss of a farm. Maybe this is your chance, why don’t you lease the swamp, and that had been one of Gonzalo streams. So it’s kind of like a dream fulfilled. But yet, it was a wonderful opportunity for our family to know that somebody who Mr. Monroe trusted who was trustworthy, who was not out to take the farm away. Who was going to work hard, would want to caretake the farm. And basically, that’s what happened.
Maria Ross 16:06
Well, and didn’t they give it back? When your family? Yeah, it was totally again. Yeah, yeah, it was totally
Janice Munemitsu 16:12
a one year lease, there was multiple one year leases. But there were also families who leased Japanese American families who leased homes and businesses, farms during World War Two. And when they came back, the law was not on their side to get their property back. And so I’ve heard of numerous stories, especially after I’ve written this book, where people said, Wow, your family got your farm back, having leased it. There are many stories and people are not, they’re hesitant to share those because they still live in those communities. But they did not get their property back in a rightful lease. So that was another injustice upon injustice in our family was very unfortunate that Mr. Mendez and Mr. Monroe it truly was a lease that there was truly a start date and an end date. And it was legally documented. And most of all, that Mr. Mendez was very faithful to the lease. But the other part of the story, and that’s really interesting is when Silvia talks about this, she said, her mother was so grateful, because at the end of the lease, my dad could have said, Okay, you have to leave, but they were still the case had not been decided. And they needed to stay in Westminster, because it’s Mendez at all. Palomino, Ramirez Estrada and Guzman families. It’s a class action lawsuit versus Westminster at all. And the other thing is, Gonzalo had use the profits from our asparagus farm to pay for this court case, the legal fees and such. And so he didn’t have the savings he would have had. And so he didn’t really have the equity to go out and start his nukes business or his next venture. And so my dad, they made a very interesting last lease for a year where Gonzalo took the steal lease the farm paid lease money to my dad, but in that document, it says that Gonzalo will hire my grandfather and my dad to work for him. Oh, wow. For hourly wages. Yeah. And so this is where this collaboration of winwin a truly comes in. It’s, it went over best parts of our story. And they lived on that property together for a year. So the case would conclude, and then my father and grandfather would take goat move back into the main house and take rightful ownership of all of it. But it also sent Gonzalo off with the profits for that year’s farm.
Maria Ross 18:54
Do you think your dad understood the importance of what Gonzalo was fighting for that it somehow would also impact your family too, and other families who were seen as outsiders? Is that part of why he wanted to make it work and allow Gonzalo to stay and finish out the case?
Janice Munemitsu 19:10
I don’t think they had that much vision for it. Okay. I just remember my dad saying, oh, yeah, that’s the family who lists the farm. I think he was more. Here’s an honest man who cared well for our farm or as well as he could given the circumstance. And he just wanted to be very collaborative. I think that’s more the spirit of my dad. I don’t think in fact, I don’t even think Gonzalo and his family really realized the significance of this case. Because their youngest daughter, who wasn’t born at the time she was born much later. She didn’t even know about it. It wasn’t in their family story at all. Wow. And she Sylvia sister’s name is Sandra Sandra always tells the story as she didn’t know about until she was in college. Working on her teaching credential, and it shows up in a book on educational history. Wow sees her parents names in that book. And she goes down. And this was when there was payphones. There’s no cell phone, she runs down to the payphone in the school, the college building and calls her mom and says your name is in this history book. Is this you? So I think that sort of gives you a flavor for it. This wasn’t something like the families did. And then they kept talking about it. Their youngest daughter didn’t even know this happened. Wow. Until she studied it on as a, an actually, as a graduate student right after her four years of college to get a teaching credential. And so I think, I don’t think my dad had the foresight to say, well, this is an important case, you should fight for it. I’m sure he thought that, but it was more like, No, I think the focus of that part of the story is more, you know, than sallow. Use the money for this for that’s important. We need to let him take the profit for this next year. But it’s more important that we continue to work and get everything’s, you know, kind of set up. And yeah, and going again, the other interesting thing too, is that, the more and more I tell the story, I find out, there are people whose relatives know that their relatives stayed at our farm, because you have to remember, most of the Japanese probably had no place to go. And so our farm be kind of, uh, oh, you could stop here and work here. And until you can get settled and find something else. So it became kind of a little clearing house for people who were coming back this direction, or had lived in Orange County before, but did not have property to come home to. So that is more the spirit, I think and collaboration and helping the community to get back on their feet. Well, and
Maria Ross 21:57
you know, obviously, we’re talking about the role of empathy and all of this. And it is amazing, just the sheer amount of empathy going on in all these relationships and all the aspects of the story. And it’s interesting, because some research shows that groups if they’re very much alike, they actually don’t find empathy for each other, because they feel like if I had to suffer through it, you have to suffer through it. And what’s so moving to me is this is a story of, you know, like you said, multiple marginalized groups coming together. Despite that, and not, you know, well, you need to worry about your fight, and I’ll worry about my fight, but coming together and helping each other. What do you think? I’m going to ask you to wax poetic here a little bit, but what do you think is the lesson there for our larger society, about being able to overcome difference to move forward together?
Janice Munemitsu 22:53
I’m going to answer that with an example. I spoke to a group of educators recently, and one of the gentleman came up to me and said, you know, you use this word collaboration. I hear that all the time. He’s actually for that school. District T is their diversity, equity and inclusion officer has been in the business of education for years. And he said, I hear that all the time. What is your definition of it? Then I thought, Wow, I’ve never been asked that question before. And I so I said, this is off the top of my head, but I would say, collaboration requires a sacrifice, some sort of sacrifice. And he said, I’m going to have to think about this more. Because given the story that I wrote, The true story that I wrote, I think most of the collaboration in there was for more of a win win solution. But that meant that somebody didn’t win and someone lost, right? It was as best as they could to make this workout for all parties for mutual benefit. Mutual mutuality, right. And so I think, and we don’t have time to go into the whole story, but if your listeners are interested, we have a Japanese family, a Mexican family, but Jewish attorney, a Catholic federal judge, we have Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter, who actually wrote a legal brief to support Mendes versus Westminster as black Americans, and they were working for the NAACP at the time. And we also have the Native American tribe of the Colorado River Indians, because our family was incarcerated in a in the desert in a very makeshift camp, right on the Colorado River Indian tribe reservation. The reason I mentioned that is that tribe and the Japanese Americans who were incarcerated there as well as their descendants have a collaboration. And I was the keynote speaker last October at the pilgrimage that they have every few years. And it’s very interesting to see what, two very diverse cultures, in some ways and in other ways they felt like our brothers and sisters. So I think in our story we don’t just have it’s not a Mexican and Japanese story. It’s a multicultural story in many ways of people doing what they could. Mm, given the circumstance, and of them not just thinking of themselves, but if thinking of it more as a whole. Yeah, more holistically. Yeah, because I don’t think I mean, I’ve not an author, I’ve written one book. But I don’t know that I could have crafted a story that would have naturally included so many different cultures and people, groups, and races. But that’s what happened here.
Maria Ross 25:56
That was reality. And I think the important thing here is to look at how people, so many people acted, they didn’t just stay silent. And they, when you talk about that collaboration, it’s them coming together to actually make this happen. And maybe they didn’t have the vision of how important or groundbreaking it was going to be. But it was about helping people through what they were going through right now.
26:23
And not just, you know, like, Oh, I
Maria Ross 26:26
feel really sorry for you, which is sympathy, right? But really taking action and going that extra step and being there to listen being there to support being there to act, being there to make the right connections, it all it is such a universal story. And just a great example of what happens when we harness our our differences and our individual strengths for the greater good. So I just love it. You mentioned earlier that you do talk to children and to schools. What is it meant to children to hear this story? Like you did mention a little bit before about them having that realization that half their classmates might not be there or wouldn’t be their friends. But do you see it having a profound impact on their views on diversity and inclusion?
Janice Munemitsu 27:13
Yes, I think so. I’ve not asked them that question. But a lot of the children have read the book you mentioned separate is not equal, but also a book called Silvia and Aki. And it’s a fictional story. But it’s Sylvia Mendez and my aunt Aki. They’re about about the same age. And the fictional part is that they were friends before World War Two. But it is based on fact, in that my aunt, as a seven year old went to the internment camps and Sylvia, you know, couldn’t go to school. So most of the young children I speak to or via zoo or email or in person have read that book. And what’s so interesting is, I noticed the other day I spoke to 106 kids from kindergarten to third grade. Wow. And they had the best questions, because they were actually picturing what that would have been like for them. And that area down right from the adult. The adult questions I get. They asked, what did they eat? Where were the bathrooms? What was the room? Like? Did they have a house? Did they have any kind of books? Which not necessarily, it was only what you could carry in a very small suitcase? Right. But the best question I think, I got asked maybe ever is did Aki have a happy life? After the camp? Oh my gosh. Now my aunt Aki was about 10 years old when she came back to the farm. And if you were to ask her, she felt very protected because of her father and mother, my dad. And so someone who is that young takes it a very different way. But I called my aunt Aki and I said, this, she goes, Wow, they asked that question. I said, Yeah, she goes, what’d she say? And I said, Well, I told them, you know, you have, there will be times you go through very, very hard things in life. But my aunt and my dad, they all had to make a choice of are we going to let this horrible thing that happened? define who we are? Or are we going to work hard and move forward for something better? And that’s not to say there wasn’t resentment or, you know, lots of emotional feelings, but it saying that’s not going to be what defines us. It’s not going to be our identity. And so, we were able to talk with the children about making those choices when bad things happen. To understand them, to put them in a proper place but do not let that you are A friend, define who you were created to be. And so it was a really, really good discussion. But if it kind of that was the first time anyone had ever asked, Did Omni have a happy life and after the camp? Were right, because you know, that child who asked it really wanted her to have a happy life. Yes, she wanted after the end. Yeah, she wanted a happy ending. And not just because it was happy, but it was, can you overcome something that’s difficult, and still have a productive and happy life? But it is a choice. They think, because my aunt and my dad, they could have chosen also to say, No, this happened. And I’m going to stay in the past in that regret, and resentment, and they could have based their life on that, right. So they had to choose. But I thought how sweet it was that those children, I think more than adults maybe would put themselves in that place and say, what would that be like? As opposed to say, well, we rationalize it because we’re in the midst of a world war, or we rationalize it, because it was for national security. They don’t know that stuff. They’re just saying, this other little girl who’s just like, my age, had to do this. I hope she’s okay. Right? It’s basically kind of the well, and that’s hard.
Maria Ross 31:19
That’s what’s so important about teaching young people helping them keep that skill, that innate skill of empathy that we’re all born with, strong and keep that muscle strong. And a big exercise to be able to do is to read books, watch documentaries, listen to music and learn about people whose lives are very different from your own, so that you can practice that cognitive empathy of what would it have been? Like? How would I have felt? that’s those are the seeds of creating an individual who has a very strong empathy muscle and can bring that muscle to bear in lots of different interactions as they grow up. And as they develop? I want to ask you really quickly, the title, the kindness of color, how did you land on that?
Janice Munemitsu 32:05
I knew that what makes this book different is all the different people who offered kindness to our family or Sylvia’s family, because that was another thing verbally telling the story. It’s just kind of striking of all the different names that you come up with. And frankly, because of the age of the story, in the 1940s, these people have all passed. And I always say, Henri Rivera, the truck driver has no idea his name is in a book. Yeah, but he didn’t do it for fame or for Look at me, he did it because of his character of honesty, integrity to help a friend. And so I really thought kindness had to be in, in the title of a book on racism and complete gold desegregation. And I was playing with some words, and I had been praying about it, like, what could this be called? What is going to encapsulate it and during the pandemic, I went out to, for a walk, and I just was like, Oh, the kindness of color. Net, a lot of people at first when I told him, they said, don’t you want it to be the color of kindness? I said, No. It’s the kindness of color. It’s that really, I hope it represents the diversity and the kindness that a diverse community brings in right in their own way. But each understanding what others may have suffered or been through with compassion, as opposed to comparison. I love that
Maria Ross 33:39
I kind of see you as a kindness advocate, activist,
33:42
if you will, I vote so I
Maria Ross 33:44
know. So I love it. I love it. And, you know, I love the way that you come out this, from that view of what’s possible. When people who are different come together we talk, you know, especially on the show, we talk a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion, as the strategy as you know, here’s all the benefits we get from that. But just this idea that there’s an ethos that comes from those groups coming together in collaboration with each other, and it is kindness. And just it seems, I don’t know, when you describe it that way, I can only imagine that to certain people. It makes diversity less threatening. It makes it more desirable. People want to be part of that. They want to be part of a kind community. And so I just really think it’s actually a brilliant title for a book. So as we wrap up, I did want to share I saw this poem on your website. And I wanted to share this because I thought it was beautiful. You wrote an English language Haiku, to bring a deeper meaning to the cover art that you had for the book. So I would just like to share it with the audience if that’s okay. Unless you would like to do you have the words in front of you. Okay, I would like you to share it. Okay. Thank you for Harry scoring that on you and then I was like, Oh, she’s got it right in front of her.
Janice Munemitsu 35:02
Thank you for noticing my Haiku. Yes. Anyway, here goes barbed wire imprisoned, war of bombs and racism. Hands off her kindness. Fences keep you out. Fight for school for all children. Hands off or kindness, no bar high fences, no barbed wire to imprison. Cultivate kindness. That’s beautiful.
Maria Ross 35:32
Thank you. What a grueling way to end this conversation, Janice, we are going to have all the links to the book and to you so folks can get in touch with you in the show notes. But just really quickly, where would be the best place that they can go to connect or find out more about the
Janice Munemitsu 35:47
book, I think would be the website, the kindness of color.com. And there’s a contact me, link, if they have questions if they need clarity, I am trying to also pull other resources to help, whether it be book clubs or teachers, I do have a resource, but on the website of all the different resources I pulled together, and they’re all free. So you could download them. I’ve recently put together a map of Westminster that shows some of the sites of where this is, it’s all within like a two mile area, right where the farm was where the schools were. And so there’s lots of resources. So please, if you are more interested in more detail, check out the kindness of color.com.
Maria Ross 36:32
Yeah, I did want to mention that you’ve got a blog there the resources for teachers, students and readers. So that’s really a great, great place to go. And I also should mention that in 2022, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of this landmark case, and just in so many ways we’ve come so far in so many ways, we’re still stuck in some outdated thinking. So it’s just really interesting to reflect on all that has happened since then, and and the work we still have left
Janice Munemitsu 36:59
to do. Yes, I often say when I speak, if all this could happen in the midst of a World War, we certainly can do better. Yes, that same night. So I hope people are inspired to really see what everyday kindness, especially to those who are different than we are. You might be how much that really does matter. Love it.
Maria Ross 37:23
Thank you so much Janice, for your insights and for sharing your story with us. Thank you. Thank you everyone for listening to another wonderful episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard you know what to do, please rate and review and share it with a friend or a colleague. Until next time and our next guest. Please remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
