Page 10 - Ft. Irwin High Desert Warrior August 2016

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10 August 5, 2016
Heritage Month Celebration

Hollywood actor Clyde Kusatsu actor talks at
Fort Irwin about Asian experiences in America

Hawaii-born stage and Hollywood actor Clyde Kusatsu, guest Veteran Hollywood lm and television actor Clyde Kusatsu was the guest speaker at the National Training Center’s Asian-
speaker at the National Training Center’s recent Asian-American American Paci c Island Heritage celebration at Fort Irwin’s Sandy Basin Community Center on May 25. Kusatsu has acted
Paci c Islander Heritage Month celebration, spoke about his personal in many television series and movies since the 1970’s, including “M.A.S.H.,”“Magnum PI,”“Midway,” and”The Young and the
challenges in breaking through cultural stereotypes, as a student and Restless.” He is a vice president of the Screen Actors guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
as a professional actor. As amateur historian, Kusatsu also spoke about
little-known contributions of Asian Americans to the United States do commercials?’ “…I don’t know if a lot of people realize that the oldest Asian pres-
military since theWar of 1812. His remarks below have been edited to Out of 250 actors trying out for the commercial, Kusatsu got the ence in the United States is in Louisiana.
highlight his personal journey from growing up in Hawaii to establish-
ing himself as an actor in the Hollywood lm and television industry. job, partly by having practiced imitating John Wayne to entertain his “And that’s because Spain had conquered the Philippines…and
friends and peers during breaks during stage rehearsals and shooting they impressed a lot of Filipinos to be sailors in their galleys, to make
Kusatsu was born and raised in the decade after World War II breaks on acting gigs. Some television script writers enjoyed his John the trip from the Philippines, with the gold to Mexico….A lot of the
in Honolulu, when its Asian and Paci c Islander ethnic minorities Wayne shtick so much, they wrote in a character role for him for sev- Filipinos had had it [with the Spanish] and they jumped ship. ey
together made up a larger majority of its population. eral episodes of Magnum PI, a popular detective show starring Tom knew their way across Mexico and landed in Louisiana. …Everyone
Selleck in the 1980’s. has heard of the pirate Jean La Fitte, who …helped General Jackson
“When I was growing up in Hawaii, World War II was not that defeat the British in the War of 1812, in the Battle of New Orleans.
far in the past. e movies I used to see were all about World War “… It’s that kind of willingness to say “Why not?” --to adapt. But Well, amongst those ghters who fought with Jackson were about 400
II--the Paci c, of course, and the European theater. We used to play to do that, you have to study. You have to have discipline, you have to Filipinos, who were sailors in La Fitte’s 3,000-man organization. And
‘war’ a lot. We’d go, ‘Let’s play the Paci c.’ But we (Asians) were really have the wherewithal, to stick to it and focus on it. to this day, the descendants are still there.
portrayed animalistic, not very well in the movies. So we’d go, ‘Let’s
play Germany. Yeah, I’ll be a Nazi, if you want me to be the enemy.’ Immigrants from East Asia ght for America since 1812 “…in 1853, during a time of extreme famine and warfare in China,
See HERITAGE, page 11
ere was that kind of mindset. Kusatsu then turned to other Asian-Americans who have been an
“Today, when you turn on that television set, or stream shows on intimate part of American military history.
computer… you will notice on commercials, there is a blending. It’s
like [a cross-section] the American scene is being shown out there.
An Oriental-American drama major at Northwestern University
When Kusatsu, as a teenager, began thinking seriously about what
he wanted to do with his life, he decided he wanted to become an
actor. After graduating from Iolani School, then a private Christian
college prep school for boys, he enrolled at Northwestern University
to study drama.
“…it was challenging. Like I said, you couldn’t nd anyone
who looked like me. In college, a professor said to me, “Why do
you ever want to be an actor, when there is only e King and
I, and Teahouse of the August Moon? How could you possibly
think about making a living?
“…One of the things about the Japanese culture is “gaman.” You
endure whatever is given you. Your boss, your wife, your kids, anything.
And so, as long as you didn’t react, that was good. You withstood that,
the pain. at was good. And if it so happened that you committed
suicide, that was ne. at was the honorable way out. at was kind
of the mindset, because fear and expressing what you feel was kind of
frowned upon. And it’s encapsulated in the saying: “if the nail stands
out, it is your duty to pound it down.”
… So I decided… I’m going to have to be ten times better, to take
“the slings and arrows,” and not “fall on my sword,” so to speak. So I
went back the next year, and tried out for directing scenes, children’s
theater… And to make a long story short, for the next three years, at
Northwestern University, I became a working member of the theater
department.
“… to me, [it was about] perseverance. Endurance. And you do
that, by continually focusing, striving harder and harder. And I can
remember, I did summer stock, in Michigan cities and in Hawaii,
in Aspen, Colorado….and all these roles, in college and summer
stock, were never Asian roles. Or at that time, the nomenclature was
“Oriental-American”--oriental.
“… But during that time, there were all the other Asian-American
guys saying, “What’s that Clyde doing?” “Why is he doing all these
kinds of acting?”
“…One time I remember, there was a call for Chinese barbeque
sauce. And they were looking for a John Wayne type, an Asian. And
at that time, I was like, “I don’t do commercials.”
“And nally my wife says, “You don’t do commercials? You’ve
got kids, you’ve got a mortgage. You’ve got, expenses. ‘You don’t

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