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Celebration of Diversity

July, 1999

Celebration of Diversity
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July, 1999, LOS ANGELES, CA - It's hard to believe, but here we are now halfway past the final year of this century. For that matter, the final year of this millennium. It does give me a sense of the momentousness of time.

July began with a singularly 20th-century experience that resonated with portents both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. I did a Star Trek convention in Roswell, New Mexico, the place that claims to have had a visitation from outer space just a bit more than fifty years ago. There couldn't be a more fitting locale for a Star Trek con. My manager, Brad Altman, and I flew into Albuquerque, then he drove me the three-plus hours down to Roswell across the sun-scorched New Mexican landscape. We saw incredibly picturesque billows of dark clouds edged in radiant light. Then, off in the distance, we saw a flash of silent lightning on the horizon. As we drove on, we saw more flashes with increasing frequency. Before we knew it, we were driving through a storm of lightning bolts spearing the ground all around us. Right, left, front and rear. All with no sound, no rain. We drove on through this bizarre storm for about five minutes and suddenly, it was over. As if we had crossed some invisible meteorological border, the soundless lightning flashes stopped. But a few minutes later, like bullets fired at us from the sky, hailstones began falling on our rental car. The pounding got so loud, it seemed like we were being attacked by some fighter craft from above. We could barely see beyond the windshield. Then, as suddenly as it started, the hail assault was over. The sky cleared and we were driving through picture postcard New Mexican scenery again.

An hour later, a Days Inn Motel, looking brand spanking new, appeared on the roadside. We drove past a simple but tidy Travel Lodge, then a 7 Eleven, a Burger King, a Ramada Inn, the signposts to Americana U.S.A. Before long we were driving down Main Street with dress shops, thrift stores, a bookstore, and a Denny's on the corner. Then we came upon a 1930's art deco movie theater that obviously had been converted to more distinctive use. There was a crowd anxious to get in waiting under the sun bleached, jazz era marquee. It read, "U.F.O. Museum." We had arrived in Roswell, New Mexico. It was the very picture of a pleasant, upbeat community but with a singular distinction. The unidentified flying object was not only a local phenomenon and an alleged government conspiracy but a thriving industry as well.

The Chamber of Commerce was one of the sponsors of this Star Trek convention. It began with a ribbon cutting at a specialty store called Alien Zone. Roswell mayor, Bill Owen, was there to greet the public and the press. The local Toyota dealership was providing transportation for the celebrities and dignitaries. The business establishment was solidly behind this Star Trek convention. Chatting with Mayor Owen after the event, I learned that he was a native of Roswell but had been an FBI agent in Washington, D.C. in another life, as had his attractive wife. It occurred to me that an "X Files" convention could do well here as well.

Every convention has something unique about it but I must confess Roswell is the only place where I did my autograph signing sessions in a gallery filled with displays of mock-up alien visitors to Roswell back in 1947. They are depicted as about four feet tall with swelled, bald heads and enormous, dark, haunting eyes. Their spindly, elongated limbs are attached to a thin torso. Why do these alien life forms consistently seem to take on somewhat anthropomorphic shape? Is it that the people who have these encounters cannot see alien life taking forms other than basically our own? Much as Japanese artists who saw white people for the first time with Commodore Matthew Perry's visit to Japan in 1853 drew Caucasians with unambiguous Japanese features distinguished only by strange costumes and odd beards. If we are going to be venturing beyond this planet, it seems to me, we are going to have to have much more open minds and far greater imagination.

The consistent element with these conventions however, is the fans. Wherever we go, they are enthusiastic, dedicated and celebrants of the Star Trek view of pluralism. "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations" was vibrantly on display in Roswell in the combinations of ethnicities, lifestyles and ideas. May it live long and prosper.

Ethan Philips, that wonderful actor from one of our spin-off shows, "Star Trek: Voyager," was the other guest at this con. What a terrific stand-up comic he is! His performance at the convention dinner was painfully funny. Without any sense of shame or conscience, he told "my wife" jokes with his long-suffering wife right there in the audience in front of him. The crowd roared as she sat impassively in its midst.

I'm writing this on July 14. Tomorrow morning, I'm off to another convention in Raleigh, North Carolina with Walter Koenig, Jimmy Doohan and Nichelle Nichols. We keep on trekking, boldly going wherever this trek will take us. Next month, I'll be in Chicago on August 5, on the Navy Pier celebrating a summer festival. Stay tuned.

Millennium Musings

December, 1999

December, 1999, LOS ANGELES, CA - Does the year seem to speed by as fast for you as it does for me? 1999 literally seems to have gone at warp speed. Here it is December already! Not only the end of the year but almost the century and the millennium as well. It's exhausting just to think of it -- much less recount all that has happened in the last twelve months.

January began for me with a celebratory splash. I was privileged to serve as the master of ceremonies of the gala festivities that go with the opening of a spectacular new building, the Pavilion of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. It is an 85,000-square-foot expansion building of the museum on whose board of trustees I had been serving for the last thirteen years. The opening exhibit called "Common Ground" is on all that we share and that interlinks us as Americans in a pluralistic nation. Of interest to Star Trek fans is the fact that the exhibit includes the Captain Sulu uniform that I wore in the motion picture, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

That theme of common ground was extended on to the international scene in February. I serve on a federal commission called the Japan-United States Friendship Commission. The U.S. commissioners joined with our Japanese counterparts in a joint meeting, the Japan-U.S. Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange, called CULCON for short, in Tokyo and later, Naha, Okinawa. Our mission, in short, is to deepen mutual understanding through culture and education. I proposed that our next joint meeting, to be held in the year 2001, be convened in Los Angeles with the venue to be the Japanese American National Museum. The unanimous approval was great, but that is going to mean a lot of work for me, as well as the staffs of both the commission and the museum, preparing for this important bi-annual, bi-national conference. We're going to make this the best conference yet since President John Kennedy initiated these exchanges during his administration. And it is a wonderful opportunity to show off our museum and my hometown as well. After the conference in Okinawa, I toured Hiroshima and the ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto. The trip was for me a personally enriching cultural and educational experience.

The year was crammed with speaking engagements at universities, corporate meetings and other gatherings that had me trekking all over the country from one coast to the other, from the Canadian to the Mexican border. I can't tell you how earnestly I pray for the early development of the transporter when I'll be able to just sparkle for a few seconds and simply "beam" over to whatever destination.

In all my travels in 1999, I had the most fun participating in the "Fab Four" Star Trek conventions organized by empresarios extraordinaire, Dave and Jackie Scott. It has been wonderful sharing a lively weekend with Nichelle Nichols, Jimmy Doohan and Walter Koenig and all the faithful fans in so many cities all over the country. These cons really were like warm family reunions.

One of these conventions, however, was a sad one for all of us. It was at a Fabulous Four con in San Francisco that we learned of DeForest Kelley's passing. Our hearts were heavy, but we decided, instead of grieving over his death, to make the convention a celebration of his life and a sharing of our joyful memories of a dear friend and gifted colleague. De will always be in our hearts and fond memories. He has left his widow Carolyn and all of us a glorious legacy.

The year ends with a completion of a great circle back to the Japanese American National Museum, whose trustees elected me Chairman of the Board effective January 1, 2000. It will be an engaging challenge and I know that the museum can count on the enthusiastic support of a great many people across the nation. I invite you all to visit the museum when you are in Los Angeles or when one of our traveling exhibits visits your city. Let's all boldly go into a new millennium where we have never gone before.

I send to all of you my heartiest holiday cheers and very best wishes for a stellar Y2K.

A New Beginning

January, 2000, CANCUN, Mexico - Six days ago, we were living in the 1900's. That really sounds historic now, doesn't it? 1900's. Then we woke up on a Saturday morning, not only in a new century, but also a new millennium. It was January 1, the year 2000! Just the sight of those three zeros in a row looked so elegantly futuristic. Never have we had the same sense of history and the future in such close proximity.

It is six days later and I am now in Cancun, Mexico for a corporate speaking engagement with a biotechnology firm called Bio-Rad. Lounging on my hotel room balcony, gazing out at the waves gently rolling in on the beach at this paradisiacal resort on the Yucatan peninsula, my thoughts range philosophically.

Mindful of our rich but turbulent history, we as a civilization have managed to make notable advances. Our Star Trek communication device, imaginative science fiction thirty-five years ago, is today a necessary nuisance -- the cell-phone. Fifteen years ago, in the whimsical time travel film, "Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home," 23rd century Scotty had a comic scene where he attempted to talk to a 20th-century computer. Today, such a device, a voice-command computer that answers back audibly, is not only reality, it is a commercial product that a number of Star Trek actors have endorsed. Most astounding is the transformation of our geo-political landscape. When "Star Trek" first went on the air in 1966, the world was locked in the grips of the coldest of cold wars. Two great powers, the Soviet Union and the Western Alliance, were glaring at each other threatening mutual nuclear annihilation. Yet, on "Star Trek," we had a valued member of the Enterprise crew who spoke with a Russian accent and took pride in his Russian heritage. Back then, this character, Pavel Chekov, was pure fiction, a wistful hope for mankind's future. Today, we have had in fact, a space station called Mir up in the sky on which we heard not only Russian and American accents, but crew members speaking in the Russian language and English that worked together in concert. The grotesque presence of the Berlin Wall is gone. The Soviet Union is broken and in economic shambles while the United States has enjoyed the longest economic prosperity in its history. Despite the concern for irrational terrorist attacks that tempered our new year's celebration, looking back, our recent history has been good.

Turning from the past to our future and gazing out at a seeming infinity of tomorrows, all we can see is a vast unknown. We know that there are some certainties that serve as the benchmarks of time. The zero that punctuates the end of the year 2000 reminds us that this will be another census year. The political debates that have already begun in earnest tell us that there will be another presidential election. And the surest verity of any year -- we will be paying taxes. But the rest is a great mystery. We hope we will enjoy success. We expect there will be challenges. We pray we will not have setbacks. But we don't know.

All we can do to shape the course of what is to come can be determined by what we do and how we do it. And all we have to guide us in our actions are the values and ideals that have successfully brought us to this point. We have managed to build the most vibrantly pluralistic nation in history, still mindful of the inequities and conflicts that exist. We have made our free capitalist system the exemplar of the global economy while aware of the challenges that the deterioration of our environment industrial development brings. We have a dynamic peoples' democracy, as good as -- and as fallible as -- the people who participate in it.

As I gaze out on the waves on the beach of Cancun, rolling in with the same rhythmic regularity that it has maintained through countless millennia, I get a humbling sense of our small part in a great force. Whatever we do, let us give it our very best, acting with confidence in our problem-solving ability, our innovative talent and our creative imagination.

Hawaii Connections

February, 2000, HONOLULU, HI - January began with the gentle waves of the Caribbean rolling onto a sunny beach in Cancun, Mexico. And the month is ending with another idyllic beach scene -- this time with the waves of the Pacific rolling on to the beach at Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii. But it wasn't all play.

I am the newly elected Chairman of the Board of the Japanese American National Museum. Our first meeting of the year was scheduled to be held in Honolulu. But to make our confinement indoors in the Halekulani Hotel conference room bearable, the Hawaiian weather kindly obliged us with dreary, drizzly skies. Throughout our two-day meeting, it was showery and gray. It was still raining when I adjourned our board meeting.

The next morning, with the runways still wet with early morning drizzle, Irene Hirano, the Japanese American National Museum's executive director, along with several trustees and staff members, joined me on a flight to the city of Hilo on the big island of Hawaii. We were going there for the opening of one of our traveling exhibits, "From Bento to Mixed Plate," at the Lyman House Museum. This was the exhibit that had enjoyed a hugely successful six-month run at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

We landed at the Hilo airport in a downpour. Our shuttle van valiantly struggled against the famously rainy welcome of Hilo. When we arrived at the museum, I saw what looked like an enormous convention of umbrellas gathered at the front entrance. As we stepped out, we were greeted by smiling faces under huge outspread umbrellas and quickly hustled through the crowd. We had arrived just in the nick of time for the 9 a.m. beginning of the opening ceremony.

It is a Japanese tradition to begin ceremonial occasions with a concert of drumming on enormous drums called Taiko. When the first thunderous "boom" sounded, as if pre-planned by some special effects man, the rain miraculously stopped, the clouds parted and golden rays of sunshine began to stream down on the gathering. If that is an omen for the "From Bento to Mixed Plate" exhibit's run at the Lyman House Museum, then it bodes very well for its success. After the ceremony, as expected, the event turned into something not unlike a Star Trek convention. I sat and signed autographs for the crowd of first day museum-goers. In the evening, legendary U.S. Senator Dan Inouye spoke eloquently about the exhibit at a lovely Hawaiian reception for the exhibit's generous supporters. And there I signed more autographs.

Although I have been to the state of Hawaii many times -- mainly to Honolulu -- this was my first visit to the "big island" of Hawaii. I'd heard and read about the beauty of this island, but the dramatic variety and contrasts in its scenery astonished me. Hilo, on the eastern side of the island, is a tropical rain forest matching our image of Hawaii.

The morning after the museum opening, I drove from Hilo to spend a few days of "R&R" at a resort in Kona on the opposite, west side of the island. Driving north, I left the rain forest jungles to a landscape of rolling green pasturelands that reminded me more of Wisconsin than any picture I had of Hawaii. There were herds of cattle grazing alongside white fences. I drove past a sign that announced "Parker Ranch," the biggest cattle ranch in the U.S. I stopped at a town called Waimea for lunch at a recommended place named the Paniolo Café. "Paniolo," I had been told, meant "cowboy" in Hawaiian. The waiter urged me to order the restaurant's famous paniolo hamburger. So I did. It tasted like hamburger - good, but no different than any other hamburger I've had on the mainland. I suppose that is what makes it famous in Hawaii.

About half an hour out of Waimea, the scenery changed again. This time, it became Arizona. Arid, scrubby desert landscape with occasional cactus plants trying to maintain themselves in the sandy soil. Even the sun seemed to get hotter.

Another half an hour and suddenly, the scene changed dramatically. It became a moonscape -- mile after barren mile of rocky, lifeless, unearthly vista. This was an ancient lava flow. Not a blade of grass could exist on this hot, forbidding terrain. I got off the highway on the road to the Orchid at Mauna Lani resort. The smooth roadway that cut through the jagged, rock-strewn topography seemed jarringly unnatural. What kind of god-forsaken resort did I get myself booked into, I wondered. Then, like a mirage, I saw graceful coconut palms swaying off in the distance. As I drove closer, bright splashes of crimson from Jacaranda bushes accosted me. Velvety green lawns appeared in sharp contrast to the jagged lava rocks. An elegant sign read, "Welcome to the Orchid at Mauna Lani." I drove up a curving drive to a grand porte cochere where a smiling group of stylishly clad bellmen was lined up to greet me. I had arrived at an unearthly oasis called the Orchid carved out of the stony crust of a lava flow.

The three days of rest and recuperation were heaven. But I must confess that the environmentalist in me did feel a slight twinge of guilt in this unnatural lap of luxury.

The other trustees of the Japanese American National Museum had returned home by the time I checked out of the Orchid. But I had another speaking engagement at a conference of the Pacific Telecommunications Council a few days later in Honolulu. So it was back to Honolulu and the beach at Waikiki for me. An onerous burden - to have to kill a few days at Waikiki.

At the Kona Airport for the return flight to Honolulu, Kona resident Midori Fujimoto showed me a wonderful museum, a memorial to Ellison Onizuka, the astronaut who died in the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle. Midori, whose late husband Fred spearheaded creation of the museum, told me that Ellison was a native son of Kona and took great interest in motivating young Hawaiians. I had met Ellison Onizuka in Los Angeles shortly before he flew off to Cape Canaveral for his ill-fated mission. I remember joking with him then that he was the 20thcentury ancestor of the character I play in Star Trek and thanked him for being one of the builders of the launching pad for the world of Star Trek. He modestly demurred and told me that Star Trek was one of his favorite shows and Sulu his inspiration. I thought of our mutual flattery with poignance as I walked through the Ellison Onizuka Space Center at Kona Airport, a most fitting tribute to the spirit of a space adventurer of our times.

Back in Honolulu, Hoyt Zia, executive director of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, had invited me to speak at his conference, where I met contemporary adventurers of a different kind. This was the annual gathering of high tech communications engineers, executives and entrepreneurs from the Pacific Rim countries from Asia to north and south Americas. Their great challenge is to connect people and nations through telecommunications. They are the explorers of today, linking up not just people, but ideas - sharing ideas, bringing ideas together to spark new ideas. They are the builders of our future in ways not unlike Gene Roddenberry's ideas that he shared through the telecommunications medium of television.

And, as it turned out, these conference delegates were eager Star Trek fans from way back in their college and university days. Star Trek was vibrantly alive even on the beaches of Waikiki. As the soft trade winds caressed us, the coconut palms swayed and the sound of the rolling waves serenaded us, we talked Star Trek and telecommunications.

Alien World Right Below

March, 2000, LONG BEACH, CA - We look up to the night skies with wonder. We see the stars and imagine galaxies beyond. In our mind's eye, we conjure up the possibility of alien life forms. We envision challenges and promises that the "final frontier" might hold. We are creatures conditioned by Star Trek.

Some of the most fantastical reality is found, however, not by looking up, but just by simply looking downward. I went to the dazzlingly new Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif., last month and discovered the almost surreal world swarming just under the surface of the water. The most incredible life forms have literally been just below us under the water line since the beginning of time.

I saw almost transparent, mushroom-like sea life virtually invisible but for the luminous glow outlining their outer edges. There were tanks teeming with microscopic, needle-like fish, each with a single neon dot but swimming in perfect unison to appear like one large, moving creature made up of a million shimmering polka dots. There was a huge, python-like eel so well camouflaged lazing on the bottom of a sandy aquarium that it became detectable only when it moved. No Star Trek episode had fictional alien life forms more fantastical than the real ones at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

There were more recognizable but nevertheless exotic sea life like the colorful tropical fishes from the south Pacific. Sea horses, I learned, carry their young in pouches until they are old enough to fend for themselves --- just like kangaroos. And sharks lay their leathery eggs, already containing little, wriggling fingerling sharks, among the sea kelps. We saw such an egg on display with a tiny, miniature shark visibly moving in it.

The aquarium itself is a technological marvel. The tank containing fish from north Pacific waters is churning turbulently, replicating the choppy waters of the Alaskan currents. This primeval savagery of the sea is powerfully recreated by unseen sophisticated technology. There is another tank that is the equivalent of a three-story building filled with sharks and other large fish happily plunging down and shooting right up the entire height. The newest addition to the aquarium, a torpedo-like Blunt Nosed Seven-gill shark, was curiously exploring the full loftiness of its new home. I was in awe of the strength of the clear plastic enclosing what must be tremendous pressure from all that water in the gigantic tank.

The Aquarium of the Pacific is nature's science fiction world made possible by the advances in technology. But the sobering message from the day at the aquarium is that the technology that helps display this wondrous sea world so realistically, also threatens this world. Sea life is endangered by improved fishing technology, massive pollution and rapacious oceanic exploitation. The tired irony of our times is that the wonders of nature are placed in jeopardy by the wonders of technology.

As I drove back to Los Angeles with the night sky twinkling down, I realized that we don't have to look up to the sky and wonder about strange alien life forms. We don't have to conjure up fictional challenges. We don't have to imagine some future "final frontier." We have it all, right here, right now, right under us.