One little act of kindness can go a long, long
way Two little acts of kindness can brighten
anyone's day Three little acts of kindness can
make a beautiful sound Hi and welcome back to
Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that features
people from all walks of life telling us an interesting
story from their childhood that has impacted
who they are today. I'm your host, Jay Rehak,
and like you, I've had my share of childhood
experiences that have impacted who I am today.
Some of them painful, some of them not so painful.
But I like to think all of them have helped to
make me who I am today. Tell Me What Happened
is sponsored by Sidelining Publishing, publishers
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on now and record your laughter. All right. Today
I have as my guest, a good friend of mine back
from back in the days of the union. Chicago Teachers
Union. Kenzo Shibata. Kenzo is working his way
through a social worker program right now. He's
currently a teacher, but he's going to be a social
worker in a couple years. As I said, he's a friend
of mine. He actually helped me get elected in
my pension days, but that's a whole other story
we'll tell another different time. So how are
you doing, Kenzo? I'm having a great day. How
are you, Jay? I'm doing all right. I'm doing
all right. So Kenzo, are you ready to tell your
story? Absolutely. All right, well here's how
it's going to work, Kenzo. I'm going to ask you
to tell you your story. I'm going to try to stay
out of the way. I'll try not to say a word. At
the end, I'm going to ask you absolutely one
question, and that one question is, how has it
impacted who you are today? All right? All right.
All right, I'm going to mute myself and take
it away. OK, so just to give a little context,
the story I'm about to tell you, I didn't really
uncover until about a month ago. And this is
something that happened to me probably fourth
or fifth grade. And I just was discharged from
this full -time psych program through a group
called Compass. It was a program of dialectical
behavioral therapy and behavioral health therapy.
And what we do in that program was not only kind
of figure out what went wrong, because I came
out of a pretty bad depression after the pandemic,
but also to look way back and look at some memories
that maybe we suppressed and how they... impact
our behavior today. So I'm really glad to be
on this show because I think it's right up my
alley for what I'm going through now. So one
of the things that I uncovered was a time that
I was being recruited for the Latin Kings when
I was very young. And I didn't even know what
was going on fully at the time. You know, in
fourth, fifth grade, I started getting interested
in a lot of music. So I was into heavy metal
music, punk music, hip hop music. And I grew
up in a working class in poor neighborhood, not
neighborhood, but a suburb called Hanover Park,
which is right outside of Elgin. And so I ran
with kind of a rough crowd and got to the point
where people saw that I was not afraid to get
into fights when I needed to. I won a lot of
them and I was a big kid. So some older kids
in the neighborhood approached me about stealing
some bikes. I guess they figured I would not
be afraid to do it. And it scared the crap out
of me because I, first of all, I didn't think
it was right to steal other kids' bikes because
kids need their bikes. I don't want anyone stealing
my bike. I had a tire stolen once that really,
you know, made me feel sad. And it kind of ate
me up inside because they were continuously bothering
me. And these were older kids. But then, I mean,
this is really creepy, but one of the kids had
a girlfriend who was in my eighth, my grade.
And in school, she's like, So what's going on
with those bikes? You're supposed to steal those
bikes. And it was a particular brand they were
looking for. I don't remember what it was. And
I just said, I don't want to do it. I don't want
to do it. And eventually, I ran into one of the
kind of leaders of this crew of kids. And he
said to me, so what's up? Are you going to do
this? And I just looked him straight in the eye,
and I just said, I'm not. I'm not going to steal
bikes. I don't. feel like that's something I
want to do. And I was fully prepared to get my
butt kicked at that point, because I figured
they were going to take it that far. But I looked
him straight in the eye the whole time. He very
well may have seen the fear in my eyes. I don't
know. But he just kind of patted me on the back
and said, fine, and then just walk the other
way. And they never bothered me again. And at
that point, I made a decision I was going to
stop hanging out with, you know, some of those
kids. And I figured at that point by really pursuing
my interest in like punk music and heavy metal
music, that would put me out of that lifestyle
completely because they didn't want to mess with
people. They didn't want to like have people
around them who had long hair and wore torn jeans
and all that stuff. They all dressed very nicely
and had very nice hairdos. So, you know, pretty
much all of those facts I always knew. Like I
always, that's a story that I was been able to
tell my entire life. But through this program
of therapy, you know, we uncovered some more
stuff about it. And, you know, part of it is
later on in life, some of those older boys and
even some of the kids my age were members of
the Latin Kings, the local Latin King crew. And
it didn't occur to me at the time that they were
recruiting me for their what they're called the
Pee Wee Kings, like the young kids that they
kind of feel out to see whether or not they're
going to elevate them to full status. And in
that process, you know, you get beat in and if
you want to leave, you get beat out. They call
it a violation. And none of that occurred to
me. The only thing that occurred to me was that
I didn't want to make other kids sad by taking
their bikes. And thinking back on that, in the
program, myself and other people in these group
sessions validated me for that because what it
was was even though I had a lot of violence in
my household and in my life growing up, for a
lot of kids, that would become like the easy
next step is like joining a crew of people who
are gonna show you brotherhood. and then continue
that cycle of violence in your life. And, you
know, by the way, one of those kids I knew was
dead by his senior year of high school, who he
was shot to death. And so even though I didn't
realize I was kind of looking out for myself,
I think I was. And kind of seeing patterns of
violence earlier in my life, I didn't fully acknowledge
it, but I was keeping myself out of that. And,
you know, the heavy metal and the punk scene
has its own violence. We have mosh pits and we
have all that. But the difference is you go into
a mosh pit and you fall, someone picks you up,
pats you on the back, sees if you're okay. And,
you know, I have one instance where I ended up
with 12 stitches in my head. But every band that
was playing that night came to see if I was okay.
and, you know, autographed, you know, my bandage
and all that. And, you know, I really felt like
a brotherhood there and no one was expecting
me to steal bikes or do anything further to,
you know, make my life difficult or other people's
lives difficult. And it's weird to tell this
story now because it sounds like I'm bragging
like, oh, the Latin Kings needed me or wanted
me, but that wasn't even it at all. They just
saw a little kid who was maybe kind of lost looking
for some brotherhood and some validation and
could probably get away with stealing bikes and
no one would do anything because I was a big
kid that wasn't afraid of fighting. But I also
think that looking that one kind of leader kid
in the eye and being very straight with him helped
me out a lot. Like I wasn't at that point, I
wasn't avoiding him. I wasn't showing weakness.
It was like, you know, I'm very strong in the
fact that I don't want to be a part of what you're
doing. And you know, it put me on a much better
path, even though some people looked down on
me because I had long hair and I wore like heavy
metal shirts and all that. I was actually a good
student. Mental health issues kind of made ups
and downs later on. Like I'd have a straight
A semester and then a straight C semester here
and there, which now I used to really feel bad
about myself because of that. And now being in
therapy and now being on medication, I understand
that my mood just wasn't regulated. and something
could have triggered me that led me to like allow
grades to drop. And since then, I've been just
kind of on top of the ball with everything I'm
doing. And that's why I'm fully confident now.
Well, grad school was, I took that very seriously.
So I got really good grades there. And that was
the first time in my life I was consistent with
good grades. And now this social work program
that I'm starting in the spring, I'm really excited
about because not only is it a career change,
but it's another academic endeavor. And I love
school. I mean, that's why I chose to be a teacher.
I love being in school. I love learning. I love
having classmates. I love the mentorship of teachers.
In fact, this is a hilarious coincidence, is
one of my former debate students is teaching
at Northeastern, the school where I'm taking
this program, and he teaches in my program. He
teaches at different tracks, so he'll never be
my teacher, but it was... It was incredible.
He actually wrote me one of my letters of recommendation
into the program. David Castro, who is just an
incredible young man. He's 32 now, I believe,
working on his PhD and doing organizing work
on the Southwest side, working with, you know,
poor youth and getting them involved in debate,
getting them involved in their, you know, making
their communities better. So a lot of interesting
things like that have been coming back to me
after just, you know, I imagine. you know you
have more years in the system than I do but just
18 years in the system so many of these young
people come back into my life as incredible adults
and it really does become more of a friendship
like he he won't call me Kenzo yet but he'll
call me Shabbat he dropped the mister so that's
that's enough that's the relationship we have
and I call him Castro so we're even there I love
it and I do know that feeling by the way Kenzo
the students that I'm in my life as I've been
in it for 30 was in it for 30 some years and
just retired but I actually reached out to a
former student of mine to help me on a project
that I'm doing and you know he definitely became
the teacher and I'm the student at this point
but I got no problem with that because sort of
like you said there's a beautiful Symmetry to
the notion of being a teacher and being a learner
that I believe that each one of us is and that
each one of us has the capacity to teach somebody
something else. Your story, your childhood story.
is something that I had no idea about you. Uh,
you know, that's, uh, I love the fact that you
didn't steal the bikes. I'm sorry, recruited
in the first place in the sense that it must've
been so hard as a little fourth or fifth grader
to have to stare down an older person and just
go, I just don't want to do that. But, uh, that
courage really does move me to tears in the sense
that I know a lot of little kids, you know, don't
have necessarily have that strength and, you
know, they become victims to a, to a larger system.
And that system is one that's based on the preying
on people's weaknesses or their emotional weaknesses
or difficulties, et cetera, that again, everybody
does have a desire to belong. I tell you right
now, this true story, and I don't know if that
I'll keep it in here, but I have a great respect
now for having metal kids that I didn't have
minutes ago. I thought these guys are just upset
about everything, but it turns out maybe Somebody
is trying to say this is an alternative way to
think non -violently or whatever. I don't know,
but you've changed my perspective on that. So
you've already sort of answered the question,
but how do you think this is that memory, that
experience has impacted who you are today? I
mean, you're going on to social work. So I think
there's something right there that's pretty clear,
but go ahead. I'll stay out of the way. You know
that the specifics of the experience I didn't
really unpack until recently. You know the whole
idea that like I would have been on a track to
be in the game, but certainly like hanging out
with the kids that I did when I was younger has
helped me in the classroom quite a bit teaching.
I taught at Wendell Phillips High School 39th
and King. I taught at Hancock High School by
Midway, even at Lakeview and at Ogden. You know
there are you know kids that are part of that
life. And I've never been judgmental of that,
I'd say. I've always tried to connect with all
students, even the ones that I know were involved
in some bad, violent stuff outside of school,
because I always saw it as like, you know, maybe
they needed someone to listen to them. And I
know that, you know, with a lot of those kids,
it's the adults in their lives either... failed
them or failed themselves and just couldn't be
around for that. So I always tried to be a positive,
positive voice in their life and kind of having
that background of being around gang bangers
when I was young, I understood a lot of the little
cultural cues from it. And so I would, you know,
I remember when I was at Lakeview, when a lot
of the teachers weren't really too familiar with
that stuff, they would come to me and say, Oh,
come to my classroom and they look at the desk
and like, what are these symbols mean? And I
would know, I would know that's that's GD, that's
the Kings. Oh, do you think this kid's in the
gangster disciples? I don't think this kid's
really in the gangster disciples, to be honest.
I think he's in a crew and uses that as a way
of, you know, kind of identifying with others.
So a lot of the the nuance in that stuff, I understood,
even though I was never really part of it. Well.
Thank you for your story, Kenzo. I'm telling
you, it's great to hear your voice, great to
talk to you. I haven't talked to you in a little
while. Like I said, now I will look at you differently
the rest of my life. I will look at you as a
little fourth and fifth grader who's standing
there going, no, I don't want to steal a bike.
That's genius. I think that's courage. That's
something that you should be very proud of that
moment. I hope you are, because I think it probably
did impact. the trajectory of your life and you've
helped out so many kids over the over the years
and I think that you're profoundly right relative
to you know looking at human beings kids and
saying you know these these guys who are in the
gangs or or associated in that it's like you
know they got some bad breaks etc they're still
you know struggling to make sense of their lives
like the rest of us. And it's definitely, I'm
sure, made you a better teacher and will make
you a better social worker. And so I appreciate
that. But, but anyway, great hearing your voice.
Good to see you. Yeah, thank you very much. All
right, well, take care. Have a great day. Well,
that's our show. Thank our guests, Kenzo Shibata,
good buddy of mine. I'd like to thank our sponsors.
Tell me what happened and laughsaver .com. Until
next time, this is Jay Reheck asking you all
to stay safe out there and try not to hurt anybody.
Three little acts of kindness Can make a beautiful
sound Many acts of kindness Help the world go
round One little loving word Can go a long, long
way Two little loving words Can brighten anyone's
day Three little loving words can make a beautiful
sound. Many loving words help the world go round.
One little seed sown can go a long, long way.
Two little seeds sown can brighten One little
child's laughter Can go a long, long way Two
little children's laughter Can make a beautiful
sound Many children laughing Help the world go
round And many see its own Help the world go
round Many loving words Help the world go round
And many acts of kindness Help the world world
go