<Begin Segment 12>

AI: And you mentioned that your school, both your junior high and your high school, were very ethnically diverse. What -- and among your own friends, your closest friends -- what ethnicity were they?

LB: I think most of my friends were Japanese American, but certainly I had lots of friends who weren't Japanese American. I think one thing that I think about when I think about Gardena is that many people who weren't Japanese American kind of liked to consider themselves honorary Japanese Americans because there were so many Japanese Americans in Gardena, that it was kind of a prevailing culture among even those who weren't Japanese American. So I had a fairly diverse set of friends, which was really great as far as growing up.

AI: Now, you mentioned that also in junior high and high school, that you were interested in social activities, and you were very active, as you described earlier. Can you tell me a little bit more about, especially as you moved into high school, that's a time when many young people are figuring ourselves out, perhaps having some conflicts with parents or just experimenting with growing up and issues of life. Can you tell me a little bit more about what high school times were like for you?

LB: I had a really great time in high school, and I think that it was because, unfortunately, I probably focused less on my studies and more on developing my socialization skills. I spent a lot of time with friends. I had groups of friends that I hung out with and we'd meet at the bowling alley every single day or meet at the Gardena Public Library and hang out, do more talking than studying. I had boyfriends. All of these things certainly very, very normal for a teenager. But I suppose that, as I look back, perhaps I wasn't the good, studious Japanese American girl that perhaps my parents and others might have expected of me. I think I did well in school. I think I could have done better. I think I could have been more serious and made people around me much happier. But I really enjoyed myself, and I really wanted to spend time with my friends, and really wanted to learn about the world and go and play and stay out late and date, go to dances and all of that. And perhaps sometimes my parents didn't think that I spent as much time studying and being serious as I should have.

AI: Right. Well, and the way you describe that, it certainly sounds well within the range of, of activity of an average high-schooler, but in the context of your family and the community, would you say that was a little rebellious or perhaps out of the ordinary?

LB: It certainly might have been rebellious. I certainly didn't feel that it was important for me to comply with perhaps the traditional view of being the studious, serious Japanese American girl. And I never felt that that was a stereotype that I wanted to become or aspire to. Certainly it's a good stereotype to aspire to, a very positive one, and I would not fault anyone who's ever pursued that, and I certainly hope my children pursue that stereotype. [Laughs] But I think that I really felt that I had a different path that I wanted to pursue.

AI: Well, in fact, I'd like to ask you a little bit about that. What were some of the things that, that you were thinking about, or did you have some hopes and dreams for yourself for beyond high school?

LB: I'd like to be able to say that I wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor from a very, very early age. I think that that's probably very much the stereotype of what people have of young Japanese Americans, that they're studious and they're going to grow up to be doctors and lawyers or scientists or engineers or accountants or whatever. But I have to say that I didn't aspire to great accomplishments when I was young. I really wanted to just have a good, happy, responsible life. I didn't necessarily aspire to going to college or to any graduate school. I didn't aspire to just getting out of high school and getting married and having a lot of kids either. I didn't have a particular plan. I think the thing that influenced me the most probably was when my mother said, when I graduated from high school, that I had two choices. I either could go to school or I could go to work, and I chose school because I didn't feel like going to work at that point in time. And fortunately, I ended up doing well enough in school to continue going to school, but I will have to say that when I graduated from high school, I suppose I had some very simple goals, and many of those grew out of some of the things I've already discussed, doing something for the world around me, doing something to make my community a better place, being a happy person with a good life. But I didn't aspire to be rich or to spearhead any great social movements or change the world at that point in time.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.