<Begin Segment 6>

AI: Well, I'd like to take you back to your own elementary school days, and ask you to talk a little bit about that and what was it was like in an elementary school within a community of this nature. And I know for some of us who grew up in more of a majority setting that there were instances of prejudice and discrimination, but what was it like for you?

LB: I think back on it as generally feeling very safe and very nurturing because we had Japanese American teachers, people from the community who I knew. But I answer that question with mixed feelings because before the third grade, I can't say I was a real successful student. But after the third grade, I think that I did feel that I could really apply myself to learning and to activities I wanted to pursue. I could get involved in yearbook, I could get involved in leadership and run for office and join the choir and all of that because there were teachers and administrators who encouraged us, and I had peers who were just like me who were pursuing the same things.

That said, I don't think that it was as perfect as perhaps the picture I've been painting. I think that there was some stereotyping going on. I think that some of the teachers and some of the administrators in the schools saw many of the Sansei kids as good, quiet, smart Japanese kids who could do well in school, but might not, but should not be encouraged in other ways. For example, perhaps some of these administrators and teachers and counselors felt that Japanese Americans should pursue the sciences and math, and not perhaps the creative arts, or we should aspire to stay local, to go to USC and go to UCLA like everybody else did, but never dream of going to Stanford or Yale or Harvard. So while I think back on it, and it was certainly a very safe environment, it was an environment where I felt that I could strive for excellence and be whatever I wanted to be, in some ways as I think about it, maybe it was kind of what you might call like a glass ceiling, like we talk about it today, where yes, you should be successful, but you're still Japanese American, so don't strive for too much. So I think that there was that element there.

AI: Do you recall feeling that yourself, feeling perhaps steered or influenced in a certain direction or in a certain way to do something or not to pursue certain things?

LB: This may sound like a strange way to describe a disadvantage, but I'll describe it anyway. When I was in high school, I and most of my Sansei friends were really steered towards the advanced placement, honors classes, college entry, all of that stuff. And I very much did not want to do those classes. I really felt like it was important for me to do as well as I could academically, but I really didn't want to face the pressure of having to complete so many college credits before I graduated from high school. And this high level of competition, and I know that sounds really kind of strange, but at that point in time, I felt like I was a smart person and I could do well, but I didn't necessarily want to get steered into advanced placement at that point in time. And my counselors really said, "You really need to do this. You really have to do advanced placement. You have to do the honors classes." And actually, I had a counselor tell me that God wanted me to do, that it was the right thing to do that I take these classes. This was a hakujin counselor. So I walked across the hall to the Japanese American counselor, and she told me I didn't have to take the advanced placement classes, and I took the regular classes because she understood me and what I was saying.

So that is, I think, an instance where I felt that being -- that, that she'd looked at me, this counselor looked at me as, as a Japanese American, as a Sansei who was this smart person who would get good grades, and you know, that was the stereotype, that that was all I was interested in doing and that was basically my pigeonhole. I was really very much more interested in working on yearbook and in doing gymnastics and in taking leadership, being involved in student government, to my mother's chagrin perhaps, but I don't think that this counselor saw that that was something that I should be doing as much as I should have been preparing for advanced placement classes.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.