<Begin Segment 7>

AI: It sounds like you had a lot of interests in, in your school years, that you were involved in a lot of different things that weren't recognized by that counselor and perhaps by others. Tell me a little bit more about some of your favorite activities, the things that you really enjoyed, whether they were in school or outside of school.

LB: While I was in school, I was involved in a lot of activities in junior high, I did choir, and in high school, I was involved in student government and yearbook and gymnastics, and they had those senior girls honor societies, service-oriented activities, car washes, bake sales, Christmas caroling at the local Keiro nursing home, lots of those types of activities. Girl Scouts, I was a Girl Scout for, I think, as long as they allowed you to be a Girl Scout 'til you graduated from (high school) and actually went on to be an assistant leader of a troop, working with kids. I tutored inner-city kids in reading. So lots of different activities.

AI: You had mentioned earlier that, about your grandmother's religious orientation, that they, and that they were visi-, they did visiting with their friends, they assisted in support of their friends with prayer. Were you also involved in any church activities?

LB: Well, actually, when we first started going to church, I recall going to all three of the different Japanese American churches in Gardena. I went to the Buddhist Church for a little while and the Baptist Church for a little while and the Methodist Church for a little while. And the churches very, very much served not only the traditional function of teaching the Bible and all of that, but were very, very much social institutions, the main social institutions in the community. Everyone seemed to be affiliated with one of the main Japanese American churches. There were lots of activities around those churches, church bazaars, and there was a Bon Odori and everything. And so they very much served the function of being a place where people in the community could come together, aside from serving the function of teaching the traditional religious doctrine.

Eventually, we ended up at North Gardena United Methodist Church, and actually, what I recall quite clearly is somehow, I think, my father got involved with a group of parents who wanted to start a brand new church. So when the church started, there was actually no building. It was a bunch of families who got together and wanted to start a church. And we had our early meetings at this place called the Spanish American Institute, where we just kind of borrowed, I think, another facility, and met there. And we brought in a minister to help form the church. And my father was involved in building the church, raising the money to build the church. And that was the church that I stayed with all the way through my high school years. And I was quite involved in the church, as far as starting out going to Sunday school and then going up through the high school program.

Again, in part, it taught me a lot of the traditional things that church teaches you, love thy neighbor, be a responsible citizen; that part of my upbringing was really very important. But also it was a gathering place for the community, a place where I could see my friends and neighbors. But I think the other thing was that like many young Sansei around that period of time and like many young Sansei who go to church, young kids who go to church, you get involved in questioning, too. And in high school, my friends and I were very much into questioning what the church was doing, what the church taught, how that fit into our lives and the lives of our community. And that was a really good experience for me, to learn about critical thinking and to learn about questioning authority, and to think about the role of the church in society and in the community. So the experience of growing up in that church, I think, again, taught me quite a bit.

AI: It sounds like it was a very rich experience. Is there -- what, would you say that there were any particular messages or learnings from your church-related experiences that stayed with you, that influenced you later?

LB: I think, again, it was, it was pretty much an all-Japanese American church, so I was surrounded by friends, family, good role models, Nisei who were very involved in the church and giving of their time, not only to the church, but also to the young people. So it taught me the value of community, the value of people in the community supporting each other. Again, it also taught me, I think, a lot about critical thinking at a very early age. One thing that I can really recall quite vividly was looking at the church, not only the, the Baptist Church and the Methodist Church, but, I think, church in general, and learning about the teachings of the church, that if you didn't believe in God, you would go to hell. And I could not believe that any god that they were talking about would send Buddhist people to hell. Buddhists, the people in the Buddhist Church in our community were just like me, just like anybody else. They just happened to go to another church. And that was a huge concern that I recall at the time, and questioning whether what the church was teaching really was right, and right for me. So I was very involved in the church, but I was also very concerned about the things that it taught, and very much started to feel that church was a man-made institution and not perhaps the word of God, I suppose, is the only way to say it. And it was trying to put a lot of those pieces together, which obviously, I think, served me and would serve anyone to learn how to figure out how society works and what to accept from society and what to reject from society.

AI: Were these issues that you were able to discuss with your parents at all, or was it more of a peer discussion?

LB: I think it was very much a peer discussion. Didn't talk to my parents about religion. I wouldn't describe our family as a really religious family. We went to church, and again, I think we went to church mainly because it was one of our social institutions, it was one of our community institutions, and not necessarily because we were particularly devout. So church was not a huge topic of conversation except for, "Are you going to church this morning?" [Laughs]

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.