<Begin Segment 2>

AI: But I'm going to take us back again to prewar. And as you said, you were born in 1924. When you were going to, just starting public school, just starting school, do you have any memory of that time? Did you, for example, were you speaking Japanese at home, or had you learned --

MK: Yeah.

AI: -- some English already?

MK: I had a very difficult time at school because my folks spoke Japanese, and that's all I knew, just about, other than talking to my brothers and sisters. I remember school was very hard for me. And I tried my best, but I suffered.

AI: What kind of ethnic and racial composition did your grade school have? Were there other Japanese American kids in your school?

MK: The first grammar school I went to had lot of Japanese there. It was called Jefferson Grammar School in Santa Clara School District. And our family was sharecroppers near the school, so I went there. And to me, the school wasn't too bad because there was a lot, lot of Japanese kids. But later my folks moved to Cupertino, and they were all whites there. And that's, that's when I first learned, you know, about racism, how bad it was. And that's the grammar school I learned about being called a "Jap," and, "Go back where you came from," and things like that. They kind of, it was kind of cruel to tease a young kid, being a "Jap." Many times I went home, saying, "Why was I born Japanese?" Why wasn't I born white like the rest of the kids and so I could be accepted? But that's the way it was. And my father and mother always said, "Well, we gotta farm here. We just have to do the best we can." So I tried to understand. But to this day, going to a all-white school is a very bad experience for me. Every day was, when I was growing up was almost like a fight. They call me a "Jap," and I would fight back. And I noticed that one thing that the kids that didn't fight back, they were left alone. Isn't that strange? Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here. I didn't learn my lesson. I should've been like them and just bowed my head and accepted it. But I, I thought I was a good American, and I fought back. And I got beat up lot of times for that.

AI: And the teachers saw that? Just let it happen?

MK: Oh, yeah. The teachers were very prejudiced. They were just as bad as anybody. Even the teachers used that word, "Japs." All the kids would turn around and look at you when the teacher start talking about Japs. For example, Cupertino Grammar School, we had Japanese farmers -- across the school -- growing strawberries. And the teacher want to say, I believe she wanted to say something nice about the Japanese. She says, "Look at those Japs over there. Look how hard they work." Just that word "Japs," it turned me off.

AI: So even someone who thought she was saying something nice...

MK: Yeah.

AI: ...really didn't realize how racist that was.

MK: That's the way hakujin are. Even today I think the, most of the hakujin think Asians and especially Japanese or Chinese are foreigners, even though they're born here.

AI: So this is the kind of treatment that you received even in the years way before World War II started.

MK: Oh, yeah. You know, I had fights in the, even on the buses, they tried to kick me off. They, they'd try to make me walk home. It was just -- [laughs] -- I hate to look back on what happened, but I was really threatened. "If you get on this bus again, we'll beat you up." But I didn't want to walk four or five miles to school. So the first chance I'd get, I just jumped on the bus. The bus driver sort of protected me that much, anyway. But once I got on the back of the bus, there was no, no protection. There was just racial taunting all the way.

AI: So a lot of times, then, you were left with the feeling that gee, if you weren't Japanese American, you wouldn't have to suffer that.

MK: That's right. That's why I kept saying, "Why was I born Japanese? Why couldn't I have been born white so I could enjoy being an American?"

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2001 Densho. All Rights Reserved.