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AI: Well, now, in 1940, you would have turned eighteen.

GY: Yes.

AI: And then -- and then it was later in 1940 that you graduated from high school?

GY: Yes, yeah.

AI: Kind of taking, getting back to that time when you were saying that the outlook wasn't so good for someone graduating from high school.

GY: Uh-huh.

AI: What, what did you have in your mind that you would do after graduation?

GY: It was really bleak. I can't -- I like the word "bleak." Man, the future seemed gray, bleak, ash-gray days in terms of what I'm going to do because I had to make some decisions. School? What am I going to do? And I was working again, (weekends) at the fruit stand. And Lloyd Kinoshita was a young man, nice, nice young man who, with whom I shared a lot of interests because he loved to sing. And he was always humming some pop tune, and how neat that was. And he said, "George, you're going to graduate, and what are you going to do?" Well, I guess I'll go to LACC, Los Angeles City College at that time. Most of the kids went there. "Well, what for?" He says, "You're going to end up here anyway." (I) said, "No, man. I'm not going to come back here." But I knew in -- deep inside, yeah, I was going to be back there.

AI: You mean back there at the --

GY: Back to the fruit stand, working as he did. And thought, oh, man. I didn't think -- how terrible that would be, for the rest of my life to work in a place like that. So that's how it was. And so in, in school at Los Angeles City College, again, large groups of Niseis were there, too. The same situation. Their aspirations may have been a little bit different depending on their background, their family background, how the parents may have pushed them along. So we'd hang out on the lawn just like they do now, groups of Niseis hanging out. And I knew it was kind of neat because these were new friends from different schools, different parts of LA.

And not too far from, away from Los Angeles City College was a record store. In those days, they had records in bins, exposed, it's just like here, nowadays, but L -- 78 rpms. And if you wanted to listen to a record, you'd pull it out and go to the small booth similar to a telephone booth but smaller. And there was a turntable there. And I guess no earphones, put the radio -- rather the phonograph record on and play the tune. If you liked it, (you'd) buy it -- bought it. The Bluebirds, were, Decca and couple of (other) labels were 25 cents, 35 -- I guess 35 cents. The better records like Tommy Dorsey a little bit, a little higher, were 50 cents, Victors. So that was a neat connection with music again.

And at City College, they had a big band, a swing band. For the first time heard live -- these were students, of course -- but real neat. And there was a tune that they played that just knocked me out. It was called "Never No Lament." It was a Duke Ellington piece. And it was so swinging, just neat. And I bought a record of it, 50 cents, Duke Ellington. And even today, with my big band, I bought an arrangement that's very similar to that arrangement, and we still play it. Still a favorite. And it was introduced to me from, from Los Angeles City College and the, their orchestra. So that was nice, again, exposure to live music, swing music. So we had the record store not too far.

But, God, what am I going to take in school? And went to some orientation meetings as to sort of needs and professions as these schools provide, job opportunities, something. And they said there something about, male nurses were needed. I didn't want to take accounting. Engineering didn't interest me. And I don't know what else there may have been. I didn't know what. So I took some courses because of that orientation meeting, male nurses. I thought, well, what the hell? I was an orderly at Poston in the internment camp. And so I took biology and things like that, and just for the fun of it -- that just lasted a year because I think we were still in camp. But that was my exposure to some of these classes in biological sciences. And let me correct that a little bit. I, in terms of being the orderly, it was soon after going to LA City College that I became an orderly in camp. But -- I'm getting a little mixed up here -- but LA City College was, again, exposure to something other than high school to another level in terms of music and different mainstream white America students. And I felt, again, a little bit more, more, more of a minority there. High school felt very much at home, just hanging out with all the kids. But they're a different group of people, more, more white Americans, people who are much really into academics. People had goals in life. Politics, school politics. And I was not a part of that scene.

AI: Excuse me, but you said earlier that Lloyd Kinoshita had said, you know, "Why are you going to college? You'll just end up back here." For people who don't understand what that means, could you tell a little bit more? You said that deep in your heart, you felt that way, too, but can you tell, for people who don't know, what he was referring to when he said, "You'll end up back at the vegetable stand"?

GY: Yeah. Well, Lloyd was experiencing what I was experiencing but a little bit, was ahead of me in terms of time. And it has to go -- has to do with role models in the community, what he saw in the community, which is really main part of his life and my life, too. It's just like being in a small space with tall, high barricade or fences around us. No exposure to anything else. Or, kind of think about the ice cream parlor, it's where your ice cream cones and flavors now. In those days, it was just vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, maybe. But now you have all these varieties. So we had vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry in those days. Doctor, dentist, maybe the insurance salesman, it's in my mind. And so it's a self-imposed, imposed mindset in regard to the future and what I could do. And so after high school, I had no goal in mind. And that really left me in the lurch. That's really... emotionally depressed, I suppose, yeah. So this is what I said, and that's why he told me. So when he said, you're going to end up... I knew deep down in my heart, my heart, yeah, my gut, I wouldn't be there -- that I would meet with him soon.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.