<Begin Segment 8>

AI: Then after you graduated from Bailey Gatzert school, you went on to a middle school?

GY: Yes, Washington School. Where was that? About Fourteenth or Sixteenth Avenue. And again -- this is kind of a part of the evolution of becoming more American, I suppose, in that I was exposed to other racial/ethnic groups. Washington School, Jewish kids, a few blacks, and a, still a sprinkling of Chinese Americans. Again, great majority were Japanese. That's, that was a... that was still part of the, that was still part of the Japanese community. I had many friends in, at Washington School, but that was only daytime. And after 3 o'clock, we, kid went home to the Main Street gang and to the Japanese community. And that's how it was for many, many years, yeah.

AI: So growing up in Seattle, you really didn't have that much contact then with the larger, white, Caucasian community?

GY: Well, actually, in terms of time, no, but it was a time when we became familiar with them and what they did, what they enjoyed. But they were Americans, of course, for many years. And many of them were children of immigrants, too. But they came through the same process and being here in America. When a person, a minority group, is -- small groups are a minority, small, it mean smaller group, to a larger group, you become assimilated. You absorb the outside, the surrounding culture. That's only natural, I think. If I were a white American going to Japan, I'd become very much Japanese living there. And this is what happened to us.

So growing up in this environment of friends who spoke English and we started speaking English, music, sports, going to the library. The school was providing the, part of the assimilation process -- a lot of it, not part. Much of it. Movies, all provided this input in becoming American. And so it was not only the schools and meeting these kids. So when I walked to school, it was easy enough to become friends with non-Japanese because we talked about the latest movie you saw, the cowboy movies or whatever, and what we heard on the radio. Newspapers, of course, what little we read in the newspapers. So we became, because of our input from schools, et cetera, radio, it didn't take long for us to be a part of a, a larger group, yes, culturally but not socially, you know.

AI: Did -- do you recall any incidents from your childhood in Seattle of prejudice or discrimination or becoming aware of these racial/ethnic differences?

GY: No, I don't recall any, any significant examples. I think living in -- I don't think the word "ghetto" is a proper term, but it just seems like a small community within a large community and somewhat forced to live in the community but also mainly from choice, I think. You think, well, it's terrible you have to live together like that, but the birds of a feather flock together kind of thing. You -- much more comfortable with friends with same backgrounds, same attitudes about the world. I don't recall -- because of the fact that we had little contact with mainstream except maybe to go to the library or possibly go shopping. We didn't do much shopping as kids, of course. We stayed locally. And the schools were children of the same group here. I don't recall anything very much in terms of being -- feeling very much different, inferior, no. And even at Washington School, a bit older... I know there was separation, but not because we were told, "You're not as good," or -- we didn't get that "Jap" treatment, attitude. I didn't feel that at all at that time.

AI: So as a youngster, that really didn't touch you.

GY: No, no. It was really kind of neat, yeah.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.