<Begin Segment 33>

AI: Well, I'm interested, you mentioned this incident with, that your father and mother had to deal with, being brought into court, but I'm wondering --

MY: It was the second time that they had, that happened to them.

AI: -- what kinds of things did your mother and father tell you as far as your behavior, or lessons that they wanted you to listen to, or anything about the way -- did they ever, for example, tell you that you needed to act a certain way because you were Nihonjin, or any of that type of thing?

TY: Yeah, we were discussing that --

MY: That there was, it was definitely, that you had to behave yourself, so that you don't attract --

TY: Bring shame to the family --

MY: -- too much attention.

TY: -- and to the Japanese community, that sort of things, yeah. And I think they've said that quite frequently. Reminding us --

JY: And in different ways. [Laughs]

MY: And sometimes, I remember, as we were talking about last night, that I remember the family whose son -- who was a teenager, I guess -- was a -- there was some kind of incident where a group of boys took a car and went on a joy-ride in somebody's car. And one of the boys was a Japanese American kid in our neighborhood. And it became kind of a huge community affair. Where they -- and then our parents said, "Nihonjin dakara," you have to, it was a -- I guess they've never had an incident where a Japanese American kid had been in trouble with the police before. You know, where they, where a child had, they had reason to -- and I remember our parents saying that they, that it was kind of a, haji ni naru, disgrace for the Japanese community, and that it reflects on the whole community when one child does something like this. And it was sort of like, and a kind of object lesson that they told us about was, well, you should behave yourself and never get into trouble like this, otherwise it would be a shame on the whole Japanese community. "Nihonjin no haji ni naru kara."

JY: And the family.

TY: Yeah, family, yeah.

MY: Yeah. But then that, too, but the, to expand that out to the whole Japanese community is something that was very strong in the Isseis, I think.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.