<Begin Segment 34>

AI: What did it mean to you, as a child or as a teenager, to be called Japanese --

MY: Be on your best behavior.

AI: Right. Or to be Japanese American? When your parents said, "Nihonjin dakara, you're Japanese and so..." and so what? How, what did that mean to you?

JY: I just obeyed orders. [Laughs]

TY: Just to be able to stay out of trouble, right?

JY: Yeah. I didn't think about it in any sociological sense or anything, it just, that's what my parents said. So I better do it, kind of.

MY: Yeah, but I think that it kind of pushed you to excel, going in the other direction, not to shame the family, but to do better. You have to do better than a white person and, but they didn't say that in so many words. But you had a sense that this was something they expected of us. Did you have that sense?

JY: Hmm... I don't know that I excelled at anything. [Laughs] That long ago.

Jeni Y: Some indication in your discussions earlier, that there were some feelings. Because remember when you said that, Joe, when you had a teacher, had to do with some experiences with a teacher, he was commenting on his children, the hair color of his children. When he grew up, he thought his children would be -- do you remember that? I don't want to --

MY: Oh, his blond, that he wanted to be a blond? Yeah -- no. That he, when he gets, "When I get married, I'm going to, my wife is going to be a blond." And I, and I said, "Joe, you can't..." Or no -- "When I get married, my children are going be blond." And I said, "Joe, that's ridiculous. You're not going to ever have blond children." [Laughs]

JY: I don't remember that.

MY: And so he said, "Yeah, because it's too hard being a Japanese." But that was in camp. And I thought that you had a blond schoolteacher, 'cause I thought you had a crush on your teacher.

TY: That camp in Minidoka.

MY: In Minidoka, yeah.

JY: I had a blond teacher in Crystal City. But not in Minidoka.

MY: Yeah, but that was -- I wasn't there when, there. But, so I remember asking you -- 'cause I didn't know where that came from. I was, remember, asking you that your teacher was hakujin.

JY: I don't, I wouldn't have thought I even knew what a "blond" meant, in those days. I was, what? I was ten? And I didn't see any anywhere. [Laughs]

MY: I know. That was why it was curious. I was, remember being curious.

JY: Unless I was looking at a Montgomery Ward's catalog or something.

MY: Something like, that, yeah. Or a movie, or something. Because I remember asking, you know, I thought, "Well, that's kind of strange. Where'd he get that idea?" And so I remember asking you, "Is your schoolteacher a blond?" And you said, "No."

TY: Well, we did spend a lot of time in camp looking at Montgomery Ward catalog. [Laughs]

JY: Yeah, that could be. [Laughs]

MY: But that kind of indicates, kind of a desire not to be a Japanese.

JY: Uh-huh. I'm sure it did.

MY: "It's too hard," you said, "It's too hard being a Japanese."

JY: Yeah, I don't remember saying that, but...

MY: Yeah... and you were what? Nine? Nine?

TY: Ten.

JY: Ten? I was ten by then.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.