<Begin Segment 10>

AI: So at that time, do you recall having a, any sense of yourself? In some -- in high school sometimes identity is a big issue for some kids.

JY: Uh-huh.

AI: Do you have any sense of your identity then? Feeling Japanese --

JY: You mean ethnic identity?

AI: Right. Ethnic identity, feeling Japanese, feeling American, or --

JY: You know, I don't. I, I don't recall, feel anything either way, you know, like I was trying to avoid being Japanese or feeling bad because I was Japanese, or I just don't recall any, any feelings of that either, either way. I just kinda -- I can, I can remember one time when my, my two closest friends were Caucasian, and they were tall. You know, they were like 6' 1" and 6' 2" or 3", and I can, I can remember they came over one day -- we were goin' out -- and noticing at that time that I looked a lot different from them, you know. And I think I might have mentioned that before, but I remember that being a very striking moment there when I thought, "Whoa, we don't look alike at all," you know. [Laughs]

But other than that, I really don't, I really was not conscious of, of my Japaneseness or, or whether I was -- you know, I always assumed that I was, that I was an American, and, and it just never occurred to me anything else, even with the camp experiences. And so, in fact, I never thought about camp. You know, I, I can't recall the whole time that I was in Chicago of ever thinking back on camp, and it, and it's obviously some kind of a just blocking out or something. But it just never, never came up, and my parents didn't talk about it. And apparently my sister talked to my dad about it, but I don't recall any conversation like that. So it was just kind of a, you know, day-to-day routine kind of thing.

AI: Well, high school for a lot of kids is also kind of a time of looking forward.

JY: Uh-huh.

AI: And looking ahead to your own future. What kinds of hopes and dreams or thoughts did you have about your future for after high school?

JY: Well, during those days -- well, I knew I was goin' to college. I didn't know exactly where, but I think about my -- in fact, my grades in high school were just kind of very average for the first couple years, and I thought, "Jeez, if I'm goin' to college I better shape up," you know, so my last two years my grades went up considerably. So I, so I, I must have always been planning on goin' to school. There was no question about it. As far as what I was gonna do beyond that, in those days it was mandatory military service for, for males, and so I knew that whatever I did when I got out of school I was goin' in the army. So that kind of took care of my immediate future, so I really didn't have to think about, about that. And I really didn't think about that until I was halfway through in the army and was gettin' ready to think about getting out, because I knew there was no way I was gonna stay in the army as a career or anything.

So I think that during high school my only thought was what might I do as an occupation, and I had no idea at the time. I could -- you know, a lot -- I knew that like my, a lot of my siblings' friends were engineers and, or in the sciences and stuff, and I hated that. You know? [Laughs] I just knew that I was not gonna go into engineering. There was no way I could do that. But beyond that point, I, I wasn't sure what I, what I was gonna do, except that I was gonna go to college and after I got done with college I was goin' in the army, and that was about, that was about the size of it. I guess I didn't -- I wasn't much of a... I didn't have much foresight in terms of what was coming up in my future.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.