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AI: Well, now when you moved on to Lincoln High School, what about your experiences there? Did you have -- get any teasing for being Japanese, or any of that type of thing?

MF: Oh, no. Never.

AI: So, really you were included in high school as well?

MF: Oh, yes. I had -- well, I was the only Japanese for a little while, and then my brothers and, my sister and my brothers came after me. But they were very good. Never discriminated me; I was included in their birthday parties and everything else.

AI: Well, what were some of your activities during high school?

MF: Well, I -- let me see -- what did I, what club did I have? Oh, they had a Japanese club. There was only about five or six of us, but we had that and then I sang in a choir, and then I was interested in history so there was a club called Historian Club and I was in that club. And my sister and I used to do Japanese dances because we took lessons from a Japanese lady when we were young. And we wore Japanese kimono and I have few pictures of that. And, well, that's about all.

AI: Well, in addition to the Japanese dancing classes, did you take any Japanese language classes?

MF: Well, I went to the Japanese language school in Green Lake on Saturday. It was all-day affair from about eight-thirty 'til about three-thirty. We took our lunch and my father drove us to Green Lake and they had a little community club there, sort of a house. And then they had a Japanese teacher come from the main Japanese school to teach us on Saturday. And we took -- my daddy took all of us there every Saturday.

AI: So it was like a small Japanese community club?

MF: Uh-huh.

AI: And did -- is that where you had a seinenkai, a young people's group?

MF: Yeah, seinenkai, yeah.

AI: What kinds of things did the seinenkai do?

MF: Oh, we used to have Mother's Day program, we'd cook for them. And then we used to have New Year's party. Oh, and we had picnics. I had a nice time in Green Lake group. We were away from Green Lake, but that was our nearest communication with Japanese.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.