<Begin Segment 14>

AI: Well, were there other things that came up in junior high, or maybe some of this also came out in high school, where you're becoming more aware of issues of race, and you mentioned earlier that Garfield, especially, had a kind of an ethnic racial composition that was very multicultural?

RS: Right.

AI: And I'm just wondering, as you're kind of going into, coming into your teen years, how your awareness is changing?

RS: Well, I think that Garfield at the time was approximately a quarter to a third Asian, quarter to a third African American, quarter to a third white, and, 'course that was nothing special at the time. However, now, when I go to the occasional reunion, I think we all realize how special that was back then, because back in the '50s during high school there were only eight high schools, or eight public high schools, and Seattle Prep and O'Dea, and I think that was pretty much it for the entire high school scene in the city of Seattle. And of those groups, Seattle was the one that was the most multiracial.

AI: Or, Garfield.

RS: Garfield, and after that, perhaps Franklin and Cleveland to a lesser extent. But, so there were a lot of things that we experienced at Garfield that I don't think any of us realized were really special until afterwards. And that's not to say that they were all good. You know, I said earlier that my associations with school had to do with, lot of it was sort of physical prowess. And I always remember the first day, the very first day that I went to Garfield, and I went there with the awareness that there was going to be this sort of atmosphere of machismo and all that, among the boys. But the first day I went there I remember seeing a knife fight. And the knife fight was not to kill or injure the other person, but it was the same knife fight that was done on Rebel Without a Cause, and that was to try to cut the buttons off the other person's shirt through stabbing like this. And I remember two guys doing that. And one ended up cutting the other one in several locations. And of course he bled through his shirt and there were all these big red spots. And that was kind of the badge of courage and all of us that were seeing something like this for the first time all thought well, this is what one did.

And so it seemed like for the next three years there just fight after fight after fight. And there were some guys that I fought on a regular basis. Every Tuesday, at lunch, I fought the same guy. Jerry Beppu, who runs Linc's Tackle, on Rainier Avenue, he and I fought once a week. And it'd go into the same scenario that we'd end up on the ground and I'd have him in a headlock 'cause I was bigger than him, and trying to pop the veins on his head, you know, from squeezing his head so tight, the veins would stick out on his head, and rub it with my other fist like this pretending like I was trying to pop them or something. Then every once in a while somebody would come up with a knife and a stiletto and open it up and run it across Jerry's forehead and up and down those veins. And this was just another day. And I remember fighting all kinds of people, and getting into one of these sort of slapping each other around sort of semi-serious that would usually turn serious at one point. But, that's what lunchtime was for. And, so those were my associations with junior high and high school. And it was not a good time. It was not a good time for me.

There were two accomplishments, I suppose, that I hardly saw as accomplishments. One of them was to be named the yearbook artist, and then the other one was, I was asked to design the plaque, a huge plaque like this, of James Garfield, that was to be installed on the floor of the main entranceway, and supposedly to be there forever. And I've always wondered to this day -- I mean, it was built, and was installed. And I remember the principal was so pleased with it that he said that every year he'll have a photograph of me giving me credit for designing this, which I thought was just so outlandish because it was really so easy to do, and it really wasn't very good. But I think in that particular climate that practically anything was good. And, and I thought it would be such an overstatement to give me this credit every year. But I always wondered whether or not that seal was still there, embedded into the floor, and I've always been tempted to go back to Garfield just to see that.

But as I said, I was what would be called a total loser in high school. Certainly socially, you know, I didn't date, nothing, and was extremely introverted, withdrawn, sort of out of it in terms of all the rest of the Asian American community as well as just the sort of student body at large. I never felt comfortable, I never felt good about it, essentially disliked the whole experience. I had a very small group of friends that I used to hang out with and, but never was a part of that sort of group of Japanese Americans that were sort of... and this group is like, did very well when they eventually got out of college. I'm talking about the Moriguchis, I went to school with all of them, and Bruce and Irwin Yoshimura and these were people that went on to do pretty well in their community. So, it's interesting to sort of see these people now and to talk to them and talk about these kinds of things.

AI: Well, junior high, and especially high school is a time when, for most kids, that is a difficult time of kind of figuring out about yourself and wanting to fit in or not being able to fit in and I'm just wondering what were some of your hopes and desires at that time and how did you see yourself as far as, did you, even ethnically, think of yourself as Japanese, or Japanese American, or did you ever think of yourself in those terms?

RS: I think I sort of saw myself as how successful or unsuccessful I was socially. Academically, I knew there were certain people that I could never compete with. I mean, that, that pecking order was already set, probably from junior high, because just about everybody that went to Washington Junior High went to Garfield. Garfield probably was fed by maybe three junior highs, I mean, things were very sort of clean, clearly cut, back in those days, they went to Horace Mann, they went to Leschi, Bailey Gatzert, and there was a certain pattern that it all fed into Garfield, or every high school had their own pattern. And, so from junior high it was clear that John Takizawa was the smartest guy, and there was another guy, Ken something, and all through high school, and these were the guys that went on to MIT and all of that. And that pattern was established. And I knew I wasn't those. I knew I wasn't one of the big sports stars. I knew I wasn't one of the big social stars. In fact, I wasn't anything, other than known as the sort of guy that did art. But that was not something to be proud of back then. That wasn't one of the hip things. And so, that's why I sort of felt like I was on the outside of all of those things, and I think felt that way pretty much until almost graduating from college, that I started to gain some sense of self-worth and confidence and all that.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.