<Begin Segment 28>

AI: So, gosh, then once you got to Chicago, where did you stay? Where did you go then?

BS: Well, my sister Dorothy was married to Hiroshi Kaneko and his, his father had bought this huge apartment building. So I'm not sure what year he went out of Tule Lake, the father. And so he bought this big apartment building. Of course it was probably dirty and everything else, had to be cleaned up. But his plan was to help the Japanese Americans who would be coming out of camp and resettling in Chicago, they would have a place to stay. So that's where we, that's where we went. And then, so, so the four of us were there and then my, my dad and my two brothers and sisters came. We went in October. We left camp in October and then I think my dad and other siblings met us in, came to Chicago, I think it was early the next year.

AI: So then you got to Chicago a little bit later in the fall, then, of '45.

BS: Uh-huh.

AI: And then, so you must have missed the beginning of the school year?

BS: School, uh-huh.

AI: What, what was that like? Sometimes it's hard for any kid to go to a new school and --

BS: It was.

AI: -- here you're in a completely new city, a completely new environment. You're outside of camp for the first time.

BS: Uh-huh, so it was, it was difficult to catch up. It was kind of difficult. But, you know, like math was my best subject, but it was like... it was terrible. I, I could, we'd have to go up to the blackboard and figure out problems and I could see where the teacher, like she would put two people at one time. And I could see that she was putting me next to one of the girls who was not very, very good in math. And I said, "Oh my gosh, I got to get back to where I was before." So my sister Ruth was, was living in... she had, oh, she had married. She had married Susumu Hidaka and he was stationed in, they were having... in Minnesota, I'm not sure if it was Fort Savage or, where they were having the MIS. And so he was stationed there, so she was living in the same apartment building as we were. And so she, so I said, "You have to help me because I'm one of the dumbest ones in math and that was my favorite subject." So she would give me problems and things and so, so then I was able to get back into...

AI: To catch up.

BS: ...where I felt comfortable, yes. And the I, then I, there was a Japanese girl in my class. Well, there were, I think it was a Japanese boy, Japanese American boy in my class and then there was the Japanese girl in my class and we became real good friends.

AI: And what was the composition of the rest of the class? Was it --

BS: Well, there was a Chinese girl. I think there was a Chinese girl, oh, there was... well, sometimes we had -- we were on semesters so there might be a grade below us that's mixed with us. So there was, there was, I think there was... so maybe there were about five of us who were Japanese American in our class. The rest were, let's see, Caucasian, and there was a Chinese girl. I don't remember if there were any blacks and... but there were in our school, there were some blacks in our school, grammar school.

AI: So, after coming out of the camp situation where all of you were Japanese American except for the teachers and the government workers, the administrators, what was this like for you to be in this situation that was more mixed, there's some other racial minorities?

BS: Well, I remember I just felt comfortable.

AI: And so how were you treated, you and the other Japanese Americans? Did you feel any kind of prejudice or anything?

BS: No, no, we didn't.

AI: So even though it was very soon after the end of the war, you really didn't receive any anti-Japanese...

BS: I didn't, I didn't feel any. The only thing is that because -- well, until my, my father joined us and I was more responsible for my mother and grandfather and little sister, so I would have to go to, you know, being from farm, country girl, I had to do the shopping, grocery shopping and, I didn't know. I'd look at the different cuts of meat and stuff, and I didn't know, I'd just say, "Give me that, give me that." [Laughs] So I had more responsibility until my father joined us.

AI: And the apartment building that you lived in, you mentioned how the owner had set it up to be a place where Japanese Americans could come. So was it almost all Japanese Americans living there?

BS: No, it was mixed, it was mixed because I know the...we were kind of the annex, and it was, I'm trying to think. I guess there were, I know there was a Jewish couple that lived on the first floor and I think the rest on that side were, maybe, I guess we were all Japanese Americans. But it was mixed but I'd say maybe the majority were Japanese Americans.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.