<Begin Segment 31>

AI: Well, so tell me about graduation and what you did after that.

BS: You mean the actual graduation date? Well, it was, the graduation was in the evening, in the evening. And I don't even know who attended the graduation, if my parents attended or what. But I don't know, we just had the graduation. We said goodbye to our friends and then I think I was going with someone so then we just went with his friends and we just went out for something to eat or something.

AI: And that would have been in 1951?

BS: '51, uh-huh.

AI: Right. So then what did you do after graduation?

BS: Then I went to work at Traveler's Insurance Company. My sister Flora, it's like I followed her everywhere she went. She worked, she worked at the YWCA when she was in high school and so when I was fourteen years old, then I worked at the YWCA. Then she went to work on at the YMCA and then she went to work at a collection agency. So I worked at a collection agency, too. Oh, but then my father and my uncle, Mr. Hachiya, and my brother Paul -- he was married at that time -- they ran a business, a launderette. And so I used to work after school over there. It was on the west side of Chicago. And I worked there for a while. But after graduation I went to work at Traveler's Insurance Company. And then on Saturdays we worked at the laundromat.

AI: Well, in the meantime, then, you had met the man that you ended up marrying.

BS: Well, I met Art in 19-, oh, when did I meet him? 1950. Well, we met at, we used to just, we weren't Buddhist. But our friend, one of our friends, high school friends was a Buddhist and so she belonged to the Junior YBA and so Fridays they would have socials. So she said, "Come, come." And I said, "But we're not Buddhist, we're Christians." And, but my friend May and I were Christians. And she says, "No, no, come join, we just socialize." So we started going there. And then we started going bowling sometimes on Sundays and that's where I met Art. He was, he had, he and his... oh, 'cause before he joined, there were two other Peruvians that were attending the Friday night socials and so we knew them. And then they said, "Okay, we're gonna go bowling," and I guess one of them invited Art to come bowling. And so Art said that he had never bowled in his life and he had gone the night before and bowled his first game. And so my friend May and I were, we were late 'cause we had gone to church and by the time we got to the bowling alley we were later than the other people. So we were put on the same bowling lane as Art and someone else and so they introduced us to them. I said, he, we were introduced, he said, "Hello," and that's the one and only word he said to us all this time. We said, my gosh, he wasn't, he wasn't very friendly or anything. Well, later on he tells me, he says, well, that was, the night before was the first time he had ever bowled and he was concentrating on his bowling. [Laughs] But we were just friends, 'cause I was dating someone else so I... it was later on, and I think after I graduated from high school in the fall I started dating him.

AI: Well, and so you mentioned that, you just mentioned that there were a couple of other Japanese Peruvians that you had known earlier. So what did you know about their experience and what had happened to them?

BS: Well see, I didn't know. All I knew was, oh, these people, they look a little bit different and they speak Spanish, and they speak Japanese and they speak broken English. So we knew they were, but I don't know if it was, if we found out through them, or maybe it was through Art that we found out that they were... well, we knew they were in camp but I didn't know the details.

AI: And so you just kind of knew that they were different, that they had come from Peru.

BS: Uh-huh.

AI: And that, but you didn't really know how that happened.

BS: The whole story, uh-huh. And then we knew that most of them came from Seabrook.

AI: Right. Well, so then as you then did start dating Art and you started hearing more about his story and his family's experience, what was your reaction?

BS: Well, I couldn't believe it. I said, "Why, why?" And, of course, Art was, he's kind of a private person about that so he, he wouldn't say a whole lot and just say that they were just in camp in Crystal City. And we knew, well, what we knew of Crystal City was oh, all the notorious people went to Crystal City. [Laughs] That was the reputation because we really didn't know. But, or the dangerous ones were in Crystal City. But it was later that I found out more detail and it made me angry. And then when I told my brothers and sisters, they couldn't believe it, either. But we saw these three pretty girls which were Art's sisters and they spoke perfect Japanese. They were pretty and then they had this accent. [Laughs] And a lot of people were curious.

AI: You mean when they spoke English they had an accent? Or their Japanese was accented?

BS: No, the Japanese was perfect but then they didn't speak English as well. They spoke more Japanese than English and then when they did, they spoke with an accent.

AI: And so it made people curious, then?

BS: Uh-huh, and then especially 'cause they were pretty. [Laughs]

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.