<Begin Segment 6>

TI: So you attended nursery school with other Japanese Americans?

EBA: Oh, yeah, yeah. I was the only hakujin there. So...

TI: Now, how did that feel? So this is, again, before the war --

EBA: Yeah.

TI: -- you're going to nursery school. Did you, did you know that you were not Japanese, or did you know that there was a difference?

EBA: You know, I don't think it ever occurred to me. I'm, this is, this is the environment into which I was born. And even growing up in later years I never thought, "Oh there, you're Japanese and I'm Caucasian," or... it was just, it was just everyday life. There was nothing unusual about that. Of course, in the, it was, I was living, or we were living in a international community and so we had the African American, we had the Jews, and we had the Chinese and the Japanese so it never occurred to me that life should be any other way.

TI: Or how about the other way, did you ever feel like you were getting special treatment, because you weren't Japanese, from the other Japanese American sort of nursery school, or did they just see you as just one of the group?

EBA: No, I think they saw me as one of the group... other than that I was a boy born into this family that had three girls. [Laughs] I was special in that way, I guess.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.