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AI: Well, speaking of different ethnicities, let me take you back to the Sacramento that, that you were in as a child and, and ask you about any experiences of prejudice or discrimination that you might have experienced while you were growing up there.

EH: Growing up in a, in a school like Lincoln School, we certainly didn't experience, because I think the whole school is, is operating on... well, I say that. I, I didn't experience any teachers, for instance, who were discriminating. I will say, along with my fifth grade experience with my father, the same fifth grade teacher was a very enthusiastic history person and she at one point said -- you know she had glowing history lessons about the state of California and saying that she was, she was going to enroll all of us in... to be members of the Sons and Daughters of the Golden West. And that occurred and we, we were all enthusiastic about it, and then we never heard anything about it. And it occurred to me way after evacuation -- I must have been in college -- and, and I recalled that, and I thought, I bet she ran into the same situation that Marion Anderson ran into with the Daughters of the (American) Revolution. And I wish I could have recalled that and on a visit to Sacramento dig her up and ask, because I'm sure it was aggravating to her to discover this, though I would wonder what other fifth grade... whether other fifth graders went through the same thing with her having this enthusiasm about being Sons of the Golden West and not...

AI: Well, do you recall, at about that age, fifth grade, sixth grade or so, seventh grade -- that as far as you were concerned, did you feel like an American and American citizen, totally American?

EH: (Yes), I think we did. I must say that moving from Chico to Sacramento, I became aware of a big social change and that I probably didn't think life was going to be different, but I knew that we were in a different world. I think my earliest, one of my earliest experiences with discrimination was probably in junior high school, eighth or ninth grade. We wanted to go swimming at a park kind of on the south of us, William Land Park is a well-known, huge park, and this, this swimming pool -- and I can't remember whether it's called McKinley or Brinmar or something like that -- whether we actually went up, up to the gate or ticket office or whether I was told that, but I knew that I, I was abruptly told that we can't go there because it's "only for whites." And that was maybe my first encounter.

AI: Do you remember what you reaction was when you found that, when you were told that?

EH: Well, kind of resignation and thinking, "Gee, how come?" We could go to the municipal pool, which was just north of downtown and... north and east of downtown. But it wasn't... didn't have as much appeal. And it, it... for both of these places we would have had to take a bus, and that's all right, we were... in eighth and ninth grade you were ready to take some venture trips, (yes). The YWCA was on Seventeenth and L Street, and we would walk across... from our area we could walk across Capital Park and go and have our Sunday afternoon (meetings). It was called Girl Reserves before, before the war. And they were cordial, but they certainly expected us to participate in their international night or whatever they called it. They wanted... they always wanted the, that Japanese Girl Reserve groups to... and there was a junior high school group and a high school group, and I... we, we didn't really go to the YW until we were in high school and we could walk on our own to go there, but... and this international night was kind of a bazaar kind of thing. We always had a Japanese tea garden, a Japanese, (yes), tea garden, and we had to work hard on Saturday mornings to get all this set up with the lanterns, and, and we somehow got a couple of electric elements to heat hot water. And somehow we gathered enough teacups, and I don't know what we did about washing. But, anyway, we just served senbei and tea, green tea, for maybe a quarter or a dime, I forgot. And then other people were having their usual typical booths.

But the thing I remember about one of those things, I never used, I never learned to use zori. I, I never did. But my goodness, you're dressed in all this obi and, and tight-clad clothes and you have to walk around serving tea, and my toes were just killing me. [Laughs] I just... my mother -- that's right. My grandparents had sent us, Martha and I, a complete Nihongi set, and so my mother was delighted that we were going to be able to use that, and, and she came with us. Let me see, my mother was driving by then. We were juniors or seniors in high school, and so my mother was there all the time, and, and she would be telling us things like, "Don't sit with your legs apart. You have to sit with your knees together." But other than -- my mother enjoyed that kind of thing. She, she didn't have to stay there with us, she could walk all over the place and, and observe. And, and she would, she would, she would chatter with other people. She... once in a while we went, we had a Sunday afternoon program at the YW, it was probably some special occasion, and she did the driving. None of us ever learned to drive. Even my friends, I think I had one friend who drove because she had to go pick up her father and brothers at a produce, wholesale produce stand, and her, her... she just lived a block away from us. But... and my mother would sometimes come in late at night and say, "I wish you could drive that car into the garage." But we never had the desire for some reason. We weren't that sophisticated.

But, but those were delightful, those were delightful events. She came once when the minister from Westminster Presbyterian was doing the presentation that afternoon, and he talked about... I think it must have been the Colgate family, how somebody was very poor and they started to, to earn a little money. Somebody discovered that mixing salt and soda made just the right teeth polishing, teeth cleaning. And that's... I think that's how Colgate toothpaste gets started. And for my mother that was just a, a delightful Americana story. I remember saying, or hearing her on the telephone saying... she, she had a very, she heard a very good sermon. And I wouldn't have called it a sermon, but because this minister, she knew the name of the minister, and so she... but she liked to go to non-Japanese --

AI: Well, now, let me ask you --

EH: -- occasions.

AI: -- a little bit more about the YWCA and the Girl Reserves. The Girl Reserves group that you were in, was this all Japanese-American girls?

EH: Yes, it was all Japanese. In fact, when we were in junior high school, there were older, there was an older group, you know, sisters of friends, who invited us for, for a Sunday tea, and it turned out to be an introduction for us to become Girl Reserves or "Camellias" we were called. And the high school group was called yuuai. "Ai" means love, and I can't remember what "yuu" was about, was for. But anyway, it was a good experience and introduction to group experiences and learning about issues. One of... I remember at the YWCA being introduced to discrimination or prejudice at... we had an outside speaker, I think it was somebody from the YWCA staff talking about discrimination and, and that was kind of an introduction for us.

AI: Actually talking about the issue of discrimination.

EH: (Yes). Not so much addressed to us about our concerns, but, but blacks and Mexicans and, and YW I think has always been an avante garde, an agency that was one jump ahead, especially one jump ahead of the YM. YM is just the typical businessmen. They worry about funding and not offending so we lose those funds or business psychology kind of thing. But the YW, which just coincidentally, it was a good time and a good experience for us, because two years after our senior year came Pearl Harbor. And so when, when I was in camp, knowing that the kids that... I joined the recreation staff, because the kids needed something to do. And I had had, we had had enough Protestant church group experiences and conferences that, that you knew, you got a sense of group dynamics. Maybe we didn't even have those terms, but, anyway, somehow you knew that those were valuable experiences. And so you go into camp and you... you're willing to try to do something about providing some kind of recreation or group experiences. And the kids kind of need to be thinking about being aware of what their thinking is and what they could do to help. So --

AI: Excuse me. So when we get to those years I'm going to ask you more about that.

EH: Okay, okay.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.