<Begin Segment 21>

BF: Yeah, let's, let's talk a little bit more about that. Before our first break you mentioned that you were invited to become a member in the Y. And that that was a kind of select group. Mostly, I mean all not, non-Japanese.

GH: Yeah.

BF: So it was...

GH: Well, yeah, I knew that I was in there as a token.

BF: Oh.

GH: I mean there's always a token on all these contacts. This is primarily for whites, but there is a Japanese family or Japanese person who's in that association. 'Cause they just wanted to show that they weren't completely prejudiced there. Just mostly prejudiced. [Laughs] That way, I had bits of reality of that type. I didn't, because I found it difficult to follow some things. Like when we had parties, it was a boy's club so we had to bring dates. And that was hard on me. I liked, I liked both, I had friends, female friends in both, Japanese as well as others. Among others, it was mainly Japanese living there. As far as I knew, everything, everybody else was white. There were hardly any blacks in those days. And in the valley hardly any Chinese. Chinese were largely city. So we only met 'em when we went into town. And I had, when I was a kid -- when Mom went to see a doctor about something, we were all waiting in the car -- and I saw, "Oh, there's a dorobou." I mean there's a robber there. I was pointing to a non-white, you know, black fellow. Somehow I picked up that image from the environment. Didn't, wasn't from them, because he corrected me. He says, "That's not dorobou."

BF: Dorobou meaning, "robber." Or...

GH: Robber, yeah. I was looking... so, if you go to Japan, in the early days there were hardly any African Americans.

BF: Right.

GH: But they've got hell of a strong relations. You know the black, mixed black-white kids?

BF: Uh-huh.

GH: There are no homes, you know. They're really prejudice, victims of prejudice over there.

BF: And a lot of the Isseis were --

GH: And you wonder why, why is that. It's almost like reverse reaction of, of, they're opposed to the English. But on the negative side they're brown-nosing or licking the licks, soles of the, heels of the English. Emulating them, because they're copying them in everything. They, they say we're as good as they are, but they, they don't follow that.

BF: But your, your parents didn't hold those...

GH: No, they, they didn't.

BF: ...bigoted beliefs?

GH: And he explained to me that, oh they just, you know God makes people in different ways and they're not, they're not, they're good people. And, but we didn't have any of those good people as contacts. We didn't get any 'til we had an orphanage that was developed, and one of those was in our grade who was black, non-white.

BF: But at the Y you were the only...

GH: I was the only...

BF: ...Japanese.

GH: ...non-white there, until this friend came in.

BF: Uh-huh. That you brought in?

GH: Yeah. Well, I nominated him, and he was elected in. And, between the two of us, then it was... he did some initiating. He asked somebody who knew the twins if they would to go a party with the two of us.

BF: And these were Japanese girls?

GH: Yeah.

BF: Uh-huh. How was that? Were they...

GH: They were great.

BF: ...accepted? Was it...

GH: Oh, yeah.

BF: ...uncomfortable, or --

GH: They were, they were popular with, 'cause they were kinda cute. And they were very outgoing and very easy to talk with. They were like, somehow they grew up without the inhibitions that Nisei girls had. They had a lot of hang-ups.

BF: The Nisei...

GH: Yeah.

BF: ...girls.

GH: And, so, I had hang-ups too, on dating. But they made it hard for me to date 'em. So, I would've, I didn't call it date, 'cause I had a lot of relations with other people, meeting on all sorts of things, not socially. I never dated socially until the university, on interracial social aspect. But...

BF: But were they, but, you said on one hand, you knew you were a token in...

GH: Yeah, yeah.

BF: ...at the Y. But, on the other hand it sounds like you became a very active member.

GH: Yeah, I was.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.