Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Alice Abrams Siegal Interview
Narrator: Alice Abrams Siegal
Interviewer: Becky Fukuda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 13, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-salice-01-0015

<Begin Segment 15>

BF: Now, do you, you had said something about a high school senior party that you went to, and there was something rather disturbing about it. Do you remember what I'm talking about?

AS: Well, I think that might have been the graduation dance that they had after graduation.

BF: I think so, at a country club or something.

AS: Yeah, it was at a country club, and, and so I did have a date, Jewish boy. [Laughs] And we went there, we got there, and I look around, all the faces were white. And I knew we had African Americans who graduated, but there were Asian students who had graduated, just nobody. And that just, it shocked me, and then I wonder, "Well, who do you complain to? Who do you talk to about this?" But that, yeah, that was a real shocker. God, well, so there was, was discrimination when it came to a big event.

BF: So did you, did anyone else ask what was going on or why no one else attended or why they weren't invited?

AS: Well, no, I didn't hear it from anyone else.

BF: But you noticed it.

AS: Oh, definitely. I remember being, looking around and thinking, "This isn't right."

BF: Do you think it was because it was at a private club and maybe they had...

AS: Well, if it was, if that was the situation, which it could have been because private clubs were, did discriminate, then the school should have had it, or whoever the powers are that do these, arrange these big parties, should have had it someplace where everybody is allowed to go.

BF: Absolutely.

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