<Begin Segment 7>

AH: Now in what sense, looking at it the other way, in what sense would you say you were part of the Japanese American community?

JA: The only part that I was with the Japanese community will be like going to the Japanese school and getting involved into kenjin picnic, kenjin, or shuu, group's picnic. Other than that, most of my contacts were with Caucasians. From the time that I was into high school, that's when my dad said, "Hey, get in there, play football, you could do it, you play baseball." So he backed me and so I turned out for football, baseball, and by that time, I was completely away from the Japanese American community. I didn't play any baseball with them until after the season and they'll all want me to play for this team or that team, but not until after the season. But basically my whole... from my high school year out I was basically with Caucasian people.

AH: Until camp?

A Until camp, right.

AH: And when you talk about Japanese or Caucasian, I think what we're leaving out is a whole array of other people from different backgrounds. And I'm wondering, did you have contact with any of them? Can you think of...

JA: Oh yeah, because we went to same school, high school, so we had our contacts. Not too much beyond school where we may do homework together, but not too much. My contact was very much with the Caucasians and I didn't play in their league. When I did play, I used to be pretty good and they'd want me to play for this team, that team or this team, but I turned out for high school.

AH: But did you know Chinese Americans, and Filipino Americans, and Mexican --

JA: Not too much. At my time, we were kind of separate. Chinese, there were Chinese, Filipino, there were Filipino. But there were like the beginning, like Bob Santos, he is -- I don't know whether you know about him -- but he used to be the baby of the group where we used to live. And there was one Chinese that was closer to us than to the Chinese, but he came from Montana. But other than that, I didn't have, or I myself, my brother, we didn't have too much contact with others.

AH: Sometimes, the Japanese American community, when they observed families such as yours where many of your contacts were with Caucasians, often felt that you kowtowed to these Caucasians and therefore they would even say extreme things like, "They're not Japanese," like that. Did you ever feel that or not?

JA: No, I never felt that way, and so if they said it, it didn't bother me any. I was doing it and I was doing... that was my full time and I was not doing too much with the Japanese Americans. Why? Because baseball, football, that I played, it was with the Caucasians and after, just like I keep repeating, that I come into their league after the season. And then all my time I'd be spending up at Broadway playfield. I was pretty good tennis player. So I'd be playing tennis up there and in the tennis court I'd be playing basketball. Or after the season I'd be playing basketball with the fellas that played basketball for Broadway. And that was enough to just keep me there. And I very seldom got involved with the Japanese Americans.

AH: What about your relationship to Japanese culture and Japanese language?

JA: The language you pick it up because your parents spoke Japanese. So by listening, I picked up Japanese. And I don't have any, not too much schooling as such. I went through sixth grade, but then I didn't learn anything and once I got beyond the sixth grade in Japanese school I was turning out for school sports so I didn't attend Japanese school. And so after I went into university, then I went back to start Japanese all over again, this time to learn, but then I was in college already.

AH: Did you take Japanese language at the University of Washington?

JA: No, I was taking engineering.

AH: No, I know, but you said you went back into the language. Did you just do it on your own?

JA: Yes. Because, see, at that time, there was so much discrimination that all these fellows that went to the University got out, they never were employed here in the United States as whatever, engineer or doctors, or maybe not doctors, but anyway, professional people. They were all going back to Japan, or were hired by Japanese companies. So I thought, well, maybe I'd better seriously think about learning how to read and write Japanese. And I was already probably sophomore or so in college.

AH: You have a brother that's about five years younger than you, and that's about the whole of the family, right?

JA: Yes.

AH: Even the size of your family is somewhat at odds with the size of most of the Nikkei families of your generation, right?

JA: Right, right.

AH: And how would you account for that, that the family was smaller?

JA: Well, I think it had something to do with the times that my father had his ups and then downs, and back up and down. Therefore that maybe that was all they could afford was just two children.

AH: So economic circumstances.

JA: Economic, yes.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.