<Begin Segment 5>

MA: You never thought much about prejudice or discrimination?

BK: Prejudice, yeah, uh-huh, until things would happen. Like being called "Jap" during World War II and it was mostly by being called "Jap" from the Hispanics, and not the Caucasians. And I've often thought about that. Why they would do that, instead of the Caucasians. But it was the Hispanics usually who called me "Jap." Yeah. And I remember one time when I saw other kids going downtown and eating in a restaurant, instead of taking your lunch. And so I thought, "Well, that would be fun." And I guess I must have been pretty gutsy back then, too. [Laughs] I'm the most gutsy of my family. Anyway, so, my little sister and I walked down and we walked into this restaurant. Of course, nobody waited on us and they would turn around and kind of laugh and make comments. So we didn't have lunch that day. Yeah, that was my very first encounter with prejudice.

MA: Not being served in a public restaurant.

BK: Yeah, and we were just little kids in elementary school. But yeah, and other things in Alamosa. Yeah, I was only ten when the war broke out, but I knew that the men couldn't go into the barber shop to get their hair cut, 'cause there would be a sign. Some of the grocery stores and stores wouldn't wait on you.

MA: And this was after Pearl Harbor?

BK: Yeah, uh-huh.

MA: Before Pearl Harbor, did you...

BK: Yeah, but you still felt, you knew instantly whether you were welcome or not when you walked into a store. And it's strange, but I'm thinking that was still going on, that was still going on in the late '50s and early '60s. I knew immediately when I would walk in some place. You can tell, yeah. So there were signs.

MA: Yeah. The teachers that you were, going back to your experience in elementary school, were your teachers mostly Caucasian?

BK: Yeah, they were all Caucasian.

MA: How did they treat you and the other Nisei students?

BK: You know, the teachers were very kind, very kind. I especially remember my sixth grade teacher. Oh, my gosh, she was very good to me, yeah. At the end of, before Christmas holiday started, I remember one time she said, "Who doesn't have a Christmas tree?" [Laughs] So me, I raise my hand. So I called my mother and I got scolded for saying we needed a Christmas tree. 'Cause we weren't Christians, we weren't observing Christmas. And so my sister had to drive in with a pick-up and take the Christmas tree home, but after that we had a Christmas tree. 'Cause I guess my folks realized that some things that we were encountering in school, so we would have one present at Christmas time, even though we weren't Christians. So they tried to help us, yeah. [Laughs]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.