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MA: I wanted to ask you about your high school experience at Jefferson High School. What that was like, what the school was like, and your class?

MH: Oh, we had a Japanese club, we had a Chinese club, we had a Spanish club, we had a Latin club, German club, French class. And those, the Japanese group was pretty good size there. We had a lot of Japanese kids there. And we had a lot of Chinese kids, too, and we got a long pretty well. And we had good advisors, and we had get-togethers quite often. Our advisors were our teachers, naturally, and they would open up their homes and we would gather at these teachers as our advisors and we'd have get-togethers and have dance parties and that sort of thing. But my parent was very strict and I couldn't, allowed to go anywhere, most of the time. I think they feared that I was the only girl in the family, so they were too protective, I think.

MA: Did they have different rules for you than they did for your brothers?

MH: Yes, they did. My brothers had more freedom. They can go out and go in the car and they can go wherever they want. They even went as far as out towards Fresno or whatever. But I was never out of the house. And they advised me not to bring my friends, you cannot go here, you cannot go there. And only to school and then come home. We didn't have a whole lot of homework either in those days, but do whatever you had to do. So when it was time for me to graduate, everybody was, we had this Japanese club. Oh, we're gonna go to the beach and have weenie bakes. That was only fun thing we did, was go to the beach and have weenie bakes. And I asked my father if I could go and he said, he hesitated. He said first no and then I told my friends, "I don't think I can go." "Well, why not? This is gonna be our last time together. Beg your father, beg your parents. We're not going to hurt you or anything." And so, I, my brothers kind of put in their words for me. They said, "Let her go this time." So then that was alright, they let me go. But, I had to be back by a certain time. Well, they said before twelve o'clock. And so that was alright. But as soon as I come right in front of the, we lived in a store, and the front had big windows. And then we lived in the back of the shop. Most of us all lived in back of shop. Some had homes, but most of us lived in back of shops. This big window, and I see somebody's pacing back and forth. And then pretty soon, it got closer and it's my father. He's been waiting for me to make sure I got home alright. So I told my friends, "I'm sorry, but I gotta get out and get home real quick. He's waiting for me." [Laughs] And so that was the way my life was when I was going to high school, even after high school. And we had skating parties, the Shrine Auditorium was our ice, they had a big skating rink there. Roller skating was pretty popular in the '30s and people were roller skating out in the streets and everything. And then pretty soon, they banned that because it was dangerous. So they had these big rinks all over and we went roller skating. So I asked my parents if I can go. They, first they said no. And then they finally break and says yes, you can go. I get there alright, and no sooner, my brothers are there, watching. That's a sign of watching. And then wherever I go, I went to the park, picnic somewhere, and there's my brother. And so, there's always somebody there, make sure that I don't get in trouble I guess.

MA: Looking, looking over you.

MH: Yes. And to this day, I feel that maybe it was pretty harsh for me to feel that way. I didn't have the freedom, feeling the freedom like most kids nowadays. Their parents aren't watching them all the, but I feel that had helped me grow up to be a more understanding why your parents worry about you. When you have your own family, you go back and think about what you went through. So you don't want to make that mistake on your child, and your kids. So our kids were grown up a little more freedom. Not all of it, but pretty much you can do what you can do and give them the opportunity to have that responsibility on your own and not be dependent on somebody else. And so --

MA: From your experiences growing up.

MH: -- comparison, the comparison of what I went through and what I can give my kids and what my kids' kids are going through now. My great grandkids are growing up now, so it's a lot of changes. And we didn't have all this computer stuff and all these mechanical toys. We made our own toys. We didn't have money to go buy toys, on top of that.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.