<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Was there any, you mentioned your friends the Kimuras, was there any... what's the right word, tension? Because you went to the public school and they went to grammar school. Was there any, kind of...

RE: You know, nothing was ever said. I don't think... as far as I recollect, and if I asked, I remember asking my older brother and sister about that. And they said, "You know, nobody ever said anything about that." I think they were content with going to school there. I think we received more animosity for being in public school. It was so cruel that every chance I could get, even recess, I'd run home. I never, I never liked school. I never learned to read or write in the first grade.

TI: Can you give me an example of some of that, sort of, antagonism or what happened at, at school?

RE: Oh, the kids would call you every name under the sun, "Chinks," "Japs." Adults called us "non-alien" kids, but we were always "Chinks" or "Japs." Those were the common terminology.

TI: And was there, like, physical abuse? Were you ever, like, hit or anything?

RE: Yeah, sometimes you'd be knocked around, yeah.

TI: And would the teachers try to stop that when they saw that?

RE: Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I don't recall too many things. It was only recess, I hated recess. And I tried to hide behind trees or do whatever to escape the taunting.

TI: And would this happen with your, your brothers and sisters also?

RE: I would imagine they went through something similar. But, you know, as the kids get older, they don't do the cruel things that younger kids do, obviously.

TI: So let's -- and you were there 'til eight, and you said you didn't learn how to read and write?

RE: No, you know, I started first grade well beyond the age of seven-and-a-half, so I couldn't read or write.

TI: And so why'd you start so late? It'd be a little earlier, like six? Or was that the age that people started?

RE: No, that wasn't heard of back in those days, no.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.