<Begin Segment 15>

MA: Was there a Japanese American community in Minneapolis that you remember, or St. Paul?

GH: No. I don't remember in St. Paul, because we weren't there long enough. See, we didn't get involved in the community at all, because we knew it was such a temporary thing. We knew we weren't going to be there very long.

MA: But you did attend school?

GH: We went to school. So even in school, we didn't participate in anything. And they tried to get us, the counselor would say, "Why don't you come and join us for the hayride?" and all these other things. We said, "No, we don't want to." [Laughs] We had a hard time adjusting. Because for the first time, we were in a non-Japanese community, an entirely white community, and we weren't used to that. It was really, really hard for us. Of course, the students in school didn't ostracize us or anything like that. They were okay. Some of them ignored us, but I don't know, it seemed like we got along. I had this one girlfriend who wanted to tag along, come home with me all the time 'cause she wanted to see all the GIs at our restaurant. That's all she wanted me for. [Laughs] She was kind of boy-crazy, you know, at that age.

MA: What were some other... in your, was it high school? You were in ninth grade?

GH: Ninth grade. So ninth, tenth, eleventh, three of us.

MA: And what were some other, were there African American students, Latino students? What was the racial breakdown?

GH: There were quite a few black kids there. They all, it's like segregation all over again. They're always in their own group. And then the Latinos, they're in their own. We used to call them Spanish in those days, and they used to live in, like, a shantytown area across the river by the bridge. Because I remember we used to see them going over there. And then they tried to get friendly with us, because they felt that we were a minority, and they felt sorry for us, I think. You know, when you're a minority like that, you really, you have more empathy. So then, the black people, too, they were nice, they were nice. And we didn't have any problem in school except we did not mingle. We didn't mingle at all. They must have thought, "Wow, these people are antisocial or something." [Laughs] And we would just come straight home to the restaurant. That was our life, at the restaurant. So St. Paul wasn't very much to remember about school and all of that, just the restaurant. We used to go out on our own a lot, sisters, we would go out together. We did a lot of things together, go shopping and to go the movies and things like that.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.