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TI: Earlier you mentioned that back in Venice, you were kind of the wallflower, but that later on, when you were at Manzanar, you started dating. Can you tell me about that?

MN: I did not date until I was a senior in high school. I didn't wear lipstick until I was a senior, (my eldest) sister sent me some lipstick from Chicago, 'cause she had gone, relocated there. And I put it on and went to school, and the boys looked at me and one boy says, "Wow, Mary's got lipstick on." They all teased me, 'cause I really was a wallflower. I was afraid of boys, but I was always able to perform, but I never thought of dating. But I guess maybe the boys were afraid of me, I don't know. But I don't think I hated boys, but I was actually really a wallflower. And then when the boys used to ask me for dates and I would ask my brother. "So and so asked me to go to the dance. Can I go?" I would always get his permission. And my sister, who was still not married, my sister above me, she used to say, "Mary could do anything she wants. I have to always ask permission and I always get turned down, but Mary gets everything she gets to do." [Laughs] She used to say that for a while, but then she eventually got married in camp. It was funny. Maybe because I was so quiet, I was not rambunctious like my kid sister, and my sister already was dating, so maybe my brother was more permissive (towards) me.

TI: You mentioned makeup or lipstick. When you performed, before that, would you wear makeup?

MN: Uh-uh. And during, going back to the prewar days when I used to entertain at the Nisei Week show, I was thirteen and fourteen the two years that I performed there. And I was quite tall, I was already this tall at that age. And we'd go to the carnival and stuff after the (show), and the boys would look at me and say, "She's not thirteen." Because I was already this tall and I was already developed. [Laughs] But that's how it was because I was very tall, and my sister was very short.

TI: So I'm guessing, because you're a performer, you were taller, many of the boys might have been intimidated by you.

MN: I think that's what it might have been, they were afraid of me. [Laughs] I wasn't a worldly person.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.