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MA: And so tell me about your high school experience in San Pedro.

YK: Well, I love that hometown, San Pedro, and enjoyed the high school, San Pedro High. Because it's a small town, I think it was only that one high school, San Pedro, one junior high, Dana junior high. I went to Fifteenth Street School, there must have been at least about seven grammar schools in San Pedro. But a lot of the, in Terminal Island, of course, went to grammar school in Terminal Island, and when they went and got to junior high, they came across to San Pedro and went to the same junior high school as the rest of us from San Pedro.

MA: And what was that like for the Terminal Island kids to sort of start mixing --

YK: They had to come across on a ferryboat. And, well, Terminal Island was mostly, I think, or heavily Japanese. And I think, well, I mean... trying to remember that far back. But I think Terminal Island people were confined. I mean, they were all living amongst Japanese people, so their Japanese was very good, I think, they could speak. Maybe their English sometimes may not... well, they were probably same as us. They just, in some ways, seemed different because they were in, you know, living just on an island. But those of us Japanese who lived in San Pedro, yet when we had to go to the dentist, we went to Terminal Island because they had Japanese dentists. And we never went to a white doctor. And you know, back then, I mean, though nobody talked about it that much, it was as if Asians, whether we were not allowed to use... well, we were told that no Japanese was born in a hospital. That a midwife, a Japanese midwife, brought up all the people of Japanese background. So, and yet, I don't know if that made any difference, you know, in our relationships with hakujin kids, it was that way. I mean, there were, I think, a lot of things that Asians could not attend. But all our classmates, they were all very nice. I don't know.

MA: That's interesting, though, that you went to Terminal Island for your dentist and your doctor for the Japanese dentists and doctors. So it seems like maybe there was some unspoken segregation --

YK: Yeah, I think so.

MA: -- there. Things were cordial, but it seems like, you know...

YK: Yeah, I think so, though they didn't tell us, "You can't come to the hospital," you know, I mean, it was... I think Japanese knew where they could go or where they couldn't go. I'm sure the blacks felt the same way. There weren't that many blacks, so I think there was segregation in our town.

MA: What about the Latino population in San Pedro, or Mexican, I'm wondering?

YK: Mexican, there were quite a few.

MA: Do you remember how the relationships were between the different racial groups, the Mexicans and Japanese?

YK: I think among the kids there wasn't that difference. But I don't think Japanese and Mexicans really -- our parents, I mean -- really were that social together, but I think it could have been because of language. You know, I think the Mexicans spoke Spanish and the Japanese and Chinese spoke their own language. So I don't think they interacted that much. But among the kids, I think we all got along very well, yeah.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.