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TI: And so describe growing up in Boyle Heights. What are some memories of Boyle Heights as a kid?

CS: Oh, it's all pleasant memories. At that time, I didn't know it was an unusual neighborhood until the museum put on that Boyle Heights exhibit. Then I thought, my gosh, I lived in an unusual neighborhood. And then, Betsy Kalin is currently making a documentary about Boyle Heights, and she was telling me that Boyle Heights was the most racially diverse community together, except for two smaller ones in California. She said, "New York has a huge minority population, but they lived in their own ghettos." But Boyle Heights was one community, that's why it's so different, she said.

TI: So describe some of that. When you talk about the diversity of the community in Boyle Heights, who were some of your neighbors?

CS: See, to me, it was normal. I thought this was it, 'cause I had the Russian (as a neighbor), used to go to (his) place to eat, had Mexicans, blacks, I think one was Italian, he used to come to my house all the time. So there was a lot of Jews, I know. About half of the population was Jewish at that time. Just thought it was normal.

TI: And in the neighborhood, how many Japanese would you say, how many Japanese families?

CS: Oh, that was a huge... I don't know the count, but I think the Jews were the majority, then came the Japanese, I think. Latinos came later, but there were still a lot of Mexicans there.

TI: It was just a diverse neighborhood. Did the issue of race ever come up?

CS: Oh, to me, no. Until I was on the UCLA fencing team, all white people. And when they found out I came from Boyle Heights, they said, "Gee, aren't you afraid of living in that neighborhood?" I said, "What for?" It had an image that, you know, pachukos and fights and all that. I said, "I'm one of them. In fact, if I have a problem, they'll come to my rescue, so what am I afraid of?" [Laughs] But that's the image we had. They thought I lived in a very dangerous neighborhood.

TI: And you just thought that was normal, these were all your friends, they were all different races.

CS: Yeah, we grew up with them, yeah.

TI: How about class divisions? Were there, like, certain groups that perhaps had more money than others? I mean, how would you characterize that?

CS: I don't know about financially, but you could tell the race by the sports activities. Like in the B football and B basketball, it was all Japanese Americans, practically. A's were blacks, well, let me put it, basketball was the Slavs, you know. Football there were the big Russians and the blacks. Track, Mexicans excelled in distance. You could tell by the sports where they're from. And I said this at an interview for the museum, I said the debating team was all Jews. They were so sharp and just smart. They took that out of there. [Laughs]

TI: But almost by ethnic group, there were certain things that...

CS: They excelled in.

TI: ...they excelled in, or that they were grouped by.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.