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MN: Well, let's talk about that then. You became a juvenile delinquent. What were you stealing?

CH: I used to steal candy at first, then go to dime store and help yourself, lot of little kind of things. And then when you start saying, don't get caught, you get more brave. That's how the crook is, like smoking marijuana, you turn to hash, hash into cocaine, cocaine to heroin, same thing. Get braver and start getting more and more and more, then you know, of course, we didn't have no money to buy gas, so we'd just steal gas from the road. You what a longshoreman is? They, Terminal Island, they had a lot of longshoremen unloading and loading. Nighttime, daytime, anytime. Nighttime's the best because there's hundred car lined up. Help yourself. Siphon the gas, then we got braver and then start stealing cars. And then stealing cars, you take the car apart and go sell it to these dealers. They used to buy it, they didn't care them days. Before the war, everything was more lenient. You don't get, you don't get a cut too often. There wasn't too much watchmen in Terminal Island. There was one policeman, since the Japanese was so honest, one policeman. And we know where the policeman goes, we know where he goes, every move he made.

TI: Now, was it common for there to be other gangs like yours?

CH: No, we had the only gang. You know, Terminal Island, all Japanese, they were pretty respectable, majority of 'em. But I was the other half. But we had a lot of fun, long as we don't continue to do it. Then you be like this.

TI: So why were you different? What made you do this?

CH: Oh, our personality was different. Our personality was different. We didn't agree with each other. They were too, in other words, you call it square head. Us guys, more round. [Laughs] That's the way I see it.

MN: You finally got caught.

CH: Finally got caught.

MN: What were you stealing?

CH: I got caught. Well, this is the automobile tire. Tire, take tire and sell it, I still remember his name. Postman Nobu. Nobu his name was. And that time we got caught, but there was other times we got caught be Fish & Game, see. All the Caucasian people would come fishing, we're smart. They want fish to take it home to eat it. No, we made a net ourselves, go to the Dead Man's Island, all kind of fish in there. "You want to buy fish?" "You want to buy fish?" They'd buy it. Finally the Fish & Game caught us, you know. "Hey, you young kids, come here. Come here. You're doing something illegal." Yeah, it was that guy. So we get the, we're on the boat, he's on the car. So we go over there, he come around the car, so we're going back and forth. Then there's a barge, a barge, I know the guy, see. We parked in the water, he can't go, barge, we still got to go, come on the land. So here comes a little jig boat, we had all kind of, one horsepower jig boat. We get on that jig boat, "Okusan, take us over there." So okay, so Fish & Game still think we're one of us, hell no, we're home already. [Laughs] We had a lot of fun, cop and robber kind. That real kind, though.

MN: But when you got caught by the San Pedro police department, where did they take you?

CH: We went on probation. First of all, every little community got Japanese, what do you call that? Society. Japanese society people, whatever, like a PTA, they have that kind of thing. And when I got caught, "Hey, you come here, father and mother got to come to this place, the committee, where they got caught." So they're gonna send us to Whittier, Whittier State Reformatory over there. So meanwhile, at school, they find out, so they come to police station, we all went to the police station and, "Hey, you guys are, Japanese are supposed to be real honest and, you know, they don't do these things. But you guys are special." "Oh, we're having fun, though. We didn't do anything bad." "But you did, you broke the law. So I tell you what, instead of sending you to that kind of place, reformatory, we give you one year probation. Every week you report something and you do something. You got to do some kind of project, so you report." So we did that for one year. And all the Nihonjinkai, they say, "You can't play each other no more," they say. Who's gonna listen to that kind of thing? So we didn't... state reformatory. I went though, over there, the Nihonjinai people went over there, "These guys are good boys, they're mischievous, but only one little thing, that's why they'll be alright, we'll take care." "Oh, in that case, okay." Yeah, but still, bad guy wasn't that bad, though. And the few guys ended up pretty bad.

TI: But what about, so after you got caught, what did your parents...

CH: Play with?

TI: Well, your parents, what did they say? Did they say something?

CH: Well, my father and mother was interested like hell. Yeah, so everybody, and who the gang was? Then we don't want to point finger, so the older guys, the father, he finally came and, "I'm sorry, my son was a gang leader." He was two, three year older than us. He incite us to do everything, that guy. He never, he never showed up, though, that guy. See, he didn't get caught, that's why. But it was fun doing all that. It was exciting. All the, my younger guys, they all liked me, you know, they want action. All the younger, they put on the, my car, boy, I used to take 'em all over the place. That's why they still remember that. And so I want to show 'em how good driver I was, so I go and flip over the car, you know. Several guys was in the car. Four guys in the front, three guys in the... you know what a rumble seat is? They were in there. When I turned over the car, I was going like this, I stopped, I looked at the roof, there was a big hole. Big hole. It's a canvas top kind. I said, "What happened to the three other guys that were sitting?" I'm going like that, driving like this, they're not there. Well, it's sand, that's why they went on the sand. I went way out the back guys. Two guys were, there was one guy missing. What about the one other guy? I hear that, looking around, "Itai no, itai no," he said, "It's hurting, hurting." He got pinned under the car. So I went to pull him with a hand, said, "Don't pull me." Bone was sticking out. He broke his arm. So Model A's light, I lift it up and boom, it came out. I took him to the house and boy the mama got mad at me. She, "Warui bouzu guy like you playing with my son, never gonna play with." When the war came, we went to the same camp, I came and said, "Obasan, we had a lot of, you remember that time you got mad at me?" "Yeah, you baka yatte ne," "You crazy guy." But I tell him, hey, that happened, there won't be no story, I tell him. In Japanese, you tell him, "Hanashi no tame." You got something, you talk about it. See, I did a lot of things, that's why I got lot of things to talk about. Whereas other innocent guys, they ain't got nothing to talk about. That's why I had a lot of followers with me. They're all over.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.