<Begin Segment 7>

MN: How high did your mother get in her education? Do you know how much education she had in Japan?

RO: You know, I really don't know how much, but I do know -- she liked to tell me stories. And her mother was an unusual woman. That she described her as "being in the room when the men are talking." And her father's friends, whatever, I may not have this historically correct, but they would represent Japan in international matters. So when people were talking about such business, my grandmother was the kind of woman that would want to be in the room.

MN: That's very unusual, that they would allow a female in the room. Do you know how she was able to manage that?

RO: I don't know. But I'm sure she was very strong and smart. My mother, my mother was not interested in those kinds of issues, but my mother used to always say, "You're just like Grandma," where I want to talk about something or fight something or whatever. So it was a nice positive reinforcement.

MN: Let's go back to Elko.

RO: Elko.

MN: You went to school in Elko. Can you share with us some of your experience at Elko?

RO: We weren't there long. This was right after the war, so basically, the people are nice people, but, you know, at school you were called "Japs." And I can recall a day where the teacher gave me soap and told me to wash my mouth out because I had mistakenly uttered a Japanese word. We were talking Japanese at home. And so I definitely was now integrated in a very white situation and felt different. Behind the school, there was an Indian school. And I used to go look at them and wanted to be there, because they looked like me. And in different, different ways over the years, I've always had sense of, an affinity with Native Americans and their experience, and their jewelry. [Laughs]

MN: Is that why, is that where you started to get that affinity for Native American jewelry? 'Cause I know you wear a lot of Native American jewelry.

RO: No, then I must have been, what, seven years old? No, that started in law school. I have a dear friend, a Yaqui Indian, first to graduate from college, and she graduated law school. And she came over to me one day and she said, "I want to be your sister." I said, "I have a sister. I don't want another sister." Any event, we become fast friends. I'll tell you how we met. There was a class called Race, Racism and American Law. And the professor was Judge Terry Hatter. And the students would challenge him on some of his lectures on racial equality. So Rosa and I, there's a limit to what a professor can do, and Rosa and I would jump up and attack back. But these students, my classmates, you know, they are sons of judges and very prominent people. And I was one of the legal educational opportunity students. I had not planned to become a lawyer, but I had been teaching in East Los Angeles.

MN: Can we get to that -- let's talk about Elko still.

RO: About what?

MN: Elko.

RO: Elko. [Laughs]

MN: I still had a question. I had a question on the soap incident, because you know, for a child it's very traumatic. Because you had to wash your mouth with soap, is that a point where you didn't want to talk Japanese anymore?

RO: We didn't. We didn't, we were, even at home, they told us, "If you want your children to succeed, they're gonna have to speak English, so you let the children speak to one another in English." It was very much discouraged use of Japanese. So my generation, their little group, then there's no Japanese dancing, Japanese language schools. Before camp, after camp, some time later, but not right after.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.