<Begin Segment 14>

MN: Now you said in the trailer park in Long Beach, there were a lot of people. You also mentioned that the soldiers were there too, returning soldiers.

JM: Yeah, some of them were. 'Cause I remember one Japanese lady got punched in the face for no other reason. It wasn't because of a sexual thing like she was being attacked, they just, they just didn't like you.

MN: So actually, it was kind of scary to live in these trailer parks, too, it sounds like.

JM: Well, yeah, because you didn't know who -- especially, even though we're in Long Beach -- we were, it was just a leery thing over there. You couldn't go into a restaurant, 'cause (you didn't know) whether or not they'd serve you or whether they'd say anything to you. I mean, racism, racial hatred was alive and well. Outright, it was in your face. It was nothing subtle, nothing, you know, it was just straight there. And the first day I went to school, right off the bat we got into trouble. Because a ball was missing, and, of course, "Oh, it was those 'Jap' kids that did it. They stole it." So they immediately assumed we stole things, which we didn't, of course. And Poly High School in Long Beach, they had to close it because they were fighting in the hallways. I got to say this: don't feel, I wouldn't feel too sorry for us because we did a lot of fighting in camp. So we could hold our own. We were battling away half the time. And oh, that crossing guard kept giving us such a hard time, 'cause he didn't like us.

MN: How did he give you a hard time?

JM: He said, "Get over here," you know, or something. He would really sneer at us or whatever. It didn't take much to figure out who liked you and who didn't. So we caught him in the alley and kicked him off his bike. Well, the teacher heard about that, in those days they had corporal punishment. So she called me in and she took out a ruler, and oh, she whaled away on my butt. But I had a pocketbook back there, so I'm like, "Have at it, lady." [Laughs]

MN: Now, which school was this at?

JM: This is in Edison. It's still there.

MN: It was a grammar school?

JM: Interesting thing enough, too, they came around looking for me one day, they said, "Who's this kid, who's Matsuoka?" And I said, "I am." Said, "Oh, is that you?" Apparently they had given a, what they called an Iowa test in those days. And that was sort of like a quasi-IQ test and what have you, and I had scored among the highest.

MN: So despite not going to school in Manzanar and really not getting, you know, book knowledge, you did very well.

JM: Yeah, uh-huh.

MN: I'm gonna go back to this crossing guard. Was this crossing guard an adult?

JM: No, no, he was a kid. You know, they used kids in these things. They thought they were important with their sashes and all that, you know, and they were big and tall. So we caught 'em in the alleyway there. And all of a sudden, he realized, "Uh-oh." [Laughs] And of course we just rushed him and threw him off his bicycle, and he went tumbling on the ground. Threw a few kicks his way, stepped on his bike and walked away.

MN: And I guess, what was he like after that?

JM: Oh, well, they... that's the last, last we ever heard from him.

MN: So as a Japanese American, it sounds like you were, it was very hard to be accepted at school. You also mentioned a basketball game.

JM: Yeah, we were playing, and all of a sudden this, this wasn't in Edison, I was at, this is at Thomas Jefferson junior high, I think, at the time. And all of a sudden this kid, he stopped. He says, when he looked at me, he says, "Oh, I can't play with you," and he walks away, and I said, "What was that about?" And they said, "Oh, his father died in the Pacific. He was in the Merchant Marines and his ship went down, it was torpedoed." So I said, "Oh, okay." It was nothing personal, you know, in that sense.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.