<Begin Segment 24>

MN: Before we get into your army days, I want to ask you some of the Nisei female clubs that stuck around with the Black Juans, I'm gonna toss some names out that you mentioned. Darlenez, the Desirees and the De Luchez.

JM: The group that really, we used to associate with all the time was the Darlenez, and they were not gang girls, so to speak. No, they were the social people that used to call the shots, you know. I'm not blaming the Darlenez, but if someone just dissed you, you knew it, 'cause the darn women would tell us. "So and so said something about you." I swear, the more I look back on it, I think the women were stirring up more trouble. [Laughs] They all looked at us like, oh, you guys were... I said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute." There was a lot of material that went into this pie," you know. But these young ladies were all good-looking. Number one... I know this wasn't fair, but the, it was like a sorority. You couldn't get in unless you were good-looking. You know what I mean? You had to be party-ready. You had to be able to dance, if you were like a wallpaper, what do they call it? Wallflower and rather, weighed three hundred pounds, you weren't getting in there. If you were good-looking, oh, yeah. And we're friends to this day, some of us. In fact, I met one of the... I think she was president of the Darlenez, last year. We had lunch together at the Marukai in West Covina. She lives in, she lives in Las Vegas. There was one young lady that was really good-looking, I'm telling you. And we used to hang out quite a bit, and we smoked together, we smoked like a... all the time. We were smoking those Kents with the Micronite filter? And you know the Micronite filter had asbestos in those things. She died of lung cancer, and it's a wonder I... that was really something. But yeah, those women's clubs were really social... what do you call it? Party girls. [Laughs] They had a good time. They were the Paris Hiltons of their time!

MN: Did they --

JM: And they were treated as young ladies.

MN: And did they usually fund the parties?

JM: They charged admission. They have dance bids they call 'em, invitations. They charge one or two dollars, no big thing. All they needed was a place, a record player, a minimum decorations, that's all. Well, they had to pay for the rental of the facility, that was about it.

MN: And where did you guys usually have these dances?

JM: Normandy playground and different places like that. Different playgrounds, community centers like San Fernando community center, Venice community center. But that was the society we had. And these were the active people that went around town. If you weren't part of this society, then you were part of the church group. And that was a group I didn't know. You went to the church parties, the church things and what have you. Other than that, you stayed home. You don't go to white things or Mexican things or black things or even Chinese things. If you weren't part, you were either a church group or our group or the in-between limbo nothing group. What we call "lame." [Laughs] You're a lame person, a fate worse than death.

MN: How often were you getting into fights?

JM: Again, if it was all the time, no, no organization could handle that. Nobody would be... and then you'd configure yourself in with every antisocial person, you know, around. It just, you got into it because it just happened and you couldn't back your way out of it. Every so often is about it. Every so often.

MN: Once a month? Once every three months?

JM: When we were around it was once every three months if that. And as the division and the war, you know, the split between the east side and west side took over, and it was really strong during the time, times of Baby Black Juans, it was almost like, almost weekly to every other week, something would happen, something would happen. And that battle down there on the west side was sort of a, that was the straw that broke the camel's back with the LAPD. Said, "Enough of these guys." They came and they busted everybody inside, and they busted you on conspiracy. All they, all you had to do was make a slip and say, "I'm a member of this," you're guilty of conspiracy. Conspiracy to be in a gang. And that was... I don't know whether that was a misdemeanor or felony or something. They sent a lot of our guys up just based on that. That's how they kind of broke us.

MN: Did you ever spend time in jail?

JM: Uh-uh. I kept thinking I was gonna go. I went to work and I said, "I'll never see the end of this day." The end of the day came and, "Man, I'm still here." [Laughs] Wow. So I got to say that our code of silence helped us out. And another thing, too. We would never run around and say who was what. We didn't have cards that said, "This is a member of the Black Juans." We had no rosters, no nothing, we had no formal officers, they were just like (it all) goes under as an understood thing. "He's a member now." And the only way you could get in, actually, you had to live in the neighborhood. You either had to live in Azusa or you had to live in the Virgil area, or you were a renegade that we would accept, that we said, "Okay, you're in." Or you would have to be related to someone. We would take you as a relative, 'cause we figured we can trust you. But it was an unspoken thing, like, "Is he a member?" It was very nebulous. We had who we considered hard core members, we had sort of like associates, friends, allies, wannabes, things like that.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.