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MN: Let me go back to your, your birth. Bruce, what is your birth name?

BK: Teruo. That was my Japanese name. T-E-R-U-O.

MN: What, when did you adopt the name Bruce?

BK: Well, I did that in junior high. Because the teachers had a tough time pronouncing Teruo. They didn't, came up with all kinds of names, so I was kinda embarrassed every time they come to my name they couldn't pronounce it. So at that time the comics were very popular in junior high school. Superman, Batman, and the Katzenjammer Kids and all. Everybody was trading comic books, and I liked the name of the Batman, Bruce Wayne, so I started using Bruce as my personal name. And it wasn't legal, but I used it every opportunity I could. So when I got out of the service I had Henry Tsurutani, an attorney in Little Tokyo, legalize it, and from that time on I used that as my legal name.

MN: Now let's go back to where you are living at Ninth, near the Ninth Street produce market, and then the economy started to improve so your family was able to move out of this area. Where did you move to?

BK: We moved from the Ninth Street area over to Boyle Heights. Right across from Roosevelt High School was a house for rent on 470 South Mott Street, which was right across the street from the high school and a Japanese garden. So we moved there for I don't know how many years, and that's when I started going to grammar school on First Street, grammar school on First. And when I graduated there moved over to Hollenbeck Junior High, graduated there, I went to Roosevelt.

MN: Correct me if I'm wrong, when you started the First Street grammar school your oldest sister Midori was in Roosevelt and then... wait a minute, Mariko. Mariko?

BK: She might've been... Mariko was in Roosevelt.

MN: Roosevelt, and Midori was in Hollenbeck Junior High School?

BK: I think so.

MN: And then which Japanese language school were you attending?

BK: Chuo Gakuen, which was right off of First Street, close to the First Street grammar school, so when that school let out at three o'clock, we would just walk across the street from First Street, go about half a block up to Dakota Street and go halfway up the block on Dakota where the Chuo Gakuen school was and attend one hour of Japanese school. And then went home.

MN: Now, you also took kendo lessons at Chuo Gakuen?

BK: Right. In the evenings they had activities. I recall either Wednesday or Thursday, one day was judo and the other day was kendo, and Fridays was Boy Scout. So they got me involved in kendo, and we bought our dougu in Little Tokyo and I have a little bamboo dou and a black mat and then a, bought the shinai, or the sword, and started kendo. And it was following everybody's footsteps. The same applied to the other boys in the area. They went into kendo or judo. I didn't like judo. I liked kendo because you wouldn't have to be flipped around. [Laughs]

MN: Do you remember your kendo teacher and, and the assistant to the kendo teacher?

BK: I remember a kendo teacher, Mr. Shimo. Mr. Shimo's son was Cedric Shimo, and Cedric Shimo was in the Boy Scouts. He was one of my leaders.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.