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MN: So when you turned twelve you were able to join the Chuo Gakuen's Boy Scouts? What kind of activities did you do?

BK: The Boy Scouts followed the ritual of Boy Scouts of America, and you went through learning how to tie ropes, how to hike, how to do first aid, and so you had all these merit badges you would have to work for, hiking, canoeing, electricity, and then you would have to win so many awards for the merit badges of things that you accomplished, canoeing and hiking. And after you got so many badges you became... what was it? You have to lead up to the fact that you can become an Eagle Scout, so in between there were other ratings, but you had to climb up to the number of badges to become a Eagle Scout. And once you accomplished Eagle Scout that was the highest honor in Boy Scouts.

MN: One of the, I guess merit badges for Boy Scouts is in the swimming requirement, and the swimming must've been difficult because a lot of the pools were not open to minorities, so how did you folks get around that?

BK: Oh, yes. (Japanese) weren't allowed in the public pools. (...) But there was an exception after the pools were open to the public for so many days, just before they're going to change the water, the last day, they allowed our group to go in and swim. It was very cloudy and dirty, but they allowed us to go. And it was not what you call equal treatment. We're still second class. Not second class Boy Scouts, but second class citizens.

MN: Your Boy Scout troop, 197, also helped out in Nisei Week. What did you guys do?

BK: When Nisei Week came around, as you know, it was a promotion that was sponsored by the merchants of Tokyo in order to get business. And what they did was they came up with a plan that if you bought merchandise you would get so many tickets (to vote). And certain areas promoted a candidate and the tickets that you bought represented merchandise you bought in Little Tokyo, and that brought business to the Little Tokyo merchants who then sponsored the various activities. And what you did is got one ticket for every dollar that you bought of merchandise, so the farmers would buy ice box and stoves, and they would save the tickets until towards the end of the promotion. They would stuff the (voting) boxes with (...) the candidate's name on the back and stuff the boxes to get their candidate to be the queen. So it was a successful promotion in that it brought business to Little Tokyo. And it also brought the community together and began to attract the general community, and the Nisei Week and the parade and the ondo (dancing). So all the Boy Scouts participated in the parade and we went first before the parade started. At that time they didn't have any parking meters, and so we would have to go up and down the streets. The cars were parked on curb. We'd have to go inside the restaurants and tell everybody, "Got to move your car. The parade is gonna start." And the people would move, move their cars off of the street because we needed all the space for the various parade participants to come down with the crowd sitting on the curb. The Boy Scouts then formed their own units to march, and the Koyasan Boy Scouts had the latest equipment because their merchant parents had the most money. (Yes), they had not only the regular bugles, but they had the piston bugles, and not only the regular drums, they had the tenor drums and the bass drum sets. We had to compete with that. But we had a good instructor for our marching band from Stevenson Junior High, and he came on Friday nights to teach us how to march (...) and also play (...) marching songs. And so we competed with (...) other units. There was a Koyasan, Nichi Hongwanji... I think Maryknoll had one, too. And then Chuo Gakuen. At least four or five Boy Scout troops.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.