<Begin Segment 13>

SI: I remember having our sergeant tell us that, "I know that you folks are Japanese," but -- and at that time they had buses where the blacks sat on the back, the movies where they were segregated, the toilets that had colored and white -- he kept telling us, "You're considered white." You don't go sit in the back of the bus, you don't go to the colored rest rooms, you don't go into segregated black part of the movie, but you're accepted as a white.

SF: When you were first were into that kind of situation, were you thinking that well, maybe the Japanese really belong in the colored section?

SI: Yes, of course. Of course. Although we were segregated in different ways in California, we had not seen this type of segregation that you see in the south. And I suppose another strange thing in Oklahoma was that when you go to town, you run into many of the local Native American Indians. They'd come running up to you and say, "Hey, what tribe you from?" And you can look at many Native Americans and you swear they were Japanese, Chinese, or something. And say, "Oh, yeah. We're a California tribe." They say, "Oh, yeah that's great." [Laughs] So we were accepted by the Native American, and for the most part I don't think there was much -- I think our presence in Oklahoma to the local Caucasian community was rather unique, and they accepted us as American GIs. And I think the relationship in general with the general public was quite amiable and quite open and accepted.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.