<Begin Segment 11>

TI: Did you, at Pomona you have all these different communities coming together. Some are like, like you from farming communities, but others are from a more urban, like Los Angeles. Did you notice differences in kind of culture or how they did things based on whether they were farm versus city?

BS: Oh, that was apparent right away. Those Los Angeles people were really different. Well, I guess who were different were the young adults. Boys and men, they wore zoot suits, you know the pegged pants and long coats and pachuko haircut, long haircuts, and so those people really stood out and made us even afraid of them, like they were gangsters or what. [Laughs] So it was really something for a farm boy, to see those kind of different types of people.

TI: And how about boys your age from the city? Did you get to know any of them as, as friends and, and see differences that way?

BS: Yeah, I think that the younger ones were, were just like anyone else. But those older people, there weren't that many, but they really stood out and it was a big shock.

TI: And, and tell me, did they hang out together and were they always at a certain place? I mean, when you think of the zoot suiters, what, describe kind of, yeah, where they were.

BS: They, they did stick to themselves, as a group, and that's how they stood out. And so it was, it was really an education for me. And what was amazing, there was, I saw a few white people in the camp and I thought that was kind of strange, but later on you find out they were married to Japanese people.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.