<Begin Segment 21>

TI: But what was the reception like at school, when you started school?

NA: [Laughs] You talk about all the scary times of my life. Or at least, of course, emotional times like that is what remains. We had come back, as I said, we were on the train on VJ Day, so that's August and September we go off to school. Lunch, got a lunchbox and new clothes and all. Buying shoes to go to school was, because we were not allowed, one, one store wouldn't sell us shoes and to my adult life I would not ever patronize that store, right, that, branches of that store, but so you got that in the, just in the sector. So I had to stand in front of the class. I think my mom took us to school, registered us. I was escorted or somehow got into the class, standing in front of class, everybody's staring at me, teacher's saying my name, I'm new, and so, you know, "She's in our class." And like, okay, what do you do? I just knew I just had to stand there and look as, just be there. And this one girl stands up, comes up to me, grabs my hand and brings me over. Now, I don't know if the teacher told her to do that or not, but she came and then she says, "You sit right here." And her name is Rosalind Croom. She's an African American girl, and she became my best friend. And Rosalind, my grandmother couldn't say Rosalind, so she was "Rosebuddy" to my grandmother. Rosalind eventually, and we connect up our lives in Los Angeles because she's, became a higher, high up kind of administrator type person in Union Bank and she was, had come down here. And somehow she had said my name in Union Bank. Paul or somebody remembered, so we connected up. But she ended up marrying a Sansei up in the Bay Area, but she said, "Oh yeah," she says, "I learned everything Japanese from your grandmother or hanging around at your house. And I, all this food," says, "my in-laws didn't know if I could eat it or not, but, gee." That was almost like, as much as I learned to eat fried chicken and greens at her house, right? And I love fried chicken. That became my favorite.

TI: Earlier you mentioned how your parents, when you were in Topaz, sat you down and said, you know, when you're, we're out there're gonna be all these different people, different colors, and so how much experience or contact did you have with African Americans?

NA: Oh, through school a whole lot, alright, because --

TI: But up to, up to this point how much did you have?

NA: Nothing. I mean, nothing because we were in camp, right? And out in Utah there were no African Americans, or not in my consciousness. And let alone Mexican Americans, it wasn't, it was soldiers or, or town folk and they were all white. And in the camps we were all Japanese. So here, somehow, was this kind of new adventure. I think there's kind of a deep rooted, like a, I think, I hope I tried to explain that my grandmother really planted a lot of things in my little head and, and she passed away when I was ten, and a whole lot, as an adult or reflecting back on values or stuff, goes right back. I mean, that's the only place I could've gotten it, or from my mother and dad, but it was there, some of it very deeply rooted. And part of it, I think, is stuff like, well, the biggest lesson was there are some guarantees in life and one of it is that you die. Another one, guarantee, is that things always change, and the other part is for sure if you get fixated on something you go crazy. So that's kind of like, in my little head, I was like, so change didn't mean something bad to me. There're gonna be challenges, but change is a natural way things happen in life. So I think maybe some of that kind of laying it over things allowed for more, I don't know, openness maybe, ability to just take it in and let it, go with it kind of thing. I don't know.

TI: Yeah, because when you would bring home your friend who's African American, I know that not all Isseis would've been so open to having an African American come to their, their home or to have you play with an African American, so I was just, that's something that...

NA: Yeah. There was, well, at the least, it wasn't in our house. Like I said, Baachan couldn't say Rosalind, but she sure could say "Rosebuddy" and we always laugh 'cause she thinks of that little ointment, Rosebud ointment that was a old kind of in everybody's medicine cabinet. It's a, kind of a salve that's almost like Vaseline, it's for anything, but it was called Rosebud. And we'd always say, " Baachan, you think she's a "Rosebuddy" because of Rosebud?" We used to tease Baachan about that, but, so I learned something about African -- well, at least a Texan African American family, and it wasn't a family. It was a single mom and a auntie with, Rosalind had an older sister, and they lived up the block and around the corner, so we're on California and there on Sacramento Street on, so it was Lyon and Sacramento and we were on California between Lyon and Baker. And part of our big favorite hangout place was on Sacramento Street between, again, Baker and Lyon was a public library that spanned both, from Sacramento to Clay Street. And in there it was a wonderful green, greenery lawn. It's a little slopey, but green around, but then inside was all this wonderful books and we became really regular hanger outers of that public library, getting to know the librarians and just, just immersed in that a lot.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.