<Begin Segment 14>

MN: Let me ask you a little bit about school, 'cause I know your sister, oldest sister Mae, had problems in school because she was going to school in camp and, and then school outside was so much different. Did you have that same sort of trauma of getting adjusted to school outside of camp?

TS: Oh, of course. And like I said before, I used to dread the first day of school, when the teacher couldn't say my name and every, I was the, the brunt of all these jokes for these hakujin kids. These kids, they were raised in the, in Richmond and Berkeley, and so they were privy to how their parents felt about Japanese. In fact, when I was graduating from El Cerrito High School, 1956, I was the only guy that had the balls to ask three hakujin girls for a date to go to the senior prom. The first two girls said, "Oh, I'd love to go," because they were juniors. Then I would get a phone call and say, "I'm sorry, Toru, but I can't go, go to the senior prom with you." And I said, "Why?" Said, "My parents asked me who I was going out with and they said, 'You're not going to no ball, going to a dance with no Jap.'" And that broke my heart. I felt like it was a dagger in my heart. What, I didn't, what did I do? Didn't do a damn thing. I was just a, I was just unacceptable.

So it's, it was really tough going through, when I graduated from high school, all my buddies, Japanese friends, none of us had ever been to a party. None of us had ever been to a junior high school or a high school sock hop. We never danced with a girl. We never went to parties. We were just social outcasts. And in fact -- and I was just thinking about this recently -- when, when lunch period came I ate lunch with my friend Mabo and Yosh and I, maybe a third guy, a fourth guy, but I remember the three of us, we ate lunch together at our own table outside. The hakujins ate in the cafeteria. The blacks ate in the student union. We ate lunch, the three of us, all alone, outside in the, in the middle of the, in the area because we were just, we were just not worthy of taking space with the other people. And if we had gone to the cafeteria, tried to find a seat, the hakujin would give us this dirty look and say, "What the hell you Japs doin' in here? Get the hell outta here." So it was clear where the lines were, and it's pretty shitty to grow up when, when in your heart you know you're just as equal as anybody else. If you get the same grades, if you do well in tests and whatever, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships, can't go out with you, can't socialize with you. You can be buddies in school with the hakujin boys, but soon as school was over, "You go that way, I go this way."

In fact, my, one of my best friends in high school was this Portuguese guy, Michael, and he was a good looking guy, and he had a crush on this, there were these two Janets, Janet Wagner and Janet Schultz, and Mike had a crush on Janet Wagner, who was this blonde cheerleader, and I had this crush on Janet Schultz, who was a brunette girl. Mike Souza. And so we would walk down the hall and Mike would say, "Hey, Toru, here comes the two Janets." So we, Mike would stop and we're talking. The three of them would talk about, "Oh, are you gonna go to Marlene's party?" "Yeah, I'm going." And dah dah dah, they're talking about, "Oh, I'm gonna dah dah dah. My father's gonna take me. Blah blah blah." And I'm standing there. I'm a nonentity. I'm not invited. I'm a nonentity. It's like, "Shit, what, you mean you want me to invite your goddamn dog to the party? We don't want dogs at the party." And I remember standing there and thinking, Jesus Christ, it was like a dagger in my heart. I just, what the hell? I'm not a human being? Mike and I were good friends. We went, did PE together. I was one of the decathlon champions in El Cerrito High School. I was no fuckin' slouch. But in PE and school we were competing, were competitors. After school, you go that way, I go this way. "Hey, see you next Monday, Toru." That was it.

It was a shitty way to grow up. Why? Because my ancestors came from Japan, and it was so, it was so out of fashion to be Japanese in those days. And then, and in those days, too, anything from Japan was a piece of shit. There was these cheap cars, if you turned the cars upside down it said Coca Cola. They would send their scrap metal to Japan, they would take these pieces of printed material and turn 'em upside down and paint this yellow car or blue car, put two cheap little wheels on it. And to be Japanese, being from Japan was something to be ashamed of and the kids made fun of us. Said, "Hey look, this piece of shit comes from Japan." And I was embarrassed. What the hell did I have to do with what Japan sends over here? It was after the war. So man, that was the double whammy, you know? We got blamed for any, we got blamed for bombing Pearl Harbor. "You killed my uncle. You killed my father in Iwo Jima." Goddamn. What a way to grow up. Until recently, now, hey, they're serving sushi in, at high school. Everybody watches Japanese television, everybody drives a Japanese car. We all answer a Japanese telephone. We have Japanese computers. And Japanese philosophy, Japanese culture, Japanese everything is highly valued and admired. It wasn't, it was opposite in those days. And now it's fashionable to Japan, Japanese. People come up to me sometimes, say, "Hey, I'm looking for a good sushi bar." Feel like sayin', "Fuck you. Find your own goddamn sushi bar." But I don't. I just think, shit, I remember the days when people would look cross eyed at you, except just look at and say, "Wish to hell you didn't exist." Hey, I can't, I can't forget the bullshit. I really can't. and I'd be lying through my fuckin' teeth if I were sittin' here today and say, "Oh, you know, oh, we made the best of it." Shit, we had to do what I, we had to do, we did what the hell we had to do to survive, you know? But we ate a lot of shit doin' it, you know what I mean? And I don't, I don't like it. It's so demeaning to me as a human being when I know goddamn well I deserve nothing but the best. But in those days, that was not even in the equation. It's either eat shit, take shit or get the shit knocked outta you.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.