<Begin Segment 10>

MN: And then you graduate from Thomas Starr King junior high school in 1938. Can you share with us what your graduation was like?

TI: Well, graduation was, the girls were asked to wear a white skirt and a white blouse, and then each class picked their class color, and my class picked apple green. So we were given, we purchased, rather, a green chiffon scarf to tie around our neck. And I wanted a completely pleated skirt, but my mother said, "If you get it dirty and it's white, you have to send it to the cleaner's, and the cleaner's really ask a lot of money because of the pleats." They didn't have permanent pleats in those days. So I went to my father and I asked him if I could have a completely pleated skirt, and he told my mother, "Well, since it's her graduation, buy it for her." [Laughs] So I was able to get that skirt. And then it was the first time I was allowed to wear silk stockings, and so it really made you feel grown up to wear silk stockings. And I wanted to buy a pair of high heeled shoes, white high heeled shoes, but my mother wouldn't let me. [Laughs] So I gave in and got a Cuban heel shoe.

MN: Now when you talk about silk stockings, we're not talking about, like, the pantyhose we see today.

TI: No. They're just stockings and you had to use garters. [Laughs] And you had, yeah, so I had to get a garter belt and silk stockings. And all the stockings in those days had a seam down the back, you know, and so if you crossed your legs, sometimes those seams would go crooked, so you had to be sure that your seams were straight, otherwise you look like you were bow-legged. [Laughs]

[Interruption]

MN: At your graduation for your junior high school, your homeroom had a graduation swim party.

TI: That's right.

MN: Can you share with us where it was held and what happened there?

TI: All right. We went to the... I can't even remember the name of the park.

MN: Brookside Park?

TI: Yeah, Brookside Park in Pasadena. And it was to be a swimming party. We would go to the Plunge after we had lunch, our picnic lunch. And we had our lunch, and then we had to sit around for a while because it's not good to go swimming right away. And then we to were line up to go into the Plunge, and Motomu Nagasako was the first Japanese American boy to be in the line. And he was told that they don't allow Orientals in the Plunge. And so he came back and told us, embarrassingly, and he was really angry. And we all sat around glumly and watched the other kids swimming. And then we all wished we could go home.

MN: How did your teacher react to this?

TI: I don't remember. I guess she just accepted the fact and didn't intervene or anything.

MN: Now how did you feel about having to...

TI: Well, I thought it was, you know, they said, "You could come back on Friday." That's when they changed the water. But, of course, it was not on Friday, so we weren't allowed to go in.

MN: How many other Japanese American students had to wait out with you?

TI: Oh, about six of us.

MN: So you waited outside while everybody was...

TI: We stayed on the lawn, just sat on the lawn by the Plunge.

MN: Was this the first time you encountered this kind of racism?

TI: Yes, right.

MN: There was no parents there that stood up for you folks?

TI: No. They were all Caucasian parents.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.