<Begin Segment 11>

TI: Okay. So let's talk about growing up in your neighborhood. You mentioned how when you first moved it was predominantly white and by the time you finished high school it's predominantly black, so it was a neighborhood in transition.

RH: Right.

TI: And you grew up in this neighborhood in the, what, '60s pretty much? When a lot was going on with civil rights and, and going on, so tell me about that in terms of, of the Civil Rights Movement as you were growing up in this neighborhood.

RH: Alright. Well, when I started elementary school, I mentioned, it was predominantly white and during that whole, even during that time span of being there it's shifting, and then when I went to the junior high school in our neighborhood it was predominantly, by that time already the neighborhood had shifted quite drastically, so it was a predominantly black school, so there're very few Asians there and actually the white population was a minority on the campus. And so growing up, and again, I was involved with the music department more so or classes rather than athletics and stuff, so I really didn't, I was in kind of a different culture of things that was going on on campus and actually tried to excel as much as possible on the academic stuff, but for whatever reason, in junior high school, it was more like in the eighth and ninth grade, naturally we would all have to take PE class and stuff, so during PE we would have to do different things, and I was horrible at basketball and, naturally, football and all that kind of stuff because all the other guys were just much stronger and faster and better, but the one thing I could do was run, track. And so during PE we would have to do that and I, so I would start running and the PE coach noticed that I was able to, especially on distance, do fairly well in running. I was, there were a lot of other guys that were better sprinters there at our school, so that was one thing I couldn't compete at all, but I could last when I had to keep running. I could keep on going where they couldn't. So they, so he started making me do track a little bit more, so I started running and so I gained friendship within a lot of the guys on the track team, who were predominantly black guys, kind of gained that friendship in that way just because I ran track and also did music in a way.

So, and that was interesting for me 'cause that kind of helped save me in a way because, actually, when I graduated from junior high school in the ninth grade, it was actually right towards the end of the school year, I was walking home from school and I got jumped by a couple guys and got beat up basically, and so other kids at the campus found out that happened basically, and my friends on the track team, they knew who did it or found out who did it and they really kind of paid back in a way. And so it was, it was interesting that these guys came to my rescue, after the fact in a way, but they kind of helped protect me after that in a way, so, and it was my ability to run home and get away from all that was what kind of saved me, too, in that, during that whole incident. [Laughs] But it was kind of traumatic because, not knowing why these guys just, just kind of started pickin' a fight on me, whatever reason, because I was walkin' home, and, and it got, the only way I really got some, I started running and then some guy was drivin' down the street and saw this thing happening so he stopped and told me to get into the car and then he drove me home, which was just a couple blocks away. My mom called the police and all this kind of stuff happened and, naturally, reported it to the school and they got involved with it.

So at that time I was kind of deciding, because I was graduating out of junior high school and had choices -- the high school I was supposed to go to was Castlemont High, which was becoming a pretty tough school. I already knew that. That's where my brothers went to school and they, it was getting hard for them even at that time, so, and the other option for me was to be bussed up to another school which was called Skyline High School, which is up in the hills. That's when Oakland School District was trying to start bussing and integrating the schools, basically. And so the principal of the junior high school said, "You know, your option is either, if you want you can probably see these guys that beat you up, whatever, at Castlemont, if you want to, if you can deal with that, or maybe go off to another school like Skyline." So I chose to go to Skyline High School, which is up on the hill.

TI: And before we ask you more questions about that, I'm curious, going back to that, to the fight, essentially, or getting beat up, was it, was it race related? Was it an issue because you were Asian American and it was kind of like that, or were they looking for money, or what was the reason, do you think, behind that?

RH: I kind of have to feel it was race related, 'cause at the time I was kind of at the top of my class, being one of the few Asians and academically excelling in the school and whatever and on the music side and whatever. So I, they were just probably jealous of what was going on, somewhat... I don't know how strongly it was race related, but at that time, I'm not sure. Perhaps it was more so than I, I really assumed at the time that it was race related 'cause --

TI: But during this time in your school, if you were white or maybe Asian American, was it, was it hard sometimes in this, in this environment?

RH: We always knew who the tough guys were in the school. It wasn't so much a race issue other than they're gonna be the tough guys, and so, and our school had that, just that was going on within the junior high school already. And you know, this is like seventh, eighth, ninth grade, but still, we kind of knew what was happening there. So it was, it was rapidly changing, what, what the relationships of people were in our neighborhood at that time.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.