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RH: So I decided to go to Skyline, which was the beginning of bussing system. It was an all white school. It was a totally different experience for me because there were, again, very few Asians, but there are very few black people or people of color at all at this school, so I jump from being, seeing in basically a neighborhood that was all soul music and whatever to more of a just rock and roll and Beach Boys and all this kind of stuff type of attitude, you know? So it was really kind of different for me, and there was a group of us that would be, would take the same bus up to school because, from our neighborhood up there, so there wasn't a lot, but there were some other kids in the neighborhood that were bussing up there, predominantly the other black students, too. And so we would all be on that bus and we'd say, yeah, we start down here in the flatlands and we take the bus up to the hill, to this school and every day we have to go back down to the flatlands, where we live, basically. It was, it was, that's for, when it, for me, it really became obvious that race is an issue and being Asian American is, is something I need to deal with and living in a neighborhood that was predominantly of color, predominantly black, but that's really where, that's, that's my life experience, basically.

Tom Izu: I was gonna ask, did your parents and your older brothers, did they have anything to say about your decision to go to Skyline? Did they influence you or have any discussions about that?

RH: My mother really wanted me to go because, because the, having gotten beaten up, she says, "That's not safe for you." My brothers, they, they were kind of, my oldest brother said, "Yeah, maybe it'd be good," because he knew what Castlemont was like. My other brother who was more recently at Castlemont, he was able to deal with it, so he was kind of indifferent a little bit perhaps, as well. You know, "I went to Castlemont, so you should be able to survive, too, but Skyline is supposedly a better school, so maybe your opportunities are better or whatever." So they didn't argue against me at all. They saw it as a different opportunity.

Tom Izu: I was just curious, your relation with your, relationship with your older brothers, were you the, the star of the brothers, you're gonna do the best in school? Did they see you that way or was there any kind of rivalry like that?

RH: Not really. I think, my oldest brother was, was always very good academically and my other brother Sam was maybe a little bit of the black sheep of the family in a way, because he, he didn't get involved with school as much. He, school for him was not as important and so just doing other things was more important for him, and so, and then I was trying to be more academic a little bit, perhaps, but also I was, I was more on the musical side than my older brothers were. My younger sisters were definitely the ones that were, I guess, they, they excelled quite a bit more on the academic side and even when they tried to do music, they, they were very good at that, too. My sister just below me, Kimi, she's a, she's OB/GYN, medical, a doctor and so she went to medical school and all that kind of stuff, and so she, she's the one that really achieved the academic honors.

Tom Izu: And did your parents at this time, did they either directly or indirectly, were they trying to get you to go in a certain direction in terms of, like, "You're gonna go to college and start a career"? Did they make that pretty clear what they expected of you?

RH: Oh, definitely, all of us. They all expected us to go to college. They all expected us to take, go into a degree that was going to be financially secure for us. My dad and especially my mom, they definitely didn't want us to be gardeners or working in a steel mill and having to do the work that my dad had to do or stay home and just do like what my mom did, and so they're, they were very adamant about that, when we went to, that we had to college and we had to make a good career out of it. So, so that was choices that we, that wasn't a choice. That was something we had to do, basically.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.