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TI: Going back, you talked about your friends from the Japanese language school and the Buddhist church, did you have any friends from your school that you were close with?

MY: Yes, several. Primarily Alfred Saroni, who used to live about seven blocks west of Washington Street, where I lived, he and I knew each other in grade school and then we as a group had transferred to Lowell High School, and at Lowell we were pretty much in the same kind of group. He was in the crew team also. And I got to know him... well, let me put it this way. I visited his home quite often, where there was a Chinese cook, upstairs maid, and a chauffeur. It was very interesting how to deal with the chauffeur, who was Japanese, who was a friend of my father. Now, as a teenager, how do you greet your father's friend? "Ah, Tanaka-san, konnichi wa," right in Al's house, because that was the way I was taught to greet my father's friends. So that was the kind of schizophrenic kind of situation I grew up in. I wasn't aware of such words, "schizophrenic," but I behaved the way I was taught and there was nothing unusual about it, from my point, nor from Al's point, nor from the chauffeur's point of view.

TI: So, yeah, so let me make sure I understand this. So say you're walking by the chauffeur with Al, so Al would just, would normally just walk right by him.

MY: Yeah, that's his domestic help.

TI: But then you would just, you would stop --

MY: I would bow and say, "Tanaka-san, konnichi wa."

TI: And what would the chauffeur do in return when you...

MY: Oh, "Kunitake, dou ka," typical older man's response to a child.

TI: And your friend Al would just, he would notice that and...

MY: He wouldn't even think anything about it.

TI: So you were able to kind of balance the two, I guess, being a friend of the family, but also the son of a good friend of the chauffeur.

MY: Yes. Well, there was a strict line of demarcation regarding what to do and what not to do. For instance, Al and I went to Lowell High School in a chauffeured limousine. The chauffeured limousine was the Saddleback Crown Paper Company's owner's wife's car, who sent the car for her chauffeur to pick up Al and take him to Lowell High School. And it was also understood that he would pick me up, but the understanding was he would not come to my front door. I would have to walk two blocks up to Presidio Avenue to meet the car, so there was this line of demarcation between my family background and his family background.

TI: So just very subtle. I mean, you were being driven by a chauffeured limousine essentially, but they wouldn't pick you up at your house. You had to go to --

MY: And I was aware of this also, because my father being a domestic help, he had families, clients in and around Pacific Heights, and one of 'em was about three, four, five blocks, six blocks really, from my house and my dad asked me to clean, scrub the front steps and you just accepted it. That in itself was no problem, except the front step was half a block away from Al Saroni's house. Now how in the hell do I deal with this issue? Me scrubbing the front steps of a house half away from Al's house where I go in and all this domestic help look at me as a friend of Al? And so I dealt with it in my own way, scrubbing the front steps Saturday morning about three o'clock, when I kind of figured out Al would not be awake, and I would walk three, four, five blocks away to go scrub the front steps.

TI: So three o'clock in the morning?

MY: Yes.

TI: So, like in the middle of the night, you were scrubbing?

MY: Middle of the night I went out with a bucket and broom on my shoulder.

TI: So this is interesting, so you did that because you would be embarrassed or you were afraid that Al would be embarrassed? I mean, what made you do it at three o'clock in the morning? What were you thinking?

MY: That issue... that was not an issue. It was just a matter of, it just wouldn't be right for him to see or me to see him in the situation. And beyond that we didn't think, I didn't think too much about it. And the situation never occurred.

TI: Yeah, it'd be just awkward if, if he...

MY: It would be awkward at best.

TI: And so you took it upon yourself to just do it then to avoid the situation?

MY: Avoid the situation.

TI: Interesting. Okay. Yeah, so it's, again, really interesting how you had to kind of...

MY: Balance the two.

TI: Yeah, because you were, at school you were a peer of Al's, but then in, in this case, because of what your parents did you were, like, a different class.

MY: We were a different class of people.

TI: And so how did you, and so probably your parents very much were confronted with it in terms of the class because they worked for them, but you were kind of in this gray area because you didn't really work for them. You were helping your father. Where did you place yourself? Did you think of yourself more as a peer of Al?

MY: Well, again, that was difficult to specifically identify because my mother taught flower arrangement and tea ceremony to Caucasian families, including Japanese, so she was a teacher on one hand, and she was a domestic help on another hand. My father was known as an expert with Japanese swords, within the Japanese community as well as in the non Japanese community. In two of the major stores which carried swords, Gump's of those days and one other major department store, and to illustrate this, after Ruthie and I were married we went window shopping. We had no money at that time, and I was interested in Japanese art, so we were looking at Japanese art and, naturally, a salesman came and said, "Can I help you?" I said, "No, we're just looking." Said, "What are you looking for?" "Well, we would like to see Japanese sword, but you don't, I don't see any. I know you have some." And we just kind of dropped it with that. He said, "Oh, we have a consultant on Japanese swords. By the way, do you know a Mr. Yamanaka?" "Oh, he's my father." [Laughs] So it was, again, a lot of gray area mixed together.

TI: Interesting. Yeah, because your mother was a sensei and yet, yeah, so there's that whole range. Interesting.

MY: And so once that happened he opened the whole store for me, looking at the expensive swords in the back.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.