<Begin Segment 17>

SF: How would you describe the relationship between the Japanese community and the Chinese community in the, those days?

YM: We didn't intermingle too much, huh?

CK: No.

TS: There was actually a little -- there wasn't friction, but there was not --

CK: Love for -- [Laughs]

TS: Love for each other. I remember going to the Kenjinkai, and the Japanese Isseis get drunk, some of 'em. And they'd stand up and say bad things like, "Chin chin chinaman," and --

YM: [Laughs] That shouldn't go on the video.

TS: Yeah.

CK: I was telling Steve, about what happened when the war started that the Chinese community really turned against Japanese Americans, not only in their schools but their businesses and their association with the Japanese.

YM: "I Am Chinese".

CK: Yeah.

YM: Buttons.

SF: So those were pretty common in --

CK: Oh, yeah. Everybody wore them --

TS: They wore 'em in school, too, didn't they?

CK: Yeah.

TS: Yeah.

YM: Well, [inaudible]...

CK: And I was telling Steve that after we came back, they acted as if nothing happened.

TS: Oh. [Laughs]

CK: And I think that's true for everybody that was a Nisei before the war, and then came back, that they wanted to be buddy-buddies again. But, gee, here we were going to school with them and playing with them. And all of a sudden, they just turned on us. And that was a real bad situation, in my estimation.

TS: But things changed, huh?

CK: Huh? Oh, yeah.

TS: Yeah.

CK: But it's --

TS: Nice relationship now.

CK: Yeah.

YM: Willie...

TS: Huh?

YM: Willie Chin is the only Chinese boy -- well, I never knew too many Chinese --

TS: Yeah.

YM: But I start, after the war, I talked to him. He says, "I was the most saddest boy after you guys all went to..."

TS: Well, I'm sure. Willie was number one.

YM: He was --

CK: Yeah.

YM: His friends were mostly Japanese friends.

TS: Yeah.

YM: And so he says, "I was the most saddest boy when you guys all went to camp," he says. So he's the only one that mentioned stuff like that.

TS: Yeah, Willie was real nice.

YM: (Yes).

CK: Yeah.

TS: Billie Eng? You don't remember. Yeah.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.