<Begin Segment 7>

MN: Now, as a teenager, were you in a Japanese gang?

MS: No, but I, if you're referring to... I was visiting my father's store all the time, so I would be, so the local groups, Olivers and the Exclusive 20s, were in Japanese town a little, so we'd get, they'd look for guys like loners or something, so we got in all kinds of fights. But my father didn't encourage us fighting, but he says you got to be able to care of yourself, so we got into quite a few number of fights with the local, but I never really got beat up or anything. But we used to, we learned how to defend ourselves, so after a while, when I started going to college they didn't, they never bothered us, but I remember going to the self defense class, boxing, at college and we got to be pretty good boxers. Then they left us alone. But I used to like to box with the guys bigger than me, but I got knocked out once by a bigger guy, but other than that it didn't, it didn't bother us that bad.

MN: So you mentioned the Olivers and the Exclusive 20s.

MS: Yeah.

MN: They're downtown boys. You're a Boyle Heights boy.

MS: Yeah.

MN: Is that why they went after you when you went --

MS: Yeah, Cedric was a Cougar, and Paul Bannai, Paul Nagano were Golden Bears. I was a Golden Bear, but the Cougars was a tough group, too, so they're the ones that fought with us, the Exclusive 20s and the San Pedro, Terminal Island.

MN: The Cougars made it into the Rafu Shimpo, I think, one time.

MS: What?

MN: The Cougars made it into the Rafu Shimpo one time, because they had a huge fight.

MS: I don't know if it was Cedric, there was, on Fresno Street in between First and Fourth, where the, most of the guys were living, Cedric was living near there too, but they were good athletes also. In fact, the Roosevelt High School lightweight football team, mostly Niseis, class B, but most of those guys were from the Cougars. And so about the fights that they had then, not really that bad, but not like they are now where they have firearms and things like that, but no, nothing like that. We'd get a black eye or something, but that's about it. [Laughs]

MN: Did you get picked on because your family seemed like they were more well to do also?

MS: What?

MN: Did you get picked on because some people might think your family was more well to do?

MS: I don't know whether they were well to do, but because my father had a business in Little Tokyo and we were able to live a little differently than, I guess, it caught our eye, little jealousies when we're that young, but to me it wasn't that bad. From, if we got into fights, there's [inaudible] all of that game, but nobody really got hurt.

MN: Now, you went into Little Tokyo quite a lot, and before the war Little Tokyo had lots of Chinese restaurants.

MS: Yeah, Sanko Low, Niko Low, Lem, yeah.

MN: Lentolo.

MS: And so whenever we had a celebration for dinner my father used to take us to either Niko Low or Sanko Low, and later on Lem, but I enjoyed the Chinese food, yeah. Learned how to eat chow mein and water chestnuts.

MN: What were some of the favorite China meshi?

MS: What?

MN: What were some of the favorite China meshi dishes? Favorite?

MS: Dishes?

MN: Uh-huh.

MS: Yeah, chow mein, for instance. There was a Chinese restaurant across the street from our high school, Roosevelt High School on Fourth Street, and when we forgot to take our lunch then we'd go to the Chinese restaurant and order the chow mein for thirty cents. That was a good meal.

MN: When you graduated from Roosevelt High School, was it understood that you would go to college? Did your parents expect you to go to college?

MS: Yeah. Well, we were supposed to go to L.A., Los Angeles City College, but then they said, "With your grades in high school," says, "you're qualified to go to UCLA," but, that's a little bit more expensive, but so I told my parents that I was qualified and he says, well, go, enroll. So out of the Japanese I graduated, my class, only, I was the only boy that went to UCLA, but several girls went. But most of the, my classmates, Niseis, went to L.A. City College. But I was not a scholar, by any means, only A I got was in golf. [Laughs]

MN: And you took boxing also at UCLA?

MS: What?

MN: You took at boxing at UCLA, right? Boxing?

MS: Yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.