<Begin Segment 6>

MN: Now, you returned back to Redlands and then you're in Lincoln Grammar School. In sixth grade you had this male teacher, Mr. Silvaria. How did he influence your life?

RW: Well, he was always a real fair teacher. I mean, he treated everyone equal. He was in charge of the sports and stuff. And when World War II started and when Pearl Harbor happened on Sunday, when I went to school on Monday, I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I just learned the night before what a terrible thing it is and I'm a part of it, so when I went to school the next morning, the first thing he did was he announced to the class that the country was at war with Japan and he said, "I want you all to understand that Bobby is an American. He had nothing to do with the war, so you have to treat him as such, treat him as an American." And so I never had any question about it. 'Course, it was eighty, ninety percent Mexican kids and they could care less what I was, and then the hakujin people, they were all good friends. I was separated from Bob Madrid after kindergarten because Madrid went to low first and I was put in the high first so I was a year ahead of him. So I met these other boys, two of 'em, and before Pearl Harbor we were very good friends. I used to walk home with the one boy and stop at his house, his mother would give us a piece of cake. And this other friend, Floyd Johnson, was a good friend, but when I got to high school, when I came back from camp this one guy, Floyd, wouldn't talk to me. He didn't talk to me once in three years of high school. The other boy in high school we talked off and on, but, ironically, I understand he's a reverend now, back East. But, so he might be changed now since high school, but we did talk, but this other boy didn't talk to me once the whole three years. Yet in grammar school we were fairly close knit.

MN: How did that make you feel, your friendship like that breaking off in high school after you returned?

RW: I guess I just, I just accepted it and just felt, well, okay, in my opinion, if that's the way he is, okay. So be it. I've got my other friends. I've got Madrid, I've got other people that were there treating me good. I played varsity basketball for Redlands H.S., so I met and got to know most of the Caucasian kids in high school and I didn't have any problem with them, and in fact, some of my best friends are still, even today are Caucasian, except many of them have passed away. I have one that's still a real good friend today. I remember the first year I was there I was sitting having lunch, because I didn't know most of the Caucasian kids yet, but I knew the Mexican kids from Lincoln, so we were sitting there having lunch and this redheaded guy we used to call Red, came up to me -- he had a lot of nerve to do it too -- he came up to me right there while we were having lunch. I was sittin' with all my friends and he came up to me and says, "Hey, Wada, come on. Wada, let's tangle." He wanted to fight. So I stood up and I says, "What's up, Red? Hey, man, I didn't do anything to you. What the hell you want to tangle for?" Then about that time this guy named Nicholas Vasquez got up, big guy, walked over and said, "Hey, Red, do you want to tangle with Bobby? You have to tangle with all of us first." That was the last of that, so I'd say that's the only problem I had there, but that was in my early, first sophomore year when I just came back.

MN: Came back from camp.

RW: From camp, yeah.

MN: And then you mentioned basketball. On the basketball team, didn't Bob Madrid keep asking you to join the, was it basketball team or the football team?

RW: Baseball. No, it was baseball and he was a real good baseball player.

MN: Oh, baseball team.

RW: In fact, I understand from his brother that the Dodgers, when they were still back East, had even had a scout come by and look at him. He and my brother nicknamed him Bat for a baseball bat because he was also a good hitter too, but he was a good, real good player. But it all goes back to my sophomore year when they were having tryouts for basketball, so I went out for basketball because I played a little in camp and I thought, well, I should be able to hold my own. And so when we were working out for tryouts, after the first day the coach put up a sign called the cut list. I look at it and there's my name, the first day before we even really got to do anything. So I just knew that, "Hey, you are Japanese, man. I don't want you on my team." So I didn't play that year. Then the junior year they changed basketball coaches to Bob Chambers, who became kind of a good friend too, and so he was the new coach so I made the varsity team my junior year, even though I didn't play on the sophomore team. But this coach who was the sophomore basketball coach that cut me, was also the varsity baseball coach. And Madrid was playing on the varsity, but he kept telling me to come out, come out, they need a third baseman. They don't have a good third baseman and that's what I usually played, and he knew 'cause we played elsewhere. We played on the Redlands American Legion baseball team. In fact, that picture of the team is in my book. And so he kept telling me to come out, but I never told him why I didn't want to go out, because Simpson, this guy was the coach and I saw no point in going out and saying, "Hey, can I try out for baseball?" Why be subjected to a rejection? So I never did go, I never told Madrid, or Bat, why I never wanted to go out. So I just played basketball and ran hurdles on the track team.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.