<Begin Segment 8>

TI: Well, something that came up that I wanted to follow up as I was listening to you is just your sense of identity as a Japanese American woman at this point. I mean, you had heard yourself, you talked about hearing yourself for the first time really, recorded, and you corrected that, but what was your sense of just being a Japanese American woman in high school?

NA: Ambiguous. It was not like, I don't think I was so conscious about being a Japanese American woman. I knew that when I got nominated for, like what they would call GSS, Girls Service Society -- it was the hat people. They had the Eagles for the guys and the GSS for the girls and it's kind of like an honor society. You have to be more than just grades; you have to be service to the school and all that.

TI: Or what, maybe this is a question, what stereotypes were there or were being formed about an Asian American woman or Japanese American woman? This is like mid '50s, early '50s.

NA: Early '50s.

TI: Early '50s. What, again, kind of like expectations as an Asian American woman or Japanese American woman? What were those?

NA: Well, what were they? [Laughs] You threw me a curve because I haven't thought about this.

TI: Yeah, just thinking back to those times, I mean, was the expectation they're quiet?

NA: Definitely.

TI: Were they more docile, or... that's, I'm just trying to get a sense of the environment that you grew up, 'cause later on we talked about the things you did. It's just getting a sense of your environment.

NA: Well, what's interesting is my environment is also among young women who participate in basketball, right, and that wasn't necessarily common in the white community, even though our basketball team played against women Marines and we played against the Filipino girls. I don't know if we ever played against a Chinese team, but I remember the Filipino club. We played against them. And we played against the Marines, but otherwise we were playing against JA basketball clubs, and then there was times where we ended up having to fill in because nobody would do it. Our club was crazy enough to say, okay, you all need for the Nisei rally -- they would relay, Nisei relays in, these were track meets that would happen. Southern California would come up to run with, against the Nisei guys in northern California, and there was some kind of team coming up from Fresno, a girls team, but there was no girls running at the host committee so they said, okay, come on, you guys, we got to be there. We're not track stars, but we had to go and practice and do high jumps and broad jumps and shot putting and relay and all that, which we had to fill in because we got to be the good host team, right, or host committee, and then throw a dance later on for everybody. So we were full of that kind of activity, but nobody, not any of our parents said no, don't do that 'cause it's not ladylike. And it's really in college, this is not during my college years but it's after, later on in my later, after I was married in later life, that I went back to take up some courses in communications 'cause that's what I really got interested in, and realized that other communities, the roles for women were much more stifling than for me. I never felt that I was held back.

TI: Okay, good.

NA: I mean, but I didn't think of it in a conscious way of being because I was a Japanese American or I was a woman. I don't think that ever passed in my head.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.