<Begin Segment 16>

SY: So these groups, then, when you first joined one at Roosevelt, the Squires, was that real common then? I mean, were there all the young kids?

GN: Oh yeah, everybody belonged to a club in those days. In fact, I found the 1953 annual Rafu Shimpo paper and they have a directory of clubs from that period, and you can bet that if you lived in the L.A. metropolitan area you belonged to a club. That was the thing. And the interesting thing about the, they had an article in there, they said that it's gonna probably diminish as years go by and less and less people are gonna be in a club. Sure enough, that's what happened.

SY: And, like how did you originally get in? You just, a bunch of guys get together, they, or do you get invited in, or do you just decide which club you want to join?

GN: Well I, the one at Roosevelt, I think we started that in junior high school. We wanted to form a club, and so that's how that evolved. The one at Poly, they were already there. The club already existed. And so, depending on who you become friends with, that's the club you join.

SY: Sort of your, whoever your peers are.

GN: Your peers, yeah.

SY: And the Constituents were, I mean, they were pretty, would you consider them a more well known club?

GN: I would say they were more aggressive, so we used to get into fights with some other clubs that tend to be aggressive.

SY: And these were in different schools, in different neighborhoods?

GN: They would be different schools, 'cause we used to get into fights with some of the Black Juans, which were based in Belmont, and ours was based in L.A. Poly.

SY: L.A. Poly, so if you were in a club mostly all the kids were in one club? I mean if you were in a school, most of those kids were in one club?

GN: Yeah.

SY: So it's sort of linked to your school.

GN: Right.

SY: I see. So when you say aggressive, kind of describe what kinds of things you did. What did, like what kinds of things did the club do?

GN: In our case, we used to go fishing, go to a lot of dances because typically different clubs will host the dance at one of the playgrounds and some of the places they would have, at least in the Boyle Heights area, would be like International Institute, dances would be held over there.

SY: That's in Boyle Heights.

GN: Yeah, in Boyle Heights area. But in the Seinan area it would be like Normandie Playground or Ardmore Playground where you would have dances taking place.

SY: So girls would come to...

GN: Yes. And sometimes girls will host the dance.

SY: And girls had their own clubs.

GN: Right. And even the girls, the JA girls all belonged to a club.

SY: And then you would, they would invite all different, these clubs to one dance?

GN: Maybe they won't invite certain ones 'cause they don't want a fight to occur, but they will probably show up anyway.

SY: So then these fights, did they mostly occur at these social, like these dances?

GN: At the dances, yeah.

SY: And what prompted them usually, since you were all kind of Asian but got along? Or was it, was it racially motivated, these little fights?

GN: No, no. More territorial, I would think.

SY: And was it, like an individual had a conflict and then suddenly it spread?

GN: Yeah, individual had, yeah, and then they, it would spread.

SY: Did you, did you have weapons?

GN: In our case we didn't, but there were, have been incidents where someone unknowingly had some kind of weapon.

SY: And kids, did they get hurt, badly hurt in fights like that, or were they mostly fistfights?

GN: Mostly fistfights.

SY: And how, I mean, this, when you say everybody was in one, so it was really, really quite common.

GN: Yeah, and some people would be, belong to a club that's not as aggressive.

SY: Now, how would you compare those, so they were called clubs, but sort of like gangs?

GN: Of that period, which is different than the gangs today.

SY: And explain that a little bit. I mean, do you know?

GN: I would say some of the differences are the values, and it's more about camaraderie during our period. And I would say we were probably more middle class in a sense, in that from the club you had people going to college. I don't think you have that when you talk about gangs today. We had, two of our members went to UCLA from high school. Others went to junior college. So those are the, some of the basic differences.

SY: And they, you were really --

GN: But the reason for the club was our generation, because we were denied personal identity, you found comfort as a group to belong to a club, and I think that's why you had these clubs in those days. It's a, it was group identity.

SY: And would you say that it was Japanese American, like, initiated? Like you had all different ethnic groups part, that were part of the clubs, but were there mostly Japanese Americans who kind of gathered together first?

GN: Probably more Japanese Americans than other groups.

SY: Than other races.

GN: The fact that we were the generation that came out of camp, I think, had a lot to do with it too.

SY: And was it a certain kind of person that would join the club?

GN: No. I don't think if you were out in the suburbs, but if you were in the metropolitan area living in, in the L.A. city area, I think you, everybody belonged to a club. And what is interesting is, I was reading some articles about the older group from San Francisco, they all belonged to a club. I mean, geographically you're so far apart you never have any interaction with each other, and yet they had clubs in San Francisco among the JAs.

SY: That's interesting how it formed.

GN: Yeah.

SY: So there must have been, but you didn't really talk about your experiences in camp, did you, when you were hanging out together?

GN: We, not hanging out together, but the situation, you'd talk about... and I think you're certainly well aware of racism.

SY: Interesting. And yet there were other people of many other races that were part, and so you all, was it, but you, did you consider it minority, that there was a minority faction? In other words, the blacks that were in your group felt some sort of racist component?

GN: Sure. Yeah. And they found comfort in, with our group.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.