<Begin Segment 1>

SY: Okay, I'm talking to George Nakano. This is an interview for Densho. Today is July 20, 2011, and we're at the Japanese American Community, Culture and Community Center in Los Angeles. My name is Sharon Yamato, and our cameraperson is Tani Ikeda. So, George, first of all I'd love to start with talking a little bit about your family background. Maybe we can just start with your parents. Can you give me their full names, where they were from, and a little bit of history on them?

GN: My father's full name is Shigeto Nakano. My mom is Sumiye Nakano; her maiden name is Asada. And they were both actually born in Hawaii. My dad was born at Papaikou, Hawaii, which is about fifteen miles from Hilo, and my mother was born in Waimanalo, Oahu. And their parents are from Hiroshima, and in both cases, when my father was about six years old and my mom was very young, their parents went back to Hiroshima and so they grew up in Hiroshima. My dad came back to Hawaii, I think, when he was about sixteen years old. At that time the mandatory education in Japan was through the ninth grade, and so I think when he completed the ninth grade he went to Hawaii, and then I think he also came out to the mainland to work 'cause I know that he had mentioned to me about working on a farm in Palos Verdes back in the early '30s or late '20s, I guess.

SY: So you think he came by himself back?

GN: It appears like he did.

SY: And he came from a fairly, what size family?

GN: A large family. I think there were eight in her family. My mom had a big family too; I think there were eleven in her family.

SY: Amazing. So now why did, so they're, they eventually, when he went back to Japan --

GN: It was an arranged marriage.

SY: So it was after he came here, went to Palos Verdes.

GN: And I think in northern California as well, I think he worked on some orchards up there.

SY: Uh-huh, and then went back to Japan on his own?

GN: Yes.

SY: I assume by choice, he decided he wanted to go back?

GN: And I don't know the reason for him to go back, but that is when he got married. It was an arranged marriage in Japan.

SY: And they, did they know each other at all?

GN: I don't think so, although they're both from Hiroshima.

SY: So their parents might have known family members or something.

GN: Yeah, could be.

SY: Something like that.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

SY: Tell us a little bit about your grandparents.

GN: Well, my grandfather was the one, of course, that went to Hawaii in the late 1800s, and I believe that he had stayed there for a year or two and then would return to Hiroshima and then go back again. How many times he did that I don't know, but given that my father was born in 1906, Father was in Hawaii... he also got involved in negotiating with the plantation owner to build the Buddhist temple in Papaikou. And physically that Buddhist church is not at the exact same location but in the same area, the church that you see today in Papaikou. The origin was back in, what, 1907, thereabout, is, I guess, when they start raising money for it.

SY: So he was rather prominent in, both in Japan and in Hawaii? Or you think he came to Hawaii to make his fortune?

GN: I think like most Japanese who went to Hawaii at that time, they went there to save money. I don't think the economic condition in Japan was very good at that time, and it was for that reason that many people decided to leave Japan to make money.

SY: And he eventually went back, and did he become successful in Japan with the money he made here?

GN: I think he, I don't, I won't say he's successful, but I think they were able to survive. And they had a farm in Japan.

SY: So your family really were farmers by, they go back a long time as farmers.

GN: They became farmers when Meiji era began. Prior to that they were samurai.

SY: Wow, so that goes back. So tell us a little bit about how you found out about your ancestors, your family in Japan.

GN: I heard, first I heard it from my father. He talked about it, and he also talked about what our name was prior to Meiji, in 1869, I think it was, and the family name was Kusenji at that time. And he also mentioned to me that we had two generations of Buddhist monks, and at that time the last name was Botenji, and then prior to that it was Kusenji.

SY: And how do those name changes occur? Do you know why that happens or how it happens?

GN: Well, when the feudal system ended in 1869, there were people who changed their name from the samurai name that they had to another name, and how they picked that another name I think depended on the person. And my ancestors, in their case, they had a small castle, they had a place called Nakanomura, and they took the first part of that name and took on the name Nakano.

SY: Wow. So, and you don't ever refer back to your old family name, do you?

GN: No, I use that for my email address. [Laughs]

SY: [Laughs] That's good. Now people will know your email address. So, now tell, let's talk a little bit about your mother's family. Do you know very much about them?

GN: Not as much as my father's side. There's, I think they were farmers too, as of 1869.

SY: And going, I mean, how did you, I'm curious about that, finding out more about your family history on your father's side. Can you...

GN: Initially it was through conversations with my father, and then subsequent to that what happened was the, all the family members decided to give up their share of that land to the youngest son since he's the one that's been taking care of the grandfather.

SY: And this is your grandfather's property?

GN: Yes. And so once he took over the land, there was a developer in Hiroshima that proposed to him to develop at least one side of that farmland because it was adjacent to a major corridor, and to build shops and then condominium and apartments on the second floor. And so he agreed to do that and became very, fairly wealthy as a result, and so he decided to use that money to find out about the family background. And so I think he had hired some linguist that could read the old Japanese kanji, and they backtracked from temple to temple to get, gain access to the family record and eventually they were able to put together a scroll that's written in the old Japanese kanji that, I guess it goes back to 1221, as far as the written record that they have, but there is some reference in there that goes back to 800 AD.

SY: Wow. Amazing. And how were you able to...

GN: Well, and so here we have is this scroll that no one can really translate it because unless you are a linguist that has a specialty in, where you're able to read the old Japanese kanji, you can't translate it. And so what happened was finally I saw the advertisement in Rafu Shimpo about finding out about your family record, and so I decided that I'll give Rafu Shimpo a call, and the person I talked to I indicated that I already have the record but it's written in the old Japanese kanji and we need to get somebody to translate that into modern Japanese. And so I said, "I'm willing to pay to have that done," and so she said that if they get the written scroll they could email that to Japan and they have a special linguist that could translate that. So that's what was done, and so they translated it into modern Japanese and then the staff at Rafu Shimpo, I guess a group of them did the translation into English.

SY: Wow. And are you the person who then read the whole thing and...

GN: Yes, and then they even provided me with a DVD, the translation from the old Japanese to the modern Japanese and then also into English. So I passed, made copies of those DVDs, or the CD, rather, and gave it to my two brothers and my sister.

SY: So it traces it back to the samurai period. Anything very fascinating about that whole period from then to --

GN: Well, it goes back, one of the things that caught my eyes was that in 1800 one of my ancestors became a retainer for the Asano clan. Asano is the family that was involved with, you know the Forty-seven Samurai, and I know that Asano had to seppuku in 1700, but this took place in 1800 where one of my ancestors went to work as a retainer for the Asano clan. So I thought the Asano clan has totally, was disbanded --

SY: By that point.

GN: -- and so I thought, that didn't make sense to me. Well, when I got on the internet, turns out that the younger brother, because they were, the public sentiment was so strong and supported the Asano, that the shogun allowed the younger brother to maintain the family name and he was able to have a small castle.

SY: I see. And he --

GN: So that kind of stood out.

SY: Yeah. I, you'll have to explain to me the Asano clan, though, what, it was a, just one clan in this, in, I mean, it was obviously a very big one, right?

GN: Yes, yes.

SY: And a retainer is someone who sort of...

GN: A retainer would be a samurai that would be employed by that particular clan.

SY: I see, so works basically for this, this son of the Asano clan. Wow, that's amazing.

GN: It was a younger brother.

SY: Oh, the younger brother. I'm sorry, wasn't the son. Okay. So that stood out. Are there any other things that kind of were, piqued your interest?

GN: We also had an ancestor that went to Korea during the Toyotomi Hideyoshi period, and he lost his life in Korea so there isn't a continuation of that lineage, but there were other siblings that kept the family name.

SY: Wow. That's amazing.

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<Begin Segment 3>

SY: So then when your grandfather came here, I'm just curious what... I guess he was considered a community leader here, then?

GN: I think he was. And I also happened to meet someone in Gardena -- they're living in Coos Bay, Oregon, now -- they, his name is George Tanaka. Well, his wife, Betsy, her grandfather was also involved in the creation of the Buddhist temple in Papaikou, and turns out that there is a photograph that was taken in Hawaii and her grandfather's in that photograph and so is my grandfather.

SY: That's great. Wow. That's very nice, 'cause the church, in essence, is still there, not in actuality.

GN: Yeah.

SY: So I guess the next question, unless there's some, is there anything else interesting about your family that we should talk about? I was gonna...

GN: Well, it's interesting because I know, my wife, Helen, mentioned about her father's family, there was a period where the oldest son, I don't know what generation, but gambled and had to relinquish a lot of the family heirlooms to pay for the debt that he created. Well, a similar thing happened in our family, not my grandfather but I think it might've been the grandfather's father or maybe, I'm not quite sure the generation, but ended up doing the same thing, gambled and had to sell the family heirlooms. So when I went to Japan in 1966 there was only one sword that was left that, and it wasn't in very good condition, that the family had, but the rest were all sold to pay for the gambling debt. But it seemed like there's always one like that in every family.

SY: [Laughs] So it is really kind of fortunate that your grandfather had this property that became so valuable.

GN: Yes.

SY: And your, and your uncle is still alive?

GN: No, he passed away about two years ago.

SY: So he really profited from it and led a very wealthy life, then, in Japan afterwards?

GN: Yes, mostly land was developed on that one side.

SY: Wow, that's great. That's good he had an interest in your family background.

GN: Well the other thing that's interesting is my father's younger sister married a career military officer in Japan, and he happened to come to the United States in 1964. And I could speak a little Japanese, so I was able to talk to him, but he mentioned to me that he became a commander of a POW camp in the Philippines toward the end of the war and the one thing that my grandfather had told him was that not to abuse POWs, and that the culture is different. The values that you have in Japan, you don't ever surrender. If you surrender you have lost your soul, and so they don't treat you as a human being anymore. But apparently my grandfather told him that's not so in the Western nation and so not to abuse POWs, and that's, I think he, that stuck with him. And so he was telling me that while he was in charge of the prison camp, he had ordered his subordinate not to mistreat POWs, and that the highest ranking officer was a U.S. Army colonel and he would invite him to eat with him at the same time whenever he had breakfast, lunch and dinner, and whenever he had cigarettes he would offer cigarettes to him, and they would eat the same food. And when the war was over he feels that he was the only one that was in charge of a prison camp that went straight back to his home in Hiroshima, whereas others were ordered to go to Sugamo prison near Tokyo.

SY: Wow. That's a terrific story. Yeah, so your family had, in essence there were people on both sides of the war during World War II.

GN: Yes.

SY: That really is amazing. Okay, so I guess we should --

GN: I have an uncle on my mom's side that was in the E Company in the 442nd, and Bob Ishikawa, who just passed away recently, they were in the same unit, along with Senator Inouye. He was part of the E Company in the 442nd.

SY: Wow. Amazing to have family on both sides like that.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

SY: So I guess we should get around to when and where you were born.

GN: Well, I was born in East Los Angeles, in Boyle Heights, on November 24, 1935. I think the street was Gleeson. I was delivered by a midwife. And one of the things that're interesting is, of course, George Yoshinada had a column where he mentioned that there were so many Japanese Americans who were delivered by this Katow, the last name, spelled K-A-T-O-W, that delivered many of the Japanese Americans back in the '20s and the '30s. And what was interesting is that I was in the Boy Scout Troop 379 for a year, and they had an anniversary, seventy-fifth anniversary, that took place, and the descendant of Katow was there and somehow he knew that I was delivered by, I guess his mother or might've been grandmother, I'm not sure. And so he gave me a copy of the certificate that she had to become a midwife, so that was kind of an interesting...

SY: Yeah, everything comes around. Now, when you were born your parents had lived here how long, in Los Angeles?

GN: Okay, they were, I think, married in 1932, and they initially went to work at a place called Reeder's Ranch in Marysville, and I was born in '35.

SY: And they came here, obviously, to work as farmers here as well as...

GN: I know my father eventually drove a truck, picking up produce from the San Diego area and delivering to the produce area in L.A., so there's a photograph of him by the truck that we had.

SY: And then how did they manage to come to Boyle Heights? Do you know?

GN: That I don't know.

SY: So they were there just a short time in Marysville, and you were born in Boyle Heights.

GN: Yes.

SY: So you started off, your schooling and everything was in Boyle Heights. This is all prewar.

GN: Yes, and then about a year before the war started they moved to the uptown area, which is closer to Koreatown today, and I attended a Hobart, it's written, the form that I see, it's written Hobart Boulevard School. I think they call it Hobart Avenue right now, but I'm not sure.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

SY: So can you go back and give us some of your earliest memories as a young boy?

GN: Well, I don't remember, but my mom always used to say I used to raise a big ruckus on the church bus, the Nishi Hongwanji bus that used to pick me up to go to Sunday school at Nishi Hongwanji in Little Tokyo, and so the bus driver had to talk to my mother from time to time about my bad behavior on the bus. But I don't remember those things. But I do remember going to Santa Anita, and what I remember was we gathered at this large parking lot and there were buses and motorcycle police there, and then we went as a convoy to Santa Anita, and I remember that particular event probably because it was so unusual that it just stuck with me.

SY: Right.

GN: 'Cause I can't, I don't remember going to school. But anyway, and I don't know where this parking lot was, but the uptown group of people had a reunion, and it was advertised in the Rafu, so I attended that, and they had this copy of this form that was passed out for evacuation and it showed the people who resided within a certain boundary had to report to this particular address. Well, that address is St. Mary's Episcopal Church. And they don't even need the address; if they just named the church people would've probably known, knew where to go, but the federal government probably didn't want to put a church name on there for people to gather to get incarcerated.

SY: Right, right. So that's interesting, so you have that flash memory of being on, gathering up and going on this bus. Do you have any, your family originally went to an assembly center?

GN: Santa Anita.

SY: And do you have any memories of that?

GN: I remember having a different color badge, depending on what time you're, you get to go to the mess hall to eat. That I remember. I remember the last few days before we left camp that there were a lot of empty barracks. Well, one of the things that, we got to live in a barrack instead of the horse stalls that people who went there earlier had to live. But I remember my sister and I were climbing on top of the cots that were leaning against the wall inside of the barracks, and in her case, she fell backward and hit her head and had a concussion, and so they had to send her to the hospital in, what's the name of the hospital near, in Boyle Heights?

SY: The Japanese --

GN: It was a general hospital there. That's where she ended up, and so we weren't able to go to the camp right away. I guess she was in the hospital for about a week and finally, by train, we went to Jerome, Arkansas.

SY: So you were among the last families to leave.

GN: Yes.

SY: And do you remember going on the train at all?

GN: Oh yeah, we do.

SY: And you, were there others on the train with you, or was it pretty much cleared out by then?

GN: We were pretty much, it was pretty much alone. We, I remember the MP would be walking back and forth, at least in our cab. That was, I guess, part of their duty, to watch us.

SY: Wow. And so how, so this is all from memory, then, this whole, your sister getting hurt and then the not being in the horse stalls.

GN: Yes.

SY: Did you, did you at the time realize that you weren't being put in horse stalls, or was that sort of later?

GN: I, that was sort of later when people would talk about it in Tule Lake, because there were friends that ended up in the horse stall and they would talk about living in there.

SY: And you were, by this time you were age seven.

GN: Yes.

SY: So yeah, that's pretty good memory. But before I forget, though, you are the oldest of...

GN: Of four in the family.

SY: Four, and so can you sort of give us a little bit of description? I guess you and your sister were the, were the people that went to camp at first.

GN: Correct. And then my brother Tosh was born in Tule Lake, and then my brother Roy was born after camp.

SY: Okay, and your sister's name was?

GN: Shigeko.

SY: Shigeko. So you were how many years apart with your sister?

GN: She was born in 1938, so three years.

SY: Three years. So you were definitely the one, the oldest. Did you feel that sort of strain in life of being the eldest child?

GN: I did, yes.

SY: So you had more responsibility over...

GN: Well, not only that, but when I got into confrontation I had to defend myself. I couldn't go to somebody older, and I always wish I had an older brother or older cousin or somebody that I could go to, but that was not the case.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

SY: Okay, so you're, we've gotten as far as Jerome now. You're, you've gotten on a train, now you're in Jerome, and any memories of that particular camp?

GN: Sure. Some sad things. One that I really remember is there was this young couple who had a baby girl, I guess, that was able to walk, had -- and because you had a community bath, apparently they had a, one of those bathtubs made out of metal that they put hot water, you would make hot water on top of the stove and they had filled it up with hot water, but it was, I guess it wasn't cool enough for anyone to go in, and the child stepped in there and she passed away. But it was, and I went to that funeral, but it was a real sad sight that I was seeing, where the father was in tears that, he felt that he was partly responsible for what had occurred because they had allowed the child to go in the tub there when they weren't watching.

SY: Wow. Now you, when you were at Jerome, then, did you start school right away? Or do you remember being in school, or was that --

GN: I sort of remember being in school. I also remember having my tonsils taken out.

SY: So you were in the hospital.

GN: In the hospital. And let's see, what else? I remember going into the forest with my father one time. Jerome was fairly open, even though they had guard towers. They had people cutting down trees for lumber, and I think my father was doing that, I remember. And he still has a book, I guess he was working as a foreman, so he had a number of people that were working for him at that time.

SY: Wow. And your mother was taking care of the two kids?

GN: Kids, yeah.

SY: So, and do you, how, do these memories come just in little pieces?

GN: It's in little pieces.

SY: And you get things refreshed when you hear stories from other people?

GN: Right.

SY: I see. And have you been back to Jerome at all?

GN: Twice. The first time was, I think it was '91 or '92, and I had joined the Jerome Reunion Committee, and Buddy Kasai and myself co-chaired the fundraising to build a monument at Jerome, and so we raised, I think, about eight thousand dollars at that time. And then some other folks had raised some money and they were able to put up a monument in Jerome. And so that is the only thing that's left in Jerome, although there was a chimney, hospital chimney that was still around. I don't think that's there anymore, but so the monument is the only one. And then, gee, I can't remember his last name, but Caucasian farmer that owns that land now, and he dedicated a portion of his land that's near the main highway for the people to put the monument there and so he was very gracious about that.

SY: And when you went back to Jerome, do you remember any of it when you went back?

GN: This was the thing that struck me, is there were a number of us who flew on a plane to get there, and of course there's a few people who had cars, and the mayor of the city of McGehee -- I think her name is Rosalie Gould, who is the mayor of that city -- had arranged it so that the, their highway patrol would allow the two buses and some of the cars to go through red lights like a convoy. That reminded me of going to Santa Anita, and so I made comments about that, that here, now, so many years later we're doing it for a different reason, but the incident kind of reminded me of going to Santa Anita.

SY: 'Cause you had that memory of that experience.

GN: Yes.

SY: And did, do you remember certain landmarks or anything in Jerome, or was it all just very vague?

GN: It, there's no, one of the things that when you go to Jerome, you won't see any trees around. I remember trees surrounding the camp. Even the photograph that I have of Jerome, you'll see trees in the background, but they made it all into farmland. Looks like all the trees are gone.

SY: And so how long totally were you in Jerome?

GN: One year.

SY: Just one year.

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

<Begin Segment 7>

SY: So, yeah, so as a child your experience was then you were being moved again. Is that what, how did that feel? What was that experience like?

GN: That train trip I don't really remember. I do remember going from Santa Anita to Jerome.

SY: And so, and what was the, you don't know what prompted it? You don't know?

GN: No, those things...

SY: Yeah, you were so young. And so where did you end up? Do you remember?

GN: We went to Tule Lake.

SY: Tule Lake. And then do you remember your impressions of Tule Lake when you got there?

GN: Well, I remember my parents saying that the food is not as good, there's black market going on between the administration and maybe some of the internees. And I shouldn't use the word internees because you don't want to call it internment.

SY: The other prisoners.

GN: You can call it inmates or...

SY: Right. But did, so did you feel that when you got there, that it was different?

GN: It was different, and then the camp was guarded. In fact, you could see the rifle pointing inward from the guard tower, and you had a fence and you couldn't go out, unlike Jerome.

SY: Right, and you --

GN: This was a different kind of camp.

SY: It was a different kind of camp. So talk about your experience as a young boy at Tule Lake.

GN: Well, we, we would play football a lot with the other kids.

SY: I didn't know that. So the kids really had --

GN: And we all spoke English, in spite of the fact that my parents put me into Japanese school.

SY: So you were strictly in Japanese school, no English school at all?

GN: Yes. No English school at all in Tule Lake, and so I did get behind by a couple of years, but not in math, but at least social studies and English.

SY: Right.

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

<Begin Segment 8>

SY: And your father, was he a member of the Hoshidan?

GN: He was.

SY: And can you talk a little bit about what that was?

GN: He, what I remember is he kind of avoided going to a lot of those meetings, and so when my brother was born, Toshi was born --

SY: He was born at Tule?

GN: Yeah. That was an excuse for him to not attend the meetings, and I noticed that in one of the documents that I got from the National Archives, he had sent a letter to the WRA that he's dropping out of the Hoshidan, and so they acknowledged that in the letter.

SY: Can you sort of just describe -- I'm sure this in retrospect, but what the Hoshidan, or even at the time, what the Hoshidan was like? Or what the organization, what the purpose of the organization was.

GN: I think it was like a pro-Japan type of organization. I mean, I never attended any of those meetings so I don't know what it was like, but that is my impression.

SY: Right. And your father putting you into Japanese school was in support of the Hoshidan?

GN: I think so. And I had a bouzu haircut.

SY: Is that, is it bald with a, what is the bouzu, bald?

GN: Just bald. They shave, shave your head.

SY: And then you wore the, did you wear the headband?

GN: The headband, it was only in the morning when you did the group jogging. They call it the wasshoi. That's the only time you wore the headband.

SY: And that was a disciplinary thing, the jogging, or the wasshoi?

GN: Yeah, and then what happened is that you do that before the sun comes up and then when the sun does come up you, everybody gets into attention and bow toward the sun. That was part of the ritual that took place.

SY: And was it everything from adults to children, or just the children in school did this?

GN: Well, the adults would be the teachers or the ones who's kind of leading the group.

SY: And your, so you, maybe give me an idea of what your idea would be like, then, in school.

GN: One of the things is that we all had to stand at attention when the teacher would enter the classroom and we would all bow to the teacher, so it was highly disciplined.

SY: And that's where you learned Japanese, or were you speaking Japanese at home before that?

GN: I spoke Japanese at home, yeah, before that.

SY: So what were some of the subjects? They taught everything in Japanese?

GN: Yes.

SY: And what kinds of things, do you remember what you learned?

GN: Japanese history, and the books that we used were, like, pre-World War II books, and education in Japan is nationalized. It was very pro-military, tend to be very nationalistic toward Japan. And I still have those books at home. But even at that age I recognized the indoctrination that was taking place, and so it could be from that experience I have an aversion toward indoctrination, whether it's nationalism or religion. I tend to detect those things right away.

SY: It's interesting because it seems to me that, from your mother's description, you were a little bit of a rebellious child. Would you describe yourself that way?

GN: I think I was 'til maybe I was about ten years old.

SY: But the Hoshidan experience was strict and you followed all the rules.

GN: Well, Hoshidan, I think, was strictly for adults. Our activities just kind of centered around what you did at school, but of course, once the school, you get out of school during the day, we're out there speaking English to each other and playing football.

SY: I see, so was there, did you feel a separation from the other kids who were English-speaking, went to the regular schools, and the ones who went to...

GN: Well, one of the things is that the camp was segregated. You had, those who went to the American schools were at another part of the camp, so it was separated in that way. I think it was done on purpose, so the, I guess the way did it was the "no-nos" were separated from the rest.

SY: The rest of the population. And it's sort of odd that the government allowed this at the time. Do you, I mean, looking back, was that something that the, do you know, did the government sanction?

GN: Yeah, I don't know what the regulation was at that time relative to that, but I do know that there were WRA patrol cars that would come early in the morning and they would arrest the adult leaders of the ones that were organizing and leading the group jogging, the wasshoi. And then also I remember, early in the morning when class started, that they came to arrest the teacher that was teaching us.

SY: Wow. That's amazing. And you don't, I mean, did you ever hear why that was happening, or do you have any idea why that was happening?

GN: The sense was that because the type of subject that were, were...

SY: Were being taught.

GN: Taught, yeah.

SY: But at the same time they continued to teach it, right? It was kind of an odd...

GN: Yeah.

SY: 'Cause they certainly allowed these schools. And your, I mean, was there a, did you get a feeling in camp of this, this strict Hoshidan kind of movement in camp, or was that just outside of your experience?

GN: Well you could tell because of the adults being active in that kind of organization, and then for us as kids going to Japanese school and what is being taught there.

SY: And just, so all the information, or all that you know about the Hoshidan, did that come later, what you know about what they were trying to do in terms of sort of causing a little bit of, talking to other people about trying to join Hoshidan and that kind of thing?

GN: Well, because of my age --

SY: At the time.

GN: -- I wasn't directly affected by that.

SY: Right, so you somehow --

GN: There wasn't any kind of interaction.

SY: You were, didn't experience it yourself, right?

GN: No.

SY: Right, okay.

GN: But what was interesting is that my father didn't have a bald haircut.

SY: Right.

GN: And when I read a book by, I can't remember his first name, but Kiyota, who, he said he got beaten, he was in Tule Lake, I guess, because I think he was a "no-no," but because he didn't have a bald haircut that he was beaten by some of the, the extreme activists.

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

<Begin Segment 9>

SY: So your parents, then, do you know now why they, that they answered "no-no" to the, to the questionnaire and that's why they were at Tule?

GN: Yeah, it's in the, I got hold of the copy of the questionnaire they filled out. They indicated on there that their constitutional rights were being violated and...

SY: So they didn't answer, they didn't give a yes or no answer. They...

GN: It was a conditional. "No" because their rights were being violated.

SY: And your mother and father both, they answered it the same or differently?

GN: In a similar way.

SY: And so now, when the war was still going on, do you know that they decided to go back to Japan? Do you remember that, or when...

GN: I don't know when they decided that, but they had mentioned that given the, being so restricted and incarcerated, that they wanted to return to Japan.

SY: And did they talk to you about that, or did, was that just something that... 'cause you mentioned something about the Kibei really talking more openly about camp.

GN: They did, yeah. So they would talk to us about those things too from time to time.

SY: So can you give us a little kind of a sense of what they would say or how they would say it? Were they mainly talking about the U.S. and Japan or how terrible it was in the camps? Or what kinds of things would they say?

GN: Yeah, well, they didn't feel that they had equal rights and that, given that they're incarcerated, they'd mention about the German and Italians not being incarcerated too.

SY: Wow, so that was, they would talk about, as openly during the time, while you were still in camp.

GN: In camp, yeah.

SY: And do you know why? Were they adamant about going back to Japan?

GN: I don't remember that, but I know that they wanted to go back to Japan.

SY: They wanted to go back. And so what ultimately happened?

GN: And then there was, because you have these extreme activists in our, at least our part of the camp, they're saying, were saying that, no, Japan had really won the war and that they're just trying to deceive everybody. And so my parents didn't think that was true, so my mom sent a letter to her older sister in Hawaii and the letter came back that said, "Don't be a fool, Japan is devastated. You're going to be starving if you went to Japan." And so the two of them, my father and mother decided better just stay here.

SY: And do you know when that was when they decided? Was it very close to the end of the war?

GN: That was after the war.

SY: Oh, after the war, so they were still in camp in, at Tule.

GN: Yeah. And there were already people preparing theirselves to go to Japan. So they had applied for a hearing before the WRA to rescind the request to go to Japan and instead stay here, and so finally they did go to the hearing and they indicated to them that the kids' never been to Japan and they don't want to go to Japan, and so they granted the request and so we stayed. So now the waiting period, when are they going to release us? You could see a lot of people going to Japan, leaving Tule Lake, and so we were one of the few people that didn't go to Japan. And we had another relatives named Hatakiyama, they didn't go to Japan either, so I'm sure they probably talked to each other.

SY: Right, as a family decision. You had other relatives at Tule besides the Hatakiyamas?

GN: Yeah, my father's older brother, but they went back to Japan, and they had a hard time.

SY: So then as people were leaving and you decided, or your parents decided to go, not to go back, then what happened next?

GN: Finally got release paper, and we had another relatives that were, didn't go to Tule Lake so they must have not answered "no-no," simple "yes-yes," 'cause they stayed in Rohwer during the duration of the war. And so they went, they got out of camp fairly early and they rented a house across the street from the Higashi Hongwanji, in fact, directly across on Mott Street, and they invited us to stay with them for a little while until we got situated. And so they picked us up at, I remember, at the Union Station in L.A., and so we lived there with them for about three months. And in the meantime, during that time my father worked as a carpenter and eventually he got a job working for Southern Pacific Railroad in Norwalk, and they have a, what's called section house where they have a dwelling for lodging and then they have a community bathroom, and a family could live in those facilities.

SY: So it was pretty meager.

GN: Yeah. And he did, my father did that for about a year, but it was a backbreaking job because you had to carry these railroad ties as well as railroad, and he started having back problems. And then he found a position as a tenant farmer on a flower farm in Norwalk, and so we moved from there, from the section house, the Southern Pacific Railroad section house, to a farm in Norwalk.

SY: So did you go to school in, when you first came out of, out of camp? Were you --

GN: Oh yeah. I remember going to, was it the First Street School? It was an elementary school near First Street. Might've been the Third Street School, I'm not sure.

SY: But for a very short time.

GN: Yeah, the three month period. And then from there I attended school in Norwalk.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

SY: When you first came out of camp, I was curious if you remember experiencing a lot of racism.

GN: I did. Especially in Norwalk. People would use the word "Jap," and I used to get into a lot of fights.

SY: So tell about some of those fights.

GN: I would say mostly those, I guess, when the family where the parents that had the prejudice and it kind of rubs off on the kids. Because, on the other hand, there were those who were really good to me and really go out of their way to help me on a number of things.

SY: You mean like other Caucasian families?

GN: Right.

SY: So do you remember, give us an example of that.

GN: Well, they're, the one that I remember that was really good to us was this old pioneer family that had come to California in a wagon train, and when they came here I don't know, but the father had a gun shop and the parking lot to the gun shop was adorned with the wagon wheels that was used as part of the wagon train. But they were pretty well off. They owned a large parcel of land that they were leasing to a farmer, and he had a private plane that he bought. They had a station wagon and a trailer. They would go camping a lot. But the oldest son was my age, and he joined the Boy Scouts so he invited me to join the Boy Scouts, and I think his mother was kind of responsible for part of that, having, invite me to join with him. And so I remember the experience I had in Boy Scouts in Norwalk with him.

SY: So that was a mixed ethnic troop when you first joined?

GN: No, it was strictly white.

SY: Strictly white, so you were the only --

GN: Even the school that I attended, what I remember most is the intermediate school. It was called Centennial Intermediate School, had about five hundred students, maybe about four or five Asians. I think there was one Chinese and the rest were Japanese, and the other Japanese were farmers from the Whittier area that was within the Norwalk school boundary. But, and then that family, one day when the father was gonna go fly up in the private plane they invited me to fly. I got sick. [Laughs]

SY: Sick in the plane?

GN: In the plane, yes. And then they, let's see, some of the thing that I remember, they had a burro and so I would ride on their burro every once in a while on the farm, and those are the kind of things that I remember.

SY: Yeah, so they were very open.

GN: And I remember going to Boy Scout camp. They had a camp, they had a jamboree at Rio Hondo, I remember going to that. But I caught, I got yellow jaundice at that camp. Yeah, in fact... they had type A, type B and type C, what is it called?

SY: I don't... it's a jaundice type?

GN: No, no. Yeah, it's a particular disease.

SY: Malaria? No.

GN: No. I thought it started with an H. You know, where your skin gets yellow and brownish. It's your liver.

SY: Oh, I know what you're talking -- hepatitis.

GN: Hepatitis, yeah. And I think that's the sickest I had ever been, when I came back from that camp.

SY: Really.

GN: And I remember I went to Dr. Tashiro in L.A. My parents took me, and so anyway, he prescribed this yeast type drink that I'm supposed to have every day. And I was sick for about six weeks.

SY: Wow.

GN: And my skin turned brown and the sheets would turn yellow, but anyway, that was the bad part of the experience of going.

SY: And that's when you were living in Norwalk.

GN: Norwalk.

SY: And you, and there's no residual of hepatitis?

GN: Well then, years and years later -- no, nothing, I didn't get anything after that -- and I read in the paper that many Asians, especially those from Hong Kong, have hepatitis B, and one of the things they find about people with hepatitis B is that there's a high percentage of those who end up with liver cancer. And so that really worried me, and so I went to the doctor and mentioned about what I read, and he says, well, he says, "When was it that you had your, this yellow jaundice?" I said it was like 1947, thereabouts, or '48. And he says, "Well, in those days they didn't have, they didn't know that there was hepatitis A, B or C, but we could check that out by seeing what your antibody is like." And so they took my blood sample and when I went to see him again he said, "It was hepatitis A that you had."

SY: That's good.

GN: So I felt relieved. [Laughs]

SY: [Laughs] You're still here.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

SY: So now, I hate to get back to this, but I'm kind of curious how, you were the kind of kid that got into fights, and I'm just wondering where that came from.

GN: I don't know. I, I don't like to be intimidated and I tend to become defiant. But I saw that in my daughter too that way as she was growing up.

SY: You never felt, and you weren't that big either, right?

GN: No.

SY: And so were you intimidated by bigger guys?

GN: Sometimes. But I found that you get into a fight and if you get a couple of good punches in there, even though maybe you're not gonna win the fight that's enough for them to leave you alone. It's not worth it.

SY: That's amazing. And you never felt, well, like you said, you don't like to be intimidated, but you never felt intimidated by guys who were bigger than you?

GN: Sometimes they would come and try to pick a fight, but sometimes you just kind of let it go 'cause it's, sometimes they're trying to fool around and so you have to be able to make those kind of decisions.

SY: So do you remember what prompted some of these fights?

GN: No, they would call you names. There'll be some kind of incident and then they call you names.

SY: It wasn't, was it a racist name?

GN: Oh yeah, when they call you "Jap," that was fighting word for me.

SY: So anytime anybody called you...

GN: Yeah.

SY: Wow. And I'm, how many times...

GN: There was this big fight that I had that I wrote in my memoir that, he didn't, that one he didn't call me any names.

SY: So tell us about that fight.

GN: Well, when we were living on the Norwalk flower farm, the bus would pick us up to go to school, and at that time I was attending Centennial Intermediate School, seventh grade. And every morning I would go to the P.E. locker room and get in line to check out a basketball, so that was my daily ritual. And so this one morning this bigger guy comes up from behind me and pushes me out of line, and I mean, I look at his size and I didn't want to fight him, so I just stayed back and if he wanted to cut in I'm gonna let him cut in. And then he goes and shoves me some more, and so I keep backing away, keeps shoving me, then finally he decided that he's gonna punch me and I ducked and he missed. And I thought about taking off because I figure I could outrun him. We just recently had a citywide track meet that Kiwanis Club had sponsored and I took first place among the seventh graders in the fifty-yard dash. But then I also thought that, gee, if I run now he's gonna catch me, catch up to me anyway and I'm gonna look like a coward, so that's not a good choice. So then when he took a swing at me again, he missed, this time I bopped him in the eye. And he got real mad, he came after me again, swung and he missed, and I hit him in the eye again, and then now he stopped, so now I became the aggressor. So I would fake a punch and I would hit him in the eye, and I don't know, but I just, that's all I aimed for. And probably got at least about a dozen punches in, and then I got overconfident and, 'cause I was initially would hit him once and back away about half a step so he can't grab me 'cause he's big, and I forgot about that and I would try to punch him twice in a row, two in a row, and he grabbed me and got me in a bear hug, and I said, oh god. Anyway, and then the bell rang and so I was saved by the bell. The older, older kids said, break it up, school's started.

SY: So you were surrounded by kids when this was going on.

GN: The entire school campus was surrounding us, and he didn't come to school for a whole week. And his sister was in my class, and the sister got mad at me for beating him up and I said, "Look, I didn't even want to fight. He's the one that started it and I had to defend myself." But anyway, finally when he came back to school he had two black eyes.

SY: And you didn't have any.

GN: No, 'cause he didn't land a single punch on me. I avoided that.

SY: Wow. And no official, school official...

GN: No one came to break it up. And I was hoping that hakujin guy that lived across the street from me, 'cause he was tall, I said, gee, where is he? I wish he would come and break this up, but he was nowhere around. I think he came later when the crowd started gathering.

SY: So did you, well, and did you then get some sort of reputation after this? Or did kids sort of know you as a fighter?

GN: No, they didn't. 'Cause I didn't go around looking for fights.

SY: So you were always defending yourself. That was the reason that you would, you never picked a fight.

GN: No, no. I never went around picking a fight.

SY: And then what happened to this guy?

GN: Well, because he was gone for a whole week and he had two black eyes, his homeroom teacher sent him to VP office and then I got called into the VP office, and I explained that I got shoved out of line from him and then he start swinging at me and then had to defend myself, so the outcome was that he got beat up. And so the VP said for him to apologize to me and we shook hands, and he was the nicest person after that, and reason being that he was totally humiliated in front of the entire student body and that changed him. He was no longer a bully after that.

SY: Wow. And did you learn a lesson from this in terms of if people pick on you?

GN: Yeah, in that not to get intimidated.

SY: And your parents, did they have anything to say about it, or did they even know?

GN: They didn't even know about it.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

GN: So something happened to me as an adult when I was in the state assembly. One morning we had this -- first there was a newspaper, a full page article demonizing me because certain members of the legislature had a bill to prohibit discriminating against gay and lesbian. And so they have a photograph of me in this newspaper and I know this was an organized event by the far right, so that appeared in the morning paper. And a group of mothers and their strollers with their little kids demonstrating in front of my district office, they never made an attempt to meet with me to talk about this bill, but to me that was a political intimidation. They didn't care what your position is; they're trying to pick a fight with you. And so that reminded me of what happened to me as a kid, so automatically I became defiant. And they don't want to hear, sit down and talk about it. I mean, and this came from the Rolling Hills Covenant Church. It was an organized event, a right wing, intolerant group of people.

SY: And they, the event was staged just to protest you, just to protest your position?

GN: Yes. And it was organized in a way that other minority assembly members on the Democratic side were being subjected to the same kind of thing. Their local newspaper had a picture of them demonizing them, and then a demonstration in front of their district office. So there were a total of nine Democratic assembly members who were being intimidated in the same way, and some of them had a safe district. I mean, they didn't have to worry about this issue; they know it's a safe Democratic seat, that they're gonna get reelected. Mine wasn't. I only had a three percent advantage of Democratic registration, and so if you have a strong moderate Republican running you don't know what the outcome is gonna be. Well, I didn't care at that point. Not only was I being intimidated, but having experienced racist attitude by some people, I didn't feel that students who even appeared to be gay or lesbian should be subjected to the kind of thing that I was subjected to when I was young, and so I took a stand in support of the bill and I was the only one among the nine Democrats.

SY: So what was your reaction to these women, this...

GN: Oh, I didn't even go out there. It's useless to even get into a discussion. Just let 'em demonstrate.

SY: And you just took your stand by way of a vote.

GN: Yeah.

SY: Wow. That's amazing.

GN: And I made a speech on the floor, and I accused these people of being cowards and I also mentioned about being intimidated when I was younger, when I first came out of camp, with racial slurs, and I said, "This whole incident reminded me of that, and what you people don't know is that I don't get intimidated. I become defiant." And so I said, "I'm gonna do the right thing and I'm gonna vote for it." And I'm telling this on the entire assembly floor.

SY: And so, and you, were you subsequently admonished, or did you have any kind of reaction after that?

GN: Well, there was one leader that's always behind this kind of issue in Sacramento making certain kind of accusation.

SY: So it wasn't all a happy ending. It was still, you had to put up a fight.

GN: Oh, yeah.

SY: Mixed victory, but that's an interesting story.

GN: And that bill eventually passed.

SY: Good. So there is a happy ending. And do you think that that kind of attitude really led you to become the person you were in politics? Do you think that politicians really need that kind of...

GN: Yeah, and there aren't enough people around that will stand up and do the right thing. They're more concerned about getting reelected. And then there are those who go even further than that and that is they become a demagogue, is they'll find issue to, even create hate for people to make themself look good.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

SY: Well I, we're gonna have, we're skipping a whole bunch, we'll definitely cover more on that 'cause I think it's fascinating, but getting back to Centennial, now, so you were in Norwalk and then what? Where did you end up after Centennial, or did you, did you move from there, Norwalk?

GN: We did, but going back a little bit, when I was in the elementary school in Norwalk one of the teachers asked me, "Gee, you should be in a higher grade," so I explained to her about camp that I was at, that I attended Japanese school and got behind. And so she accelerated me one year. I think should've really been accelerated two years, but...

SY: So when you got out of camp they immediately put you behind.

GN: Yeah.

SY: And you never had a problem with English? Did you, were you, I mean, having spent all those years speaking, or learning in Japanese --

GN: Well, I had some difficulty with English because both my parents didn't speak English. They spoke Japanese, and then being the oldest, I didn't really have someone in the house to really spoke, guide me in terms of the English language.

SY: So your English...

GN: Although I would talk English to my younger sister.

SY: So you were basically an English as a second language student. But, so that, did you notice that when you started school back in, after camp?

GN: I didn't have any problem conversing. I think where I had some difficulty was when you had to write something.

SY: That's amazing. So then you went from Norwalk and went all the way through intermediate school, which is considered, what, junior high school now? To Centennial and then what happened after that?

GN: So when I was in the eighth grade, I think it was the eighth grade, we moved to Boyle Heights.

SY: Back to Boyle, well, you actually had a house in Boyle Heights.

GN: And that was an apartment, dilapidated apartment that we lived in.

SY: Can you talk about the area then, back then, Boyle Heights?

GN: Yeah, it was like two blocks south of Aliso Village, which is a federal housing project, and I think the condition of those homes, I think, were far better than the apartment we were living in.

SY: So it, you, Boyle Heights was kind of a mixed area?

GN: Yeah, there were areas in Boyle Heights where you had a lot of single family homes. The street that we lived there were a few single family homes, there were some duplexes and triplex across the street, there was one place where the gypsy was living, and we had an African American that was next door to us. To the north of us were all Latinos.

SY: How about --

GN: But it was a very poor area on Gless Street. Eight houses south of us were, was Dolores Mission, which is the poorest Catholic church in Los Angeles County, and I think that's where the Father Boyle spent some time there.

SY: So the area had a lot of Asians but not in your neighborhood, is that --

GN: There were a few Asians across the street from us that were living there.

SY: So you would characterize this is as a --

GN: But their homes were much better than ours, I remember that.

SY: So you were in a very poor neighborhood. And your father was at that time doing what?

GN: Gardening.

SY: So he took on gardening as a business. And then you had to transfer schools?

GN: Yeah, so I enrolled at Hollenbeck Junior High School at that time.

SY: And it was a very ethnically mixed.

GN: Mixed, yes. Lot of Jewish kids, lot of Latino, and lot of Japanese Americans.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

SY: And what kind of student were you? Were you a fairly good student?

GN: I was a good student. Until I couldn't take algebra in ninth grade, then it was downhill after that.

SY: You couldn't take algebra?

GN: Well, I sent you a copy of my record card.

SY: [Laughs] Tell us about it.

GN: Yeah, well I was one of the top two math students in my eighth grade math class, got an A in there. I would finish, I say top two because this other student that I was always competing against, and I'd try to finish my assignment before he did, and so we were about fifty-fifty. But the process was that if you want to take algebra in ninth grade you got to get a recommendation from your eighth grade math teacher, and she wouldn't give it to me. And I didn't know at that time that minority kids were being directed toward vocational education. Now, with the JA kids it depended on the teacher. Some teachers would have, wouldn't go around with that, so I know some JA kids at that time did take algebra, but in my case she wouldn't let me. And so that just changed my whole direction.

SY: Wow. 'Cause you were, you excelled in math.

GN: Yeah. And I did well in other subject matter too. I got As in all the other academic subjects.

SY: So was that, at that point was that when you decided, "I'm not gonna go on with school or I'm gonna..."

GN: I lost some motivation.

SY: And were you --

GN: And I didn't, both of my parents spoke very little English. They would never have been able to vouch for me if they went to school. Then I didn't have an uncle or a cousin or somebody that could help me, and so that's how it happened.

SY: And was that a --

GN: But it was years later that I found out that they had an unwritten policy in L.A. Unified where they tried to direct minority kids towards vocational education.

SY: So then you then eventually, from Hollenbeck -- this happened at Hollenbeck, right?

GN: Hollenbeck Junior High.

SY: And was this, just on another note 'cause we'll go on, but is, were you very active in sports there at Hollenbeck?

GN: I was. I went out for track at Hollenbeck. So they had an afterschool program which I was involved with.

SY: So was that a favorite of yours, track, or what kinds of...

GN: Track was, yeah, long jump and sprints.

SY: But you never continued with that. You just, did you do...

GN: No, I did in high school.

SY: In sports you were still active in high school.

GN: Yeah.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

SY: So after Hollenbeck you went, ended up at...

GN: Roosevelt.

SY: Roosevelt, in the area, in Boyle Heights.

GN: And I was there for a year and a half. But our family was really poor in those days and so I had to find a part time job, but I couldn't find any in Boyle Heights. You have high density population, lot of other kids are looking for jobs, and I just couldn't find one. Then finally my uncle, who was an auto mechanic and was working out of a garage near Shrine Auditorium, was able to find a job for me, and it was at a shop that specializes in rebuilding carburetor, fuel pump, and distributors. And so anyway, he told me that he talked to the owner of that shop and they were willing to hire somebody part time, so I was able to get a job there. But getting to that job on the streetcar was taking, like, anywhere from thirty to forty minutes after school, and so that's when I transferred high school from Roosevelt to L.A. Polytechnic, so that's where I graduated from.

SY: So that was an easy thing to do at that time.

GN: Yeah, it's like less than ten minutes from my school to get to my job.

SY: But you, you had no trouble transferring to another?

GN: No, I did. I remember my first time that the principal spoke to the students at Roosevelt he says, "Anybody who wants to transfer out of this school just come and see me and I'll be happy to transfer you out." And so I took that literally and so when I did go see him about going to L.A. Poly and my reason was job. He wouldn't let me. Well, the contradiction is if they want a certain athlete to attend to their, attend Roosevelt so they could have this super athlete attend Roosevelt, they'll do it by way of a job. They'll find a job for that person and that would allow them to get a transfer.

SY: I see.

GN: And so it's a flat out lie, and so I used my cousin's address that lived in the L.A. Poly area to go to L.A. Poly.

SY: I see, so in other words it was very subjective whether you got transferred or not, and he decided not to transfer you because you, he...

GN: Well I don't know what his reasons were, but he wouldn't do it.

SY: Right, right, but you were not given an option. Yeah, okay. That's interesting.

GN: And it was a necessity for me because it was to earn money for the family.

SY: Right. And that was your choice. You really wanted to go to Poly even though you were a student at Roosevelt. And then, so eventually you ended up there, and talk a little bit about what Poly, about Poly High School back then.

GN: It was a very multiethnic high school. It was like one-fourth white, one-fourth Asian, one-fourth Latino, and one-fourth African American.

SY: That's really balanced.

GN: Oh yeah, and in fact, so I had belonged to a Japanese American club in, when I was at Roosevelt, a club called Squires, and still some of those people I know to this day. And then when I went to L.A. Poly I joined the Constituents, so that was a club about my age group and that club had two African Americans, we had some hapas, half Filipino and half Chinese, in the group. We had also a Chinese in our group. Mostly JAs.

SY: Mostly JAs.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<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.

<Begin Segment 17>

SY: So what was, I know that there was a positive and a negative side to it, or would you characterize it that way? Were there positives, what were the positives and what were the negatives?

GN: Well, I think the negative part is getting into fights. Somebody will get hurt physically.

SY: Can you talk a little bit about those, 'cause I know some of 'em were pretty bad. Were there any that were very, that were life-threatening for you?

GN: No, no.

SY: Never. With people who had guns? No? You never felt that threatened by any other encounters.

GN: No, I think in those days the Latino gangs were different from the JA gangs in that respect.

SY: So the JA gangs were much more, not so violent, not so aggressive.

GN: Well, using the weapon. In general, did not use weapons.

SY: And did you have encounters, like, at restaurants, at, around town, or were they...

GN: We did. In fact, we, when one of the Constituents was, got out of the car at Hody's Restaurant to go to the restroom there was a group of white youth that was in a car, called him a "Jap," and so that started the fight. It turns out that they were SC football players, and then the word got out to the, to our African American friends and, oh, most of them came to Hody's and they were, the white football players were gone. But that period was when SC had maybe one or two African American football players. I remember that year they had this guy named, I think his name was Ben Johnson, the fullback at SC, but I think he was the only African American on that team.

SY: And word just sort of gets out when things like this happen.

GN: Oh yeah. But some of the good things we did, we hosted the dance to raise money for the Japanese orphanage, Shonien. And so, and typically whenever you have a dance they sell these, they call it bids, but it's sort of like a ticket to the event, and so they have one for the stagettes and one for stag, and that's how they usually differentiate between male and female.

SY: And you had to pay to get into these dances?

GN: Yeah, it's like twenty-five cents. So we raised, how much did we raise? Hundred and seventy-five dollars, I think. And most of us were in the eleventh grade at that time, and we donated that money to Shonien and so we got our picture in the Crossroad newspaper.

SY: And where were your parents during all this? Were you pretty much on your own?

GN: We're on our own.

SY: All the kids at that point, parents were not, there wasn't this "you shouldn't be doing this."

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

GN: And then when we were in the twelfth grade a whole group of us joined the California Air National Guard, 'cause you had to register when you were eighteen for the selective service system and when you graduate high school, if you don't have a college deferment, then you get drafted into the army. Or you could join the reserve or the National Guard, and so one of our, the guys in our club, had heard on the radio about Air National Guard and so a whole group of us joined. And the air base is in Van Nuys, so you had to go to a meeting twice a month on the same weekend, so it's a Saturday and Sunday, and then go to summer camp for two weeks.

SY: And you did all this.

GN: So I did that, yeah, for six years, and then you have an eight year obligation so you automatically become, since it's Air National Guard you automatically become a member of the Air Force reserve. But it's two years of inactive duty, so you're in it but you don't have to attend any meetings.

SY: But you do have to report. What did it involve other than...

GN: You didn't have to report, period.

SY: So you were just on --

GN: You could be called in for active duty.

SY: But you never were.

GN: No.

SY: I see. So that was sort of a way of avoiding the draft, which was, at the time it wasn't a big deal, though, was it?

GN: Oh yeah. You have a choice, you want to get drafted or be in the reserve National Guard.

SY: And was that, what, was there a war going on then?

GN: Not during the time...

SY: That you were in high school.

GN: High school, yeah.

SY: Okay.

GN: 'Cause we're the generation between the Korean War and the Vietnam War, so those who were maybe two years ahead of us in high school were...

SY: Had to be in the Korean War.

GN: Yeah, they got, they had to go to Korea for the Korean War. And then, and then those who were after us had the Vietnam.

SY: Right. Right, that was, that was a bad time. So how did it sort of end, your relationship in the gang? Was it just, does everybody still see each other after high school?

GN: We get together about once a year. And what happens is that right after high school when people start getting drafted, then it kind of breaks down. They, being organized as a group.

SY: So you didn't get to see each other very much.

GN: No, you didn't.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

SY: And aside from being in this club, you were all pretty good students, or you were? Were you a fairly good student?

GN: Well, I was taking vocational education. Got pretty good grades, but that was in vocational education.

SY: And that's in high school?

GN: In high school.

SY: You were, you're put into vocational?

GN: Yeah, because of what happened to me in junior high school.

SY: Right, but so you were learning, you, certain, you only took certain courses like shop.

GN: Yeah, there's shop classes.

SY: I see. And then you were still active in sports then?

GN: Yeah, I went out for track. So I went out for track at Roosevelt and then also I tried gymnastics, but I didn't do as well. Find out later that you need more upper body strength than lower body. And so anyway, finally, when I was at Poly, I made the team, and they had a different classification, varsity, B, C, and so anyway, I placed fourth in the league meet so I was able, and so if you place first through fourth you get a medal and you get to compete in the city preliminary. And if you make it through the city preliminary then you'll be able to compete in the city finals.

SY: Wow, so you got up to the preliminary.

GN: Yeah.

SY: That's nice. And then were you working through this whole period?

GN: Well, I had that part time job, and I did both in the eleventh grade, and then in the twelfth grade my parents didn't have a car and so I really had to make more money so that we could get a car, 'cause you, we only had a pickup truck that my father used for gardening. And then, being in the twelfth grade, you have senior prom coming up, and so in the eleventh grade I would borrow my uncle's car, but he got married and I couldn't borrow, I didn't have anybody that I could borrow a car from so now I had to buy my own car. And so I dropped out of track in the twelfth grade and concentrated on working more hours to save money, and so that's what I did.

SY: So, and your family, meantime, is still kind of struggling, your father's gardening business, or was he getting, did it, was it a hard life for your parents?

GN: It was. Yeah, it was a hard life.

SY: And your two, your three younger siblings, were they just going to school?

GN: Yeah, just going to school.

SY: And they, did they move around like you did or did they stay in Boyle Heights?

GN: Stayed in Boyle Heights until, in 1956, we moved to Gardena, and so all three of them, I think, graduated from Gardena High School.

SY: That was, I see. So do you remember feeling, like, very poor when you were growing up?

GN: Oh yeah, really poor.

SY: Really poor. And that, so you, the working, were you the only one who was helping with the family income?

GN: Yeah. I was the only one that, old enough, could get even get a part time job, so...

SY: That was, yeah.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

SY: And then when you graduated from Poly, what did you, where did you end up?

GN: I went to L.A. Trade Tech and took up radio and TV servicing.

SY: Now why was that? That was a particular interest of yours?

GN: Yes. It's, technology was something that was being, it was getting bigger and bigger, in terms of electronics, and so my intent at that time was to open up my own radio and TV repair shop. So it's a two-year curriculum and I went through that and finally got a job at a radio and TV repair shop in Hollywood, and I worked there for about six months, and then that's when we... well, one of the things that I found, what I encountered, is that I look awfully young and so when a customer would come in they think you're a little bit too young to be repairing things, so I had to deal with that. But after about six months there, that's when we moved to Gardena, and I didn't feel like driving all the way to Hollywood from Gardena for a job, so I quit. And in the meantime, I had heard about a position at Hughes Aircraft, and Hughes Aircraft doesn't make aircraft. They do avionics, whether it's a radar system or missile control system or fighter aircraft, and this friend of mine, his brother-in-law also had gone to L.A. Trade Tech and took up radio and TV servicing and was working in the R & D lab side by side with graduate engineers, and it sounded so interesting that, and he told me what I should do if I want to go to work there. "Go back to your TV instructor because he knows the, one of the managers, and he'll set up an interview for you," and so that's what I did. And so they ask you the theory of how TV works, from the radio signal that's radiating from a transmitter to the receiver and how it works within the receiver. And then at least you get the sense of whether you know your subject matter or not, and then you had to take an electronic test, which I did. So then about two or three weeks later I got a telegram with a job offer, and --

SY: It was quite an honor, I guess you might say.

GN: Yeah. So now I was working side by side with the graduate engineers, and they're the ones who encouraged me to go back to school to get a degree.

SY: And it, they wanted you to get an advanced degree in what subject?

GN: Engineering.

SY: In engineering.

GN: Yeah, so I started off with that, but then I had also interest in terms of having impact on society, and I felt that one of the ways to do that would be to become a teacher. So I changed from engineering major to a math major, and that's when I was going to El Camino College. So first two semesters there were spent on making up the prerequisites that I would normally take in high school, when you go to college, so that's what I did, and so during summer I would go back to work at, I would take a leave of absence from Hughes. I worked there full time for one year and then what I did is took a leave of absence to go to school, and this way I could come back to Hughes to work during the summer, so that's what I did, and then take a leave again for the regular semester. So at El Camino College I completed my lower division requirements as a math major.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

SY: You worked at Hughes Aircraft for how long?

GN: Fifteen years.

SY: Fifteen years. Long time. And do you, can you talk a little bit about what your experiences at Hughes were like?

GN: Yeah, I think of all the jobs I've had those were the people who were the brightest that I dealt with. Of course there were some that weren't, but as a group I think that that's something that really stands out.

SY: Yeah. They were engineers, all engineers.

GN: Engineers, yeah.

SY: And what specific things did you work on?

GN: It's a missile control system for fighter aircraft, infrared detectors for those fighter aircrafts. Those are the kind of things.

SY: Quite sophisticated, electronic engineering kinds of things. And were you involved in, I mean, because it's sort of a corporate structure, were you involved in the politics there?

GN: Not at my level. For those who had management positions there, I think they did. But Hughes at that time, it wasn't like a corporation. The atmosphere was, well, the way they described it was more like a college atmosphere. Hughes is, Hughes Aircraft is owned by Hughes Medical Institute, which is a nonprofit, and so the whole atmosphere among the employees at that level was just, people enjoyed it.

SY: So you got along pretty much with everyone.

GN: Yeah.

SY: And did you feel any kind of --

GN: What was interesting is that engineers tend to be politically conservative, but where I was working at, half of them were Democrats, liberal Democrats.

SY: Wow. So would you get into political discussions?

GN: Oh yeah, all the time.

SY: All the time. And was there any kind of infighting or, I mean, when you go, when you work in a big company like that sometimes there's...

GN: I'm sure there're some that were kind of all out for themselves, but I found that at least the area where I was at, people tended to respect each other. They may not agree with each other politically, but there was a certain level of respect that they had toward each other.

SY: Was there any kind of, like, racial divide?

GN: I didn't find that over there.

SY: So you have sort of put behind the kinds of racist things that you kind of grew up around, so you felt pretty comfortable at Hughes, then.

GN: Yeah. And I think the fact that there were a lot of JAs and even Chinese engineers tends to help the non-minorities to get to know people of different ethnic groups, and I think that's good. And it's such a highly technical area in that if you're an Asian, and they respect your technical ability.

SY: That's great.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 22>

SY: And you were living in, where were, or did you move when you started working at Hughes?

GN: Yeah, we had just moved to Gardena at that time.

SY: So, and were you married at the time?

GN: No.

SY: So when did you get, end up getting married? Was that during that fifteen years you were at Hughes?

GN: Yes.

SY: And how did you meet your wife?

GN: When I was in high school.

SY: Really? She went to Poly also?

GN: During the summer.

SY: Wow. So she knew you when you were a member of the Constituents, so was she also in one of these girls' clubs?

GN: I don't know. I don't think so.

SY: So you didn't meet her at a dance.

GN: No, I met through one of my friends.

SY: I see, and you started dating then? I mean, you...

GN: Not right away.

SY: But you eventually, after you started working at Hughes, then?

GN: No, it was before, it was before I started working at Hughes.

SY: Right, but then how, when did you decide you were going, you wanted to get married?

GN: That was in 1960. I started working at Hughes in '56, and I met her in 1954.

SY: I see. And what was she doing at the time, when she graduated?

GN: She went to work for Department of Water and Power.

SY: So she, did she go straight out of, out of high school?

GN: Yeah, straight out of high school.

SY: And ended up working there for her, as a career?

GN: Yeah.

SY: I see. And then you, so after you got married you moved again, or did you, you stayed in Gardena?

GN: No, we had an apartment right near El Camino College. That's a county area just north of the campus there, but it has a Gardena mailing address. And then from there we bought a house in Manhattan Beach, and the reason why we bought a house in Manhattan Beach is because it was cheaper than Gardena in 1962. In fact, we looked in Gardena and I still remember three bedroom homes were going for about twenty-one thousand, and so we, it was a little bit too steep for us financially so we decided let's look in other parts of South Bay. So when we looked in Manhattan Beach, the three bedroom house that we looked at was listed at nineteen thousand, and so we offered eighteen five and got it on an FHA loan, so the down payment is real small, interest rate was reasonable, and that's how we bought that house.

SY: Wow. But you never, you didn't end up staying there.

GN: We lived there for three years, and we wanted a bigger house, but the homes in Manhattan Beach was a little bit too steep for us for a bigger house, and so we looked in Torrance. And this time we had a realtor look for homes for us, and Torrance has good schools and so we bought the house that we're living in right now for thirty thousand dollars in 1965.

SY: And how much did you sell the Manhattan Beach home for?

GN: For twenty-five five. Now, when we've bought this house in Torrance for thirty thousand, there was a house right next to the beach, it was going for thirty-three thousand. When I say next to the beach, it was on Paseo de Playa, I think, and so it's at Torrance Beach and so you have a main drag and the house is on that main drag, and then just on the other side of the street it goes downhill to Torrance Beach, and it's a place where you can have, you have a good view. And so in retrospect we should've bought that house for thirty-three even though it would've been hard for us financially, 'cause I'm sure the, because of the location... we didn't like the floor plan of the house, kitchen was real small, but if we were to think ahead, you could always remodel that. But anyway...

SY: Yeah, it happens. So that was, so you started a family and you, when you finally ended up in Torrance, or did you start your family in Manhattan Beach?

GN: No, we started the family when we were living in the apartment in, near El Camino College.

SY: Okay, and your family is, can you, what...

GN: Yeah, we have a daughter that's a teacher, still single.

SY: And she's how old now?

GN: How old is she? She's what, she had her fiftieth birthday last year.

SY: Wow. And a teacher in L.A., Los Angeles?

GN: No, Torrance. She teaches in Torrance.

SY: Okay. And then you have...

GN: A son, he's an electrical engineer at Raytheon, which used to be Hughes at one time.

SY: Wow, so he kind of took after you did, huh?

GN: Not really. I mean, he, from the time he was little he was suited to be an engineer.

SY: Interested in math, like.

GN: Yeah. You know, what is interesting is my daughter was a CSF student every semester and went to UCLA from high school, my son was C average student in high school, but she says he's much brighter than she is. And so he went to El Camino College; he took electronics there. And he would drive Helen crazy because he's only a C average student, but he got like, what, a B-plus, A-minus average at El Camino, and then he got a job at Hughes, sort of like me, in a way. But he got on this fellowship program there, and then so when he went to Long Beach State for his upper division in engineering he was a straight A student.

SY: Wow. That's amazing, I know... and they're, and he's how much younger than your daughter?

GN: About three years, I think. And he met this Indian girl, Asian Indian, at El Camino College when he was going there, and so at that time, when they completed their lower division, she went to UC Berkeley and my son went to Cal State Long Beach, and so they missed each other so he used to fly up to Berkeley like, what, once every three weeks or so. And anyway, they got married, so we have two granddaughters right now.

SY: That's nice. That's nice.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 23>

SY: So I'm gonna switch over the subject and talk a little bit about your interest in kendo. Can you talk about how that started, when it started?

GN: The first time I saw kendo was actually in Tule Lake. They had a barrack where one end of it was used for recreation purposes, and I remember one day I saw people practicing kendo, and they had full equipment on too. So that was the first time. Then, I don't know if you remember Jack Paar, he had Mori sensei and his son demonstrate kendo, so that's the second time I saw kendo.

SY: That was on television, the Tonight Show?

GN: It was on, yeah. And eventually, when we moved to Gardena, Mori sensei lived about two blocks from us and so my younger brother, Tosh, became friends with Chris Mori, his son.

SY: And was Mori sensei the top, was...

GN: Yeah.

SY: He was one of the top kendo people locally.

GN: Yeah. And, but in the meantime what happened was -- and there was that Kokusai Theater on Jefferson and Crenshaw --

SY: The movie theater.

GN: Saw the samurai trilogy, Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi, and so that film really intrigued me about kendo. There's a zen aspect to it, there's the bushido aspect to it, and so that's where I got interested in practicing kendo. And so now we're living in Gardena and so I started kendo at the Gardena dojo, at the Gardena JCI. That was in 1959. And so I practiced kendo for about a year over there. Then I had to start taking college courses in the evening, and because they practiced there on Tuesday night it conflicted with some classes I wanted to take, so Denker, the Seinan Dojo at the Denker playground, they practiced on Friday nights, and so Friday nights you don't have any classes, college classes, and so I asked for permission to change Dojo. You have to do that because you have a teacher there that you're studying under, and so that's what happened, so then I started practicing at Denker playground.

SY: I see. So let's back up and talk a little bit about the whole philosophy of kendo. What, what's the whole...

GN: Well, the Zen aspect is that you don't look at yourself as an entity or relative to your ego. You become part of the sword. You become one. Then when you do that you could sense your opponent far better than when you think in terms of yourself and the other person. And also you don't think about what you're gonna do. I mean, those are things you already practice. You're in a given situation, you automatically make your move a certain way.

SY: So do you learn first without the sword, or how, do you --

GN: No, you learn with the, with the wooden sword that you practice with.

SY: And you do exercises?

GN: Exercises and you learn certain technique that you hit, whether it's the forehead or the wrist or the torso, and then you have to execute that with a yell. It has to be simultaneous. Part of the reason for the yell is that you have to, you're doing the execution with your gut level feeling behind it. It isn't just the physical motion.

SY: And is it meant to actually strike the opponent?

GN: Yeah.

SY: So you, that's why you wear the, the...

GN: The mask, yeah.

SY: The mask. And so you aim for...

GN: The forehead.

SY: Part of the mask, part of the body that's covered.

GN: Yeah.

SY: So is it, can it be painful?

GN: No, the only one that's painful is when you get hit in the elbow, because it's bare right there. You don't have any kind of protection.

SY: And what's the, what's the purpose of it? In other words, do you get scored?

GN: Yeah. And it's subjective. It has to be a clean hit, whether it's on the forehead or on the wrist. There's different en garde positions. Some people en garde with the sword on top like this [holds arms up over head], and so you could hit the wrists either side, or strike the wrists. That would be a cut. Or on the torso, either side. You could also do a thrust to the throat. And then there's also what's called yokomen, which is a strike to the temple, either side. The one that usually is done is when you use one hand with your left hand and you hit the temple on this side [points to right temple].

SY: Wow. So there's no --

GN: That could hurt.

SY: Yeah, it seems like it would.

GN: Especially if it doesn't hit part of the frame but it hits the side of the head.

SY: Yeah, just, but, and you're also in great physical shape to, to do this, because it, because of the...

GN: Usually after practice you're completely drenched.

SY: Really? 'Cause you're constantly en garde, is that the...

GN: Yeah.

SY: And do you do, you don't do, you are always with an opponent?

GN: When you do some practice session you may not have an opponent. You exercise the hitting motion, or that one you will be jumping but other ones where you just go forward you won't have an opponent with you.

SY: So it originated as, as sort of a, with, I mean, it was an aggressive sport, or was it considered a sport when it originated?

GN: They don't consider it a sport. Martial arts is, in many ways is not a sport, because in essence what you're doing is you're killing someone, especially when it comes to kendo. So in that respect you can't really call it a sport.

SY: What, now was that kind of what fascinated you about it? Was it the, when you first saw it, was it the aggressiveness of it?

GN: The whole idea as an art. There's the execution, the form, the attitude.

SY: Yeah, very interesting. And you ended up becoming how, how long did you practice it?

GN: I did it until 1984 and I had to drop it when I got elected to the city council, didn't have time to practice anymore. There were so many activities in the evening that I had to attend.

SY: So at the height of your practice how many, how much time did you devote to it?

GN: Either twice or three times a week.

SY: Evenings.

GN: Yeah, in the evenings.

SY: And what stage did you reach in kendo, in terms of...

GN: As an instructor I received what's called renchi, then fifth dan in kendo. That was in, the fifth dan I got in 1976, so I had two more years before I could take a test for the next rank, but I dropped it in 1984. Yeah.

SY: So fifth dan is what level in terms of the total scheme?

GN: Well in the old days they, it went up to ten, but they don't give the ninth and tenth anymore, I don't think, so it goes up to eight.

SY: So it's comparable to, like a black belt.

GN: It is a black belt.

SY: It is a black belt, considered black belt.

GN: First you, 'cause you have your first degree black belt, second degree, third, fourth, and mine is fifth.

SY: I see. So yours is fifth and then it goes up to maybe eight.

GN: Yeah.

SY: So you were really pretty proficient, studied it.

GN: Well I did it long enough, from '59 to, it was '76 when I got my fifth degree.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 24>

SY: And then how, then after you got your fifth degree, is that when you started thinking about instructing?

GN: No, I started instructing, I think, when I was in the fourth, when I had fourth degree. That's when I started the Torrance Dojo, in 1974.

SY: So talk a little bit about how you started that.

GN: Well, I got a group of people together and thought that, Torrance had a fairly large JA population, although Gardena had a dojo, felt that we could have one in Torrance, and so got a group of black belts together, different ranks, and started exploring ways to start one. And one of the things that I found out was if the dojo could be considered a... I can't think of the term now, but anyway, it would be a recognized club by the park and rec commission in Torrance, then they'll help you find a facility for you. But that's what happened, and so in '74, they found that they could get the old cafeteria building at Torrance High School as our practice hall, and the reason why the old cafeteria is because it has a raised foundation, so you wanted a place where you have some give on the floor. At times the floor would be dirty, and so we had people sweep the floor. And so that was our practice hall for a number of years until the Cultural Arts Center was built.

SY: And then you got space there.

GN: Yeah.

SY: So did you, so you had to actually rent space at this, the center?

GN: No, it was free. They, the city of Torrance and the school district had an agreement where they share facilities for different programs.

SY: That's nice. And so how big did your dojo become?

GN: Gee, when I left maybe had about fifteen people. It's huge right now. We weren't emphasizing little kids at that time, it was mainly adults, but once they started the children it started really expanding. And so there's a waiting list right now at Torrance Kendo Dojo.

SY: And it's still the same people who you formed it with originally?

GN: Some of them. Some of them.

SY: So they're still involved. But you're not.

GN: No. But I do help out in the way that, well, one of the things is that eventually the city of Torrance got a gymnasium and so a lot of kendo tournaments are held over there, the Torrance Gym.

SY: So when you, you still have this interest and you still do things that are kendo associated.

GN: Yes, I used to help them find a facility for them. And I couldn't practice anymore because, see, one of the things I found was in kendo when you lunge forward you put a lot of stress on your left Achilles, and people used to snap it, especially if you're out of practice. But mentally you feel like you can still do it without being in good condition, and I've seen three people snap their Achilles' tendon who were not really in top shape but tried to lunge forward, 'cause you have to kick off with your left foot.

SY: Yeah, that hurts.

GN: And so I didn't want to take that chance so I had to drop kendo.

SY: I see.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 25>

SY: But you also were involved in iaido?

GN: It's called iaido.

SY: Iaido, sorry.

GN: Yeah, around 1960 I practiced that for a couple of years, but I focused on kendo at that time rather than iaido. And my last year in the state assembly, 2004, we always used to have an opening ceremony for the Asian Pacific heritage month, which is in May, and so I wanted to do the iaido demonstration on the assembly floor for the opening ceremony for the, my last year in office in 2004. So I felt that I really needed to practice, and so I started practicing from the year before that and a friend of mine that, we started kendo about the same time, but he kept up with iaido, and today he's probably the highest skilled instructor, American instructor in, he teaches kendo at Norwalk. And so --

SY: So they're kind of complementary.

GN: In a way.

SY: And so give us an idea.

GN: Well, it is complementary, but it's two different arts as well. One you use a real sword, whereas in kendo you use a bamboo sword and you always have an opponent, but in iaido you have an imaginary opponent.

SY: 'Cause you're using a real sword.

GN: Yeah. And you go through a prescribed routine. There's like seven, there's basically, I think there's ten movements, but it also depends on what school of art it is. And so I wanted to do the iaido demonstration, and not go through all ten but pick four different ones that it's enough variation so it makes it interesting. And so about a year I practiced that, so I would go to his dojo and he'll be teaching kendo up 'til nine o'clock, and so he'll tutor me on the iaido from nine to ten, so did that every Friday night. And then on Saturday -- not every Saturday, but I think the last Saturday of the month -- they would practice iaido, southern California group at the City of Industry sheriff's... the sheriff has a recreational area in City of Industry, so I used to go to that too. So that's what I did to prepare myself.

SY: And how did it turn out?

GN: It turned out well. So he, he watched me enough that, to tell me that, "I think you're ready now to do a demonstration," and so that's what I did, had my, actually my kendogi, and I had shipped my sword up when I flew from L.A. to, LAX to Sacramento, put it in one of these large plastic containers and they had to go through the special x-ray machine. Brought that sword up.

SY: This was post-9/11, huh?

GN: Yeah.

SY: And then you, did someone introduce it? How did...

GN: Yeah, so I had a script written for, actually, Leland Yee 'cause he was the president pro tem for the assembly, 'cause he'll do all the announcing, and so he would make the announcement and so I did my routine. And people are usually talking, but once I started the place just got dead silent. [Laughs]

SY: And how long was, how long did this last, this little routine?

GN: Maybe about ten minutes.

SY: And did you get personal reactions? Did people come up to you afterwards?

GN: Oh yeah.

SY: Impressed.

GN: Yeah, it was different for a lot of people. Some people had never seen it before.

SY: They had, you had to kind of explain what it was, right?

GN: Yeah.

SY: That's really interesting.

GN: But you, you're in a kneeling position and you're on your knees, and you have an imaginary opponent, and you do a quick draw.

SY: I wish you could do it for us now. [Laughs]

GN: And so you had to practice how to draw the sword out, also how to put the sword back in the scabbard without looking. And the interesting thing that I found is that in iaido, which is also true for police officer, when they shoot they say that you're supposed to shoot twice, not just once; in iaido you cut twice too. So you have an imaginary adversary in front of you and when you do the first move, you go for the throat with the sword going across, and then you come from the top and strike the head. And then the other moves are you have an adversary on side of you and maybe one behind you, and you go through the different cutting motions. And one of the things that is, after all the cuttings is finished for each of the moves, you snap the sword down like that and what you're doing you're shaking the blood off, and then you put the sword back.

SY: So did you find that this was a way of channeling that energy that you had as a young person?

GN: Yeah, it's total focus and in some ways it's more difficult because there isn't another person there, just an imaginary adversary.

SY: Right. So, but, but sort of...

GN: But it looks elegant, the whole, when you get proficient at it.

SY: I see. I see. Yeah, very, I can imagine. That's nice.

GN: And there was, there are a lot of Caucasians who are engaged in iaido who're really good. In fact, when I went to Italy two years ago we stayed at this person's, this couple's home, and the man there was iaido European champion twice, or three times. And so one evening he took me to his dojo where he teaches that, and I watched his routine and he was really superb.

SY: It's not a real common form of martial arts, or is it?

GN: Well, it's more of an art form than martial arts.

SY: I see. And did you find that you enjoyed that more or less than kendo?

GN: No, each has its uniqueness that is interesting and elegant, and so I don't think I would make a comparison in that way.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 26>

SY: I'm gonna, I want to skip ahead 'cause I remember that there was a smear campaign with you in the kendogi. Was it kendogi? Tell us a little bit about that.

GN: Well, the Easy Reader newspaper was publishing Torrance People Magazine, and so happened they wanted to, and then at that time I was a candidate for the state assembly, and they wanted to photograph me in my kendo equipment. And the photograph was taken at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center Japanese garden, and so anyway, my wife does naginata and so both of us were on top of a rock, I think it was, and with our equipment on, and they took photograph and then they did a long -- I should've brought a copy for you -- they did a long write-up on me. And what happened was one of my -- well, this was the first time I ran, and so the samurai thing was not an issue at all. It didn't even come up. But it was two years later, my opponent, Republican opponent, was Gerald Folando, who's known to be very dirty in campaigning, and so he tried to use the photograph and associate with me with the Firestone tire problem that they were having.

SY: Japanese company.

GN: Yeah. And so that's what happened. But it, it didn't go anywhere. No one responded to that. I think I beat him by sixty-four percent, in a district where I had, I think by that time I had a five percent advantage in the registration.

SY: But you never felt that it being so, the sport being so, or the art being so Japan-oriented might be a problem for you? In terms of...

GN: What is interesting is this: when I ran for city council in 1984, and I had already been doing kendo in Torrance and we had a kendo dojo, and in one of our campaign brochures there was a picture there where I'm teaching kendo, and actually I'm teaching kendo to Gavin Wasserman. He was about twelve years old.

SY: Gavin Wasserman being the man who...

GN: He's an attorney right now, yeah.

SY: He eventually, didn't he, wasn't he the one who asked you to run for state assembly?

GN: No, that was, it was actually Vince Okamoto, who's a law partner of Gavin Wasserman's father, Ron Wasserman.

SY: So you're teaching Gavin.

GN: Gavin, the son. So we had a photograph of that in my campaign brochure, and this guy's a professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills in the business department and he was a friend of Ron Wasserman, and he happened to stop by his office one day and he asked him if he's seen my brochure. And he said he did, and so he asked him, "What do you remember about the brochure?" "Oh, that George is a black belt." So that was that, okay, but just keep that behind, keep that in mind. So we fast forward from 1984 to 1998 when I ran for the state assembly, and my consultant at that time, yeah, my consultant at that time had, you know when they do...

SY: Some sort of report?

GN: No, no, where you get a group together to...

SY: Oh, yeah, like a, it's called something group...

GN: Yeah, and, and so...

SY: Focus group.

GN: Focus group. And so they, for the focus group they put forward all the positive things about my background and all the positive things about my opponent's background. Then they went with the negative things about my background and negative things about my opponent's background. It didn't register much. And so finally, almost out of frustration, they said, "George is a black belt in kendo," and the thing went off the chart.

SY: Negative or positive?

GN: Positive.

SY: Positive.

GN: And so that, when I heard about that I felt that when I ran for the city council back in 1984 and had no one on the city council endorsing me, that that probably was a big plus for me in terms of getting elected at that time. I came in a very close second. I was like, I was in the lead during the day when the votes were coming in and there were eleven candidates, and when the last count came in I came in second, thirty-five votes behind the incumbent that was running for reelection. So anyway, when we did this, what, fourteen years later for the assembly race, that was the outcome of the focus group, so the consultant decided to have some aspect of that in my TV ad, so on the TV ad, that comes into play in the -- it's a thirty second TV ad -- at the last second. And so the first twenty seconds has to do with other things, and the last twenty seconds shows a picture of my, in the kendo equipment, and I think Helen is in there too with her naginata. And I said, and I told the consultant that, "Do it sort of like an afterthought, not the main focus, because then it becomes too ethnic." So they described me about other things and then as an afterthought, in the last ten seconds, oh, by the way, George is a black belt in kendo, and showed the visual, me with the kendo equipment. And so that was done based on that focus group. So I'm walking precinct in Hermosa Beach and the, I see this white couple walking toward me -- I'm doing my precinct walk -- and he recognized me from the TV ad, and he says, "Oh, Mr. Nakano, I saw you on TV." And he makes a motion like he's holding a sword, and he says, "I'm going to vote for you. I saw you on TV." He doesn't ask me about any issue, but that kind of indicated that the positive effect that that had on the campaign.

SY: That's amazing. And never, you never got any negative other than this little smear campaign that had...

GN: That this one guy was trying to use.

SY: Right, right. So it never, that's really...

GN: I didn't think it helped. I think it backfired on him.

SY: Right, but this actually, in fact, it was the opposite. It actually helped you. Wow. Yeah, that's amazing. It must've been hard to give it up, huh?

GN: It was. It was probably the hardest thing to give up 'cause there's nothing really to replace it. In terms of exercise I ended up walking for exercise, so I've been doing that since 1986.

SY: Really?

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 27>

SY: Okay, so let's get back, so we were talking about working at Hughes and then deciding to go back to college, getting your degree. And then what happened next in terms of your education, profession?

GN: Well, so I completed my lower division at El Camino College, and so I enrolled at Cal State L.A. and I worked full time. And I would take, and they had, they were on a quarter system there and so I would take either two or three classes a quarter, but I would never take three math classes a quarter 'cause that's too much, and so that's what I did. So anyway, doing both like that, there are times when you get sick and you feel so tired and sick you might feel like quitting, but in my case the engineers that I worked with said that you had to make up your mind, that no matter how tired or how exhausted you are, you have to make up your mind that no matter what you're gonna finish, and that's what's gonna carry you through. And so they were right.

SY: So you were still working at Hughes and still going to Cal State L.A. at the same time.

GN: Yeah. And that's how I completed my upper division and got my, and then I could've gotten my degree a little bit earlier with a B.A., but you had to take, at that time, three more math classes, senior level math classes, in order to get a B.S. And I wanted to get a B.S., so that's what I did. Now I think you have to take, like, five more classes, when I looked at the catalog the last time.

SY: And so going back to school, what was your intention, eventually?

GN: Go into teaching.

SY: So you really, you wanted to leave the Hughes behind.

GN: Yeah. And so now I had to do student teaching to be able to teach, and so in order to do student teaching I'd have to put in more hours, so, in terms of the, getting the teaching credential, so I cut back, I was able to cut back my working hours to thirty-two hours a week and complete my student teaching. And so I got my student teaching credential, temporary one, and applied for a job as a math teacher. L.A. Unified had positions open, took a test, passed it, and I was offered a position at Jordan High School in Watts. And I wanted to teach high school; I didn't want to teach junior high, and so --

SY: Why was it that you wanted to leave Hughes?

GN: Because of my desire to have some impact on society, and I felt that one of the ways to do that is to go into teaching.

SY: And when did that desire start? When did you start feeling like that was something important?

GN: In 1969 I got involved with the Gardena Pioneer Project. That was just before I got my math degree. And I guess that's when it kind of happened.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 28>

SY: And what was your involvement with the Gardena Pioneer Project?

GN: We started that organization, and it was mainly to help the Issei, or some of the older Nisei, but mostly the Issei, for those who didn't have social security. And many of them didn't want to go on welfare, so we provided recreation programs for them as well as going on, like the hanami trip, cherry picking, taking them to arboretum.

SY: So, and that just came out of --

GN: And then you had a lot of young people, we were able to engage a lot of young people with the Pioneer Project.

SY: And that was just out of nothing, then, you started this, this group for seniors kind of.

GN: Well, the way it happened was Coral Foundation had a program, a graduate program to get your Master's degree, and they had a process that you had to go through and they were having problems retaining people. What it is is that you'll get, you get a graduate degree from Occidental College, but you have, at that time they made it a requirement that you got to sign some commitment to teach in inner city schools for five years 'cause they were finding people getting their graduate degree and they'll teach one year and they leave. So anyway, I applied and I didn't make it. And I was upset because here they have all these people who grew up in the middle class area and they get this degree and they didn't, they haven't figured out a way to try to retain people because I felt that they didn't know how to construct their process to get people that's gonna be committed. And so, like in my case, I grew up in the barrio and inner city area, and that's what I wanted to do. So anyway, at that time Jim Matsuoka and Mo got involved --

SY: Mo Nishida.

GN: Yeah. We're, we sent a letter to Coral Foundation and, you know, we're ghosts here. You can't even find the right people, people who grew up in the barrio and inner city, and you select people from the middle class area who have no background in teaching or growing up in those kind of areas and you got to get them sign some paper. So then they wanted me to get involved in the interview process and be an interviewer.

SY: The Coral Foundation wanted you to?

GN: Yeah.

SY: Wow.

GN: And that's, and it was at that time Mo suggested that I help Karen Chimori create the Gardena Pioneer Project for the seniors, and so that was in 1969 that I started doing that.

SY: I see. And you just said no to the Coral Foundation, left that behind?

GN: Yeah.

SY: Interesting. I wonder if that changed their, their policy or not.

GN: I don't know.

SY: So this senior, how long were you, then, with this Pioneer Project? It was strictly --

GN: From '69 to, I would say, around maybe 1981 or so.

SY: A long time, and you volunteered your time.

GN: Yeah, and we used to have meetings at our house in the beginning. And then my younger brother Tosh got involved, and so they started having meetings at his apartment.

SY: And this was an offshoot of the Japanese Cultural, in Gardena, the Japanese Cultural Institute? Or it's completely separate?

GN: No, completely separate.

SY: But it was sort of --

GN: So we would raise money and we would get buses to go on these different trips. We would also have a health fair at the, actually at the JCI, so people would get preliminary medical checkups.

SY: I see. And this was all volunteer.

GN: Yeah, all volunteer.

SY: And did you have a committee, or was it just you and Carolyn?

GN: No, there were group people, we were able to recruit people to join the Gardena Pioneer Project, the younger ones that would actually do the legwork with us.

SY: Wow. So that got you interested in going into more community kinds of things.

GN: Yeah.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 29>

SY: And so when you finally got your degree and you started teaching, where did you, what was your first teaching job?

GN: At Jordan High School in Watts. And that time that was a solid African American school, and a rough, rough neighborhood. You had the Jordan Downs federal housing project where a lot of the students came from, and you had these white teachers that would come on campus to teach and they, you know right away they're not gonna make it. And the kids would know, right? The moment you opened the door, the classroom door, they got you figured out already, whether you're gonna make it or not.

SY: Was it was your choice to go there? Or how did that, it just got assigned to you?

GN: You get assigned because there're openings at different schools, and so you'll go there for an interview, you'll probably be interviewed by the principal and the department head, the math department head, and so that's what happened to me. I went there for an interview and they chose to hire me over there.

SY: And so kind of describe what your teaching technique was with these kids.

GN: Well, one of the things is that, they do an in-service for teachers who are going to go teach in those kind of areas and one of the things they tell you is that you can't become friends. You have to know your role as a teacher. And what happens with some people is that they try to become friends and they lose it, and they have no control as a teacher. It just doesn't work. Because some people, because there were a lot of free schools that were popping up in those days that, where you have affluent kids going to free school, but it doesn't work in those kind of areas. Kids want structure. And they'll tell you, they'll come up and tell you, "So-and-So teacher has no control."

SY: So you would be considered kind of strict. You had certain things that you, that were required. I mean, how --

GN: Oh yeah, you're always open to listen to them if they want to come and talk to you, you don't talk down to them, but it has to be clear that you are the teacher and they have to be respectful toward you for that.

SY: And did you experience any kind of confrontations there?

GN: I didn't. In fact, my first year when I was teaching there, just before the Christmas holiday, I decided to show the film from my kendo tournament in Okinawa, and so I did, to the class. And then in September when school opened, one of my former students who saw that was walking around the campus, or in the hallway, with a couple other students that I didn't know, and that other student happened to open my classroom door and peeked in. Then the student that I had from the year before told him don't mess with him, and so the, he pulled out, closed the door. [Laughs]

SY: That's very cute. [Laughs]

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.