<Begin Segment 19>

MN: Did you date non-Nisei girls? Did you date hakujins?

TY: A couple times, couple times, my classmate girls, went to football game. I really liked this hakujin girl, but those days parents monku you go around with a hakujin girl, this and that. I did it a couple times, went dancing. It was fun.

MN: What kind of dancing?

TY: Foxtrot. Foxtrot, waltz. Those days that's all there was, foxtrot and waltz, so that's what we done.

MN: Where did you go dancing?

TY: We went class dancing and senior prom, and they used to have dance parties. We used to go to the dance parties, and I used to go, I used to go a lot to taxi dancing. You know what that is? Taxi dancing, you pay to dance with, dance with these girls. That's called taxi dancing. On Main Street in Los Angeles, Broadway, Main Street, we used to go there once a week. [Laughs]

MN: A lot of the Filipinos went to the taxi dances.

TY: Yeah, probably. Yeah, all kinds of people. In those days we didn't see too many blacks, but they were all whites and Asians. Taxi dancing, nickel a dance or penny a dance. I forgot what it was, one whole music. It was fun. So that's where I learned a lot of my dancing too. A lot of these girls, your girlfriend teaches you how to dance. It's funny that girls, the girls know about dancing more than the guys, so I don't know where the girls learn how to dance, but when you're down there it's what the girls said.

MN: So when you started to go steady with a girl what did you guys do?

TY: I didn't, I didn't like to go steady. I always liked variety, so I never did go steady. Mostly dancing and football games and different organization meetings, that's about it. We didn't go steady to hold hands under the moonlight or under a tree or anything like that.

MN: So you had a lot of girlfriends.

TY: I had a few in my day, yeah. The one I really liked died on me, two of 'em died on me, but maybe good thing I got this one here yet. [Laughs]

MN: So you also liked to go roller skating. Where did you go roller skating?

TY: I went to the roller dome in Long Beach and I went to the roller dome in Los Angeles. Los Angeles used to have a big roller dome.

MN: Down at the Shrine?

TY: Yeah, the Shrine Auditorium, certain day was roller skating. We'd take girls, four, five girls at a time to roller skating, couple of guys. Neighborhood girls, "Hey, you want to go skating tonight?" "When are you going?" "Saturday night, Sunday night." And we used to go.

MN: What did your parents think about you going out like this?

TY: They didn't say too much. I'd say, "Well, I'm gonna go roller skating." We didn't tell 'em we'd take girls, but "I'm gonna go roller skating tonight," just tell 'em, then on the way pick up the girls and go.

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