<Begin Segment 5>

SY: So you're talking about how many, how many Nisei, then, were there at L.A. High, do you think, roughly?

HS: There's fifteen in my class, that I know of.

SY: And your class was how big?

HS: There was about seven hundred, I think.

SY: So it was a big class.

HS: L.A. High School was about three thousand, I think.

SY: And there were only --

HS: But our graduating class, I think, was seven hundred. So it fluctuates just a little bit up and down.

SY: So socially, did you get together with all the Nisei kids?

HS: I didn't really associate that much. I used to play basketball in high school, so we had the Nisei Athletic Union, so some of our friends from Uptown... and it was about seven of us that played together for about five years.

SY: What is, what was the Nisei Athletic Union?

HS: It was started by, what's the Rafu Shimpo publisher at that time? He started the Nisei Athletic Union and singlehandedly he started the league, and then there was a Double A team where, the good players, and there was an A team, and then there was a... B? I don't think they ever called it a B, but was Double A...

SY: So you played other Nisei kids throughout the city?

HS: Yeah, they played from all over. Each area had clubs.

SY: Like, for instance, what were some of the areas that had teams?

HS: Just about every area had basketball teams. Hollywood had some, downtown had some. I don't remember East L.A., but Seinan had a lot of teams, and then, so I played kind of a mixed bunch for about four years. There were seven of us that were friends, and my brother joined it. So I was still fifteen when I started playing basketball.

SY: And did you get to travel around to play your games, or did you stay --

HS: They had league, they had high school gyms all over the city, and I forget what the name of it, but this one, I think Caucasian guy had a tie-in with the L.A. City School District, and so on the weekends, why, on Sundays, you'd have all these different leagues. There was double A, A, and B, B teams they called 'em. Then you had junior leagues.

SY: But you played other Japanese American teams, not...

HS: It was all Japanese teams.

SY: Yeah. So it didn't involve playing Caucasian kids.

HS: No. Most, that's, during the war it was all Japanese league.

[Interruption]

SY: So you were a pretty good athlete, then, in high school?

HS: No. [Laughs] I played junior varsity three years. So last two years I was starting guard, but we weren't that great of a team. We were always about second or third.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.