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TI: Can you tell us what Orem was like, your impressions when you got there?

DI: Well, the Mormon people were very friendly; we were thankful for that. They didn't show any prejudice. The families were very friendly, and I was trying to remember the name of the family that we worked for. I forgot the first family's name. Anyway they had a large house plus a smaller house. We took over the smaller house which had a basement. So the Sugimotos lived in the basement, we were on the regular floor level, and then the Nakamuras took over the main big house that the farming family had, not abandoned, but left to us to use. So the Nakamura family took over that house with their two children. So that was a... I was trying to remember whether it was a brick house or a white wood house. It was white, so it must have been wood. But on that farm they had strawberries, they had chicken coops, there were cherry trees, it was like being in Santa Clara County. And the weather was nice, too, because it was springtime when we went there. We didn't realize it was going to snow in the winter.

TI: So what was your life like there? So you had to do a lot of farm work with your brothers?

DI: Well, after school and during the summer we did a lot of farm work. During the school year, I transferred right into the latter part of my freshman year into Lincoln High School. My brother and I were there. Let's see, my brother... I was in the freshman year, and he was... the high school and the grammar school I think was on the same property, so we were all together there. And the teachers and the classmates were all very friendly. I think the teachers explained our situation to them. So there wasn't any bad feelings or anything. The only time we had discriminatory remarks made was when we went to Provo. We parked the pickup, and then we saw some schoolkids going by, young kids, and they happened to see us sitting in the front of the pickup and said, they just stopped and pointed and said, "Look, Japs. Real Japs." It just took us by surprise because we didn't encounter anything like that anyplace. And that was the first time we heard remarks made at us directly by anyone there in Utah. So that was our first encounter with discrimination, but it's by children who didn't know any better, I suppose.

TI: And so you spent, can you tell us any more about high school, what happened, the most memorable things about high school?

DI: Oh, in high school, they have a program -- because it's a Mormon country -- they have a thing called a seminary where they would like their high school children to take, besides the regular high school classes, some Mormon classes like church history, Old Testament, New Testament. And so not knowing anything about anything, I just agreed to whatever they recommended and I took the end of Old Testament, I took a whole year of New Testament, and it was interesting. I'd never been exposed to it before. And they had dances after school. I don't remember how frequent it was. I never did social dancing before, I just watched. And so... and I helped out with the lunch program because it was suggested I help out with the serving. So I said okay. So I guess that was one way of introducing me to the rest of the student body, of my face, dishing out the food so they can see who I am, I'm just like the rest of them. And that was an interesting experience, too.

And their programs in P.E. were slightly different, not quite like California. They had things like, for the girls in P.E., "Posture Parade" where they all march in all kinds of formations like you see out in the football field. And I used to watch because I had never seen anything like that before in P.E. class. It was interesting. And it was the P.E. teacher's responsibility to train the whole group of girls in P.E. to go through all these different formations: circling, out of the circle, lined up, etcetera. And I was, they didn't seem to mind my watching them, so I watched and got to know familiar faces from my class and so forth. They got to know me. And I had two good friends who befriended me in my grade level and they kind of sheltered me and took me around and showed me around. They were really nice. So I was very comfortable at Lincoln High School.

TI: Were they Mormons? The friends you made, were they Mormons?

DI: Oh, they're all Mormons. They were all Mormons. Even the one Japanese family in Orem, they'd been there since the railroad was brought to Salt Lake City, and I guess the father must have worked, or some member of the family must have worked for the railroad, building the railroad. And so there was one Yasuda family who lived in Orem, and so Mariya, they called her, M-A-R-I-Y-A but pronounced "Mardiya," she more or less introduced me to the various parts of the high school and to the teachers, and she was my guide. She was in the upper grades, but they excused her just to show me around. She was very nice. And so there were always a couple girls who kind of took me in hand at Lincoln High School and later on at Jordan High School, too.

TI: So you went to a different high school?

DI: Yes.

TI: Did you move yet? Because I think you moved once when you were in Utah?

DI: We were in Orem for two years, then we moved to Sandy, Utah, for one year. I graduated from Jordan High School in Sandy. There I met another family, the Mori family. I think the youngest son is now a representative in Congress. Anyway, I met Yukiko Mori, the sister, older sister. And Nobuo, Nob Mori. And I knew there was an older one, Shig, but I never really knew him socially. I just knew Nob and Yukiko, and I didn't know the younger ones at all. And then there was Ruth Naruo. I met her after the war a few years ago. And then Lucille Nagashima from San Jose, she was there. And so Lucille and I became very good friends with Yukiko and Ruth, so the four of us kind of stuck together.

And they would have... what is it? Oh, yeah, I had another discrimination type of thing at Jordan at their social dancing. Nobody would really ask me to dance. And one boy would talk to me. We were up against the wall talking, and he dropped the comment that if I were white, he could really go for me. I thought, "Oh, gee, gosh." [Laughs] So that's the only incidental thing that happened that I thought, "That's not very nice." Kind of nice in a way, but not nice in another way.

So other than that, I graduated from Jordan. I think we had a little program during graduation, and I had a line that I had to say nice and loud. I forgot what the line was that I had to speak up, stand up and say, but they all heard me because my voice was loud, even then. And then after graduation, I think we had a graduation dance in Salt Lake City at one of the big hotels there. And Henry Kasai, the insurance man, was... I remember he was one of the chaperones. And he danced with all of us, and he was a very good dancer. Then I went to the University of Utah after that.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.