<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Now you had said you weren't very sociable.

DI: I was not very sociable, but when I took the so-called entrance examination and the tests at San Jose State, part of it was on personality. And I got called into the personnel office, and one of the counselors, she saw my test scores on my personnel deal and she was worried about me. She said, "Your test scores show that you don't like to be in a social group? You don't like people?" I looked at her and I lied through my teeth and I said, "I'm not afraid to be in a social group. I like people." And I decided right then and there, there's something wrong here. I've been perfectly happy being by myself and just having a few friends, but apparently that, according to my interests on the test, it showed that I was antisocial. I was very introverted. And I said, "That's not right." So I guess part of my mother came through and I decided, "I'd better straighten up here and do something about this." To have a counselor worried about my test scores, I'd better do something. And so that's when I decided to socialize more and get to know other people.

And the Deltans organization became my social outlet. The YBA, Young Buddhists Association in Mountain View, I became a part of that through the Sunday school, 'cause I was the pianist for the gathas, singing the gathas, and assisted with the Sunday school teachers. And so I became also a member of the so-called Mountain View girls club called the Debs. So it was from one extreme to the other in my life at that time, and I had a ball. My brother Albert, the oldest, thought I had gone utterly mad. [Laughs] He said, "Oh, Mom's gone wild." Not mom, "sister's gone wild." So I said, "No, I'm just having fun and these are really nice people that I'm getting to know." And after that, it just opened up a whole new world for me just because of the counselor's statements interpreting my test scores. I just turned over a leaf like that. It was really something. And I started being a more social person. I learned to talk too much. But I realized I'd been missing a lot up to that point. It's been fun ever since. And your father, Tom, was an organizer, and he and Mary made a really good combination organizing outings.

TI: Can you say a little more what the Deltans club did? What kind of things the Deltans club did while you were there at San Jose State?

DI: Well, I think, I just remember the social part of it because it was all new to me. We went to the beaches, we went to Golden Gate park as a group. Just getting to know each other, and we had socials with the Chinese club on campus. Mainly that's all I remember, 'cause I had activities with the Buddhist church side, too, and I got to know a lot of people there, and within the Sunday school group and the YBA group. And various hanamatsuri and the holidays, we'd have stage performances, and I would teach them the so-called folk dances that I learned in the P.E. class at San Jose State. We'd do that as part of our YBA performance, our contribution to the program, things like that. So I became a more outgoing person.

TI: So can you tell us a little bit more about the relationship between the Nisei men and the Nisei women? Because it sounds like they just kind of arrived and they were all older guys, because they had missed some years, right, because they were returning veterans?

DI: Well, I found that the Nisei men, one on one, they're very nice, they're very quiet and on the shy side. All in all, I liked them. At dances, if was fun. They would all line up on one side of the gym, we women would all be on the other side of the gym, they'd all kind of come over to the women's side to ask us to dance. They had to do it all together to give us, give themselves more courage, I guess. So I learned to social dance up to a point, 'cause I never did have lessons. But all we did was walk, walk, walk, anyway. And when it came to jitterbug type of thing, I wasn't in camp. Only the ones who were in camp jitterbug. So I'd just stand on the side and watch, enjoyed it.

TI: Did you notice many other differences between yourself and the Nisei who were in camp?

DI: Yes, they were a heck of a lot more sociable, and they enjoyed the dances. They already had friends galore. That was a big difference. And I had to start from scratch. I felt like, kind of like an outsider trying to work myself in, and little by little, I got more comfortable.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.