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VY: I do have a question about Boyle Heights again. I'm just wondering, when you were growing up there, or even later, as you ventured out into other neighborhoods or other parts of the city, do you have a sense of how other people perceived Boyle Heights? Do you feel like there's any kind of stigma or what the outsider perception of Boyle Heights was like?

NO: I'm going to answer kind of complexly, but help me remember your question. Being from Tule Lake, to this day, I get wrinkled noses. There's a stigma for being a daughter of a "no-no" or "no-yes," that starts with that. And I come to openings here, like they have a theater on, I guess it's called Cesar Chavez now, it's like a beginning of something great. And I support Boyle Heights, our family is here, as I said. And I think they embrace me, too, in the sense that they know the history. This city, this cemetery has Mulholland, who brought water to California, and Van Nuys where I reside now, and so in the mix are the Japanese and the Mexican families and Chinese, people who were buried where the Metro is now. And to move all these graves stopped construction. And so I know people from my high school days don't tell people they're from Boyle Heights. I know that, but I'm very proud to be from Boyle Heights. It has taken me a long time to say I'm from the valley, and I've been there in the same house since 1978, which would make it legitimate. Took me a long time to say I'm an Oda. Because my father was such a strong figure in my life, and he said, "But you are wrong." He said, "You take the family crest of the Odas now." My husband even asked me if I wanted to change my name, I said, "No. This is the way it's supposed to be," and I love what Boyle Heights is trying to save. And I am dealing with the development at Tuna Canyon, which the Sunland-Tujunga community is vehemently against. They do not like development, and so Boyle Heights has a feeling of that, too. The change will come, the change has to come, and that's part of life. My father and I would drive on the streets, and I said, "You know, Dad, there's a freeway, you know." And change does come, and it's not all bad.

But I think as long as they make sure that they save their history, there's a lot of kids today that are scholars in Chicano history, and people like that. So as far as having a stigma, even yesterday I said, "I'm from East Los," I'm very proud of that. Because it give me, it's the earth we touch, where we started, and it doesn't matter if you become a CEO of some company or some great person, you have to always remember where you started. So when I studied at UCLA, my son said, "Why would you study East Asian Studies?" I said, "You have to know where you came from first before you can do anything." He's a businessman, he's an executive with American Honda. So he went straight and I went this way, which is fine because you pick up new friends and ideas along the way. So when he was sixteen, I took him personally, I drove two boys across the United States to see our country first showing them the Amish, all these different locations, different things. And then on our fiftieth anniversary, took them to Japan so they could see our other country, so our adopted country and our other country. But they love Mexican food, they love coming back. They don't have fear, I know some people fear, but they're fearing something they don't know. And I give teachers a lot of credit because, for example, I don't have a lot of experience with black people, and there are people who really work wonders with the community. So my comfort zone is with the Latino community, so that's what I tried my best to help them rise up, but never forget the... I think they're amazing, they keep their language. But we lost a lot during the war, we lost our language. We tried to be Americans. My dad said, "A good American is a good Japanese," he's pro-Japan. So if you keep your culture, you're going to be fine. But it's in jeopardy today, everybody wants to be the same, but I enjoy being different.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.