<Begin Segment 12>

BN: And then, at that point, you also wrote about being in this Squires group, which, maybe you can tell me a little about that.

RO: You don't want to know.

BN: This is what I want to know about, this is the fun part. [Laughs]

RO: We were not the nicest kids in school. But we enjoyed being together  and so we would... I think it was Tuesday nights, we would have our meetings. And we'd go down to J-town and we'd shoot pool, and of course, we weren't old enough yet to shoot pool legally. So one of the guys had his older brother's, something that shows that we're old enough. And after that, we would go to... we'd get some booze and we'd go to a local area and drink. So we'd get home late. Of course, I never did homework on those days. So it was a terrific... I really enjoyed life. And there wasn't much competition in school, so I didn't have to work very hard.

BN: You were able to get good grades.

RO: Yeah, I got good grades.

BN: Doing this extracurricular stuff. How did that group start? Was it just a bunch of you getting together?

RO: Oh, back in those days, JAs were all in groups, and I just happened to be in that one, which turned out to be one of the toughest groups. And I don't know how I got in there, I think they wanted somebody with some credibility so they could help the group.

BN: So it was an existing group that you joined.

RO: Yeah. It was fun.

BN: Did you have like a jacket or something that you all wore?

RO: I don't think so.

BN: And then did you, like, get into conflict with other similar groups?

RO: Yeah. Well, fortunately, we were the toughest group in our school, and nobody messed with us, so that wasn't the problem. We did almost get into a gang fight in J-town one Saturday night. And there was another, in quotes, "gang" there, and there was some discussion between the two. So it's really funny because we actually lined up, two lines that are facing each other, and we were ready to fight. But I'm such a coward that I said, "Oh, what's your problem? Why are you after us?" And one of them, the leader on the other side pointed to the guy next to me and he said, "It's him." So that turned out to be our toughest kid. So I said, "Are you willing to take this guy one on one?" and he said, "Sure." So I talked to the guy, the leader on the other side, and I said, "He wants to take you one on one," and the other guy, of course, had to say yes, right? So we avoided having a gang fight, and then we went to an area pretty close to where we were. Everyone kind of got around them and the two of them were ready to go. And they got a couple blows in and somebody yells, "The cops are coming." So we all had to run away, and of course, we're very happy about our tough guy. And we went and got some booze and enjoyed the rest of the evening. [Laughs] So that was the only time that I can recall where we had potentially a gang fight.

BN: And this other group was also Japanese?

RO: Yeah, they all were, yeah.

BN: Was there any, you'd mentioned earlier about being Japanese and not being, because of that, you're not being picked on or targeted by Latino gangs. Was that also the case? It was just Japanese gangs or groups or whatever. Did you call yourself a gang or was it a club?

RO: I think we called ourselves a club, yeah.

BN: But was it just Japanese groups here and the Latino groups there and they didn't really interact?

RO: Yeah, because we hung out with just JAs and events we went to were almost all JA. One of the guys on our group was white, but everybody else was JA.

BN: But outside of that, you still had friends who were Mexican or Jewish?

RO: Yeah, but this is only at school.

BN: Right, and then outside of school you're in this JA world.

RO: It was all JA, which was, I think that was the way JAs were in those days.

BN: So how were your parents about your extracurricular activities?

RO: No problem. They didn't ask me why I was coming home on Tuesday nights at one a.m. I don't know whether... I mean, as a parent, I would never have allowed my kids to do that. I think maybe the rules were different in those days.

BN: And you're still doing okay at school?

RO: Yeah. Well, it wasn't hard, because I was going to an easy school.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.