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BN: Did your group, your club, have like a girls club that was associated with it?

RO: Oh, yeah, that often happened. I think there were two, because we had kids that were in two different years. So the ones that were in the lower year had a relationship with girls in one of those. But that wasn't an important part for us. We just liked to do things on our own.

BN: And then did you go to dances and things?

RO: Oh, sure. That was the thing, I don't know how it was by the time you came along, but when I was there, there were JA, just about every Saturday, somebody would sponsor a get-together and we would go. Of course, we never did it ourselves, we just went to other people's.

BN: Were you a dancer?

RO: No. In fact, I remember the first time I went to one of these, I didn't know how to dance. So just before I left, my sister said, "This is how you do it, this is how you hold the girl, you move your feet." [Laughs] So she saved my life at that time.

BN: One advantage of having a big sister.

RO: It is, definitely.

BN: And these dances, are you going all over town?

RO: All over town, yeah, JA groups all over town.

BN: Did you, so were you then kind of familiar with the JA kids from other parts of town?

RO: Absolutely.

BN: Because there were kind of stereotypes, right, of how people in the West Side or Van Nuys or Gardena, was that...

RO: To some extent, yeah. One example is that the JAs who lived on the West Side were, had friends who were black. So they spoke with a black accent, and we spoke with a, as if we were Latinos. So one of my cousins was about my age, and he had this accent, black accent, and I had this Latino accent. It's really funny. So there were differences like that.

BN: Did you, in terms of your hairstyle and clothing, did you also kind of emulate the Latino styles?

RO: Yeah. Well, not a whole lot. Let's see, I can't remember how he, what kind of clothes he wore. But we definitely were consistent with the places where we were.

BN: Did you have a girlfriend at that time?

RO: No. I was kind of afraid of girls up until, even through most of high school. I'd go to dances and stuff. Also, I had a problem with my skin, so that got in the way, too.

BN: Yeah, that's a little thing, but big when you're that age.

RO: Yeah, right.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.