<Begin Segment 19>

SF: Another aspect of growing up must have been the dating situation. And so for example in high school, what were the options for Niseis? I mean were they, did anyone ever contemplate dating white girls and all? What was the boundary like at that time?

FM: Yeah, I, I don't recall. There were Nisei who dated white girls in high school I suspect, but I can't give you an instance. As a matter of fact however, I can't give you instances of Nisei males dating much in high school. There was, to my knowledge at the high school level, very little dating that went on among Nisei males.

SF: Was that part of the kind of Japanese, sort of Issei influence in terms of kind of damping down these kinds of...?

FM: I think so. And the influence was not so much a restraint on the Nisei, but a self restraint on the part of the Nisei themselves, because they were not socialized into the feeling that they could deal with a girl, boyfriend-girlfriend situation adequately and so I think most of the Nisei males of that time and for that matter, girls perhaps, just didn't think too much of dating, because of, in a sense, of fear of not being able to function very effectively in that situation. Dancing for example was not something that was, that for example, I knew much about when I was in high school. And in general, dating was not characteristic.

Now, I grew up, however, in a Caucasian community and I know that my friends, in many cases were dating. They would talk about dates and there was one instance where my white friends were teasing me that a certain girl in this class, white girl, was interested in me. What they were telling me, whether it was or was not true, I don't know. But in the white community there was this kind of activity that goes on, that pressures in the direction of dating by teasing or whatever, and so I got the sense that maybe I ought to be involved in that sort of thing and the girl was not unattractive so, you get the sense that maybe I should. But then the kind of reserve that you feel coming from your own Japanese background prevented my ever doing anything in that situation. But that was the kind of experience I had in the Caucasian community. Now the Japanese community, there is this which was characteristic, namely that in the churches we had young peoples' organizations and social activities and we were thrown, men when kids were boys were thrown into contact with girls and that was the level of kind of group socializing between boys and girls that went on at least in our time. I don't, as I say, I don't recall any instances of dating as such. But there was group socializing of boys and girls, provided by the church setting in which we had these Epworth Leagues and Young Peoples' Christian society of one kind or another that provided, that offered opportunities for mixing between boys and girls.

SF: What were some of the activities that, that the, these, that you all engaged in? I mean, that allowed these kind of group contacts between the sexes so to speak?

FM: Well, for example, I belonged to the Japanese Congregational Church. It was one of the smallest of the Christian churches. And however, because it was small, it was advantageous to belong to it. The relationships were, in many ways, more intimate. Also, as it happens, we had a very good group of people drawn together. Perhaps because of the liberal character of the Congregational churches, the people, the members, the family members who were brought together seemed to have the kind of liberal orientation that would allow for freer activity than in some other churches. In any event, we had a very good group of young people together. And I enjoyed the contacts I had with the girls who were in our church. But it was mainly a matter of church socials where we would come together and play games.

SF: What kind of games?

FM: Hmm?

SF: What kind of games would these be?

FM: Gosh, I can't remember what those games were, sometimes, you know, parlor games. Or you know, musical chairs type of things. Could be any game. You think they're silly and dumb games now, but for us at that time, why they were a way of getting together in a fashion that, that seemed very enjoyable. And the other thing was that we would put on events for money raising and help with the bazaar.

SF: Booth at the festival or that sort of thing.

FM: And we even did drama, put on shows at Nippon Kan Hall as I recall a couple of times. I don't recall whether that was mainly for money raising, I suppose it was. But in any event, it involves all the members of the organization, boys and girls together were engaged in doing shows, entertainment of one kind or another and, that was the type of thing we did.

SF: What did...

FM: I don't recall if we ever did dancing, social dancing in that setting.

[Interruption]

SF: In terms of the, these boy-girl get together and these institutionalized context, did they sometimes spin off to, "Hey, let's all go to the beach and we'll have a picnic on the beach," and, away from the institutional context, something a little more liberal if you want to call it that?

FM: Yeah. No, it did not. There were picnics and there were parties, but the whole church would do it. And then the kids would in a sense be engaged in their own group separate from the Issei parents, but nevertheless it was usually a family affair, or the whole entire church affair that was involved. I don't recall -- well there may have been occasions when the young people just took off together by themselves, but nevertheless, it was not as if you had small groups of the church members breaking off and doing something together. It was rather the church group if it was the Nisei, the Nisei going off by themselves, but as a, still as an institutional group, rather than that groups were breaking off from the church setting.

SF: That seems pretty amazing, right? I mean that it's so kind of contextualized within these institutions?

FM: Yeah, it is. As I think of it now, but yeah. It was not... I suppose we are just not sufficiently oriented towards individualized boy and girl activity to engage in that kind of thing.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.