<Begin Segment 12>

PW: All right. So I was asking the question about whether your family was active in the Los Angeles Boy Scout scene.

PY: St. Mary's had a very active... St. Mary's and All Saint's church that my grandfather and uncle were rectors of had a very active Boy Scout troop. My grandfather felt it was real important to kind of bring the Nisei in, just to, that Scouting would be a good way to do that. So my dad and both my uncles were not just Boy Scouts, but eventually became Scoutmasters of that troop, I don't remember what the number of the troop was. They spent their whole adolescences as part of the St. Mary's Boy Scout community and the leaders of that said community. So it was expected of the Sansei to do that. My cousin Mark, who's John's eldest son, was academically great all-state gymnast and an Eagle Scout. So I was the first member of the family who was a Boy Scout who did not attain an Eagle Scout status.

PW: But you did join it; you were part of the troop at some point?

PY: A different troop out in the valley. Which I... to me, the Boy Scouts were kind of this safe zone where I could be myself. You didn't have the issues of race and just basically our troop was a makeup of all valley outcasts for various reasons.

PW: What ages were you involved in Boy Scouts?

PY: Probably twelve to sixteen.

PW: So this is about the same time we're talking about, junior high school, transitioning to high school. What was the name of the high school you attended?

PY: Birmingham High School.

PW: That's right, Birmingham High School. And were there any particular teachers you remember who were an influence, good or bad?

PY: No. I was a really terrible student, to the chagrin of my parents. My cousins were, all my cousins were academically good, and it was just like part of the homecoming queens and all that kind of stuff. I was a terrible student, and to the great stress of my parents, my mother's great ambition, crowning achievement for her, if I had an endowed chair at UCLA.

PW: That was your dream?

PY: That was her dream. I was such a poor student that decades later, my high school tenth grade English teacher happened to walk through the doors of City Lights and saw me working there. I was such a poor student that he actually remembered my name. And he explained, "Yamasaki, you work in a book store? This book store?" And he couldn't fucking believe it.

PW: Did you have super good friends? Did you have close friends in high school?

PY: The people I was closest to were in the Boy Scouts.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.