<Begin Segment 9>

SF: Frank, you probably -- compared to the average Nisei -- were... you had more exposure to the white world, right? Your father had a sort of immigrant mentality as opposed to a sojourner world view. You lived in Beacon Hill with very few Japanese families and kind of away from the core community. You had a lot of white friends in high school and so forth. So, in your case, for example, when you mentioned Dorothy -- this kind of prototype of a sort of mainstream American, or mainstream Caucasian beauty as it were -- would, would it be something that you would be sort of... how would you view Dorothy, I mean? Was it sort of like if you could have her as a girlfriend, I mean, would that be something that you'd wear as a glove, is that sort of a, sort of some far off unattainable thing or...?

FM: Well, when you grow up as a kid in American society and read American fairy tales and what not. What you get is a picture of these little girls who are golden haired and very cute, innocent, or whatever. And this is the kind of image that Dorothy presented as a person. And as I say, the fact that she lived only a few houses away from me, in a sense aggravated the image for me. That she, this is the type of image of, that is represented in the American folk tales and here I am so different from that type of person. Now, if I were, if she were male, I don't know how just exactly how, you know, if an Aryan male, I'm not sure if that would have made such an impact. But the fact that she represented so closely what is depicted in the American folk tales emphasized for me what the difference was between being American, being hakujin and being Japanese was. So... I've lost the question you started to ask.

SF: So, so if, if she was accessible to you, I mean...

FM: Oh yeah, I suppose that's... yeah, you know, in the sense that, you have these images of Prince Charming who saves the golden haired beauty from... this is the kind of story that's told. Yes, I suppose, I imagine within the context of this type of fairy tale background, what she represented. Incidentally, I really have to tell you a whole history about my interest in literature and the western writing. Because that comes into play, in part, in this whole area. But reading the fairy tales, of course, is the beginning of all that. And then it goes on into the story books and novels, and the classic literature of the Western society. But anyway, it's in that kind of context that I think Dorothy figured.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.