<Begin Segment 4>

BN: And then given that, as you mentioned, your classmates are mostly white, were your friends your classmates, or did you have sort of a separate set of Japanese friends in the neighborhood?

JK: That's a good question. I entered Punahou in the fifth grade, that was before the war. And we were just kids together, and we went to each other's birthday parties and so forth. And then in the sixth grade, that was when the war broke out. And by seventh grade, I was beginning to, I guess you begin to socialize, and you begin to notice things. And so although I was, there was a group of kids that color didn't matter, they liked everybody, so we were always very comfortable with each other. But with some, we kind of drifted apart. And by the time I was a senior, one of my friends who was not Japanese said, "Why are you always, kind of like in a clique? Why don't you mix with the rest of the people?" And I thought, "Oh my goodness." I decided not to answer. But by then, we definitely had a clique of Orientals. And actually, that group, we stayed very close until a few years ago when our fearless leader passed away.

[Interruption]

BN: Well, the question and prompt was whether you had separate sets of friends, and then we started to talk about how, sixth, seventh grade, you know, things started to change a little.

JK: Uh-huh, okay. My social life at Punahou, it progressed along, evolved along the years. Because when I started Punahou in the fifth grade, and that was before the war, and we were just kids. And we'd go to each other's birthday parties, we'd play together, and there was not a feeling of any kind of cliqueness or anything. Sixth, seventh grade, we began to maybe socialize and become more aware of each other, and that was when there was a group that it didn't matter. They just stayed the way they were. But there were a few that seemed to notice the difference now and kind of drift away. And I knew that, for those people, I would never go to their birthday parties again. By the time we were seniors, it must have been even more noticeable because one of the girls that belonged to that inner group that didn't care, everybody's the same, said, "I notice that you folks kind of clique, and why don't you mix with the rest of us?" And I didn't say anything at the time, but I did notice that that was happening. And indeed, the plus of it is that group that was a clique then, we stayed, we were close to each other until a few years ago when our leader kind of passed away, and now we've all drifted apart. I knew it was a couple of things happening that eventually, as we got older, I'm sure the parents of some of the wealthy... were kind of educating their children to perhaps date people like themselves. And also, because the war broke out, there was a little bit of separation there, too.

BN: It was right at that time before the war breaks out?

JK: Yeah.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.