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BY: So let's talk a little bit about your schooling. So what elementary school did you go to?

SS: From K through 8 I went to Salsipuedes Elementary School, which was even further out in the country than our house, so it was probably like 8 miles out from Watsonville.

BY: And what would you say was the racial ethnic background of it -- I don't know if you remember -- in elementary school? What would you guess?

SS: The majority was white, and then there were a fair number of Mexicano/Chicano kids, and a significant but not very large number of Japanese, and there were also a significant number of Filipino kids.

BY: And what high school did you go to and what was the racial, ethnic breakdown there?

SS: Okay. So I went to Watsonville High School in the middle of Watsonville. And when I went, I think it was probably about one-third Chicano/Mexicano, and about fifty percent white. And the other fifteen percent was largely Asian, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and then there was a very small number of Black students.

BY: All right. And who were your friends in high school? What was their racial-ethnic breakdown?

SS: They were kind of two... well, I guess there were three groups of friends. So I was in the college prep track, they were tracking everybody. So I was on the college prep track, so I was in the same, in classes with a lot of the same people, so I made friends with a lot of them which were mainly white and Asian kids. And then there was still the church group, I was active in the church youth group. So that was probably the closest circle of friends I had. And then I played football, so then there was the football team.

BY: And what was the makeup of that team?

SS: So the team was pretty representative of the rest of the high school.

BY: And what kind of student were you?

SS: Oh, I was a good student, except for in German.

BY: German, okay. [Laughs]

SS: Yeah. My only C in high school came in German class, because we had an exchange teacher from Germany who expected strict discipline in the class. Since I was... like I would shoot spitballs or shoot rubber bands across the room at each other.

BY: And did you like school?

SS: Yeah, I liked school.

BY: Okay.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.