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BN: So we move to the Crenshaw area, and do you know why they moved?

JF: Yeah. It's another real estate related deal. They purchase... I don't know how they do this, and it's still a mystery to my sister and my cousin, Mark Kitaoka, how they were able to accrue these properties, the wealth to purchase them, but I'm sure they leveraged themselves a lot. Because he didn't pay all cash the way deals are happening nowadays. But they were able to come up with a down payment, which, for them in those days, must have been substantial, although to us now, it's like pennies. But anyway, they purchased a five-unit complex on Victoria Avenue, just behind... I was about to say Cutter Ford, but that's over there in Pearl City. Lincoln Mercury and Ford, or where Family Savings and Loan is now, or used to be a Goodyear tire place. But anyway, one block west of Crenshaw near Rodeo, sorry, near... is it Obama Boulevard now?

BN: Yeah.

JF: But back then it was Rodeo Road. So Victoria and then Rodeo Place ended right there, and we lived in the unit, they called it the owner's unit but it was just another apartment in the back behind the four units facing Victoria Avenue. So this unit was in the back on top of the garage that were for all the tenants. And in between that space was kind of a turnaround, concrete slab that separated the front units from where we lived. So that's where I moved in '59. And I remember the first day of school. I wrote about this, I remember this so vividly. My dad liked to tell us stories, "us" being my older sister Kathleen and I. Whenever he would pick us up in his Karmann Ghia -- and he always had a Karmann Ghia. He had his first Karmann Ghia from '57 to '67, and he bought his, that Karmann Ghia lasted until, I think, 1990 or something. Anyway, he had it forever. Anyway, whenever we're in the Karmann Ghia, he's talking to us because he liked to do that. And he would take any advantage of having us listening to him. And at every opportunity... and that came for me on my first day of school. So it's my first day as a new student at Coliseum Street school which was the neighborhood school maybe three-fourths of a mile away, right down Coliseum Street. And there was one signal at Buckingham Road that is the only place where you would stop before you get to Coliseum Street school another few blocks up. So he's driving me there, and there's a red light, and we come to a stop. And then my dad is looking at me, and he says, "You know, Jeff..." I think it's because he saw how he saw how new students are being treated at Breed Street Elementary School.

BN: Because he's a teacher.

JF: Yeah, because he's a teacher and he has a yard to be hearing all that other stuff. And they kind of get picked on, so that's okay. He tells me, "If anybody calls you a 'Jap,' you hit 'em." And this is my father telling me this. Before that, we never really conversed about anything serious. We would go on surf fishing trips to Zuma or occasionally drive all the way to Oxnard if the corbina were hitting on rumor. [Laughs] But he would tell me, he showed me how to tie on a hook and bait a hook and look for sand crabs and all that stuff. Never really anything serious -- and this is the first time he really looked at me serious -- he said, "If anybody calls you a 'Jap,' you hit 'em." "Okay, sir." [Laughs] And we go to school and he's talking to Mrs. Stovall, and the irony of this whole thing is that twenty years later maybe, he winds up being the principal at Coliseum Street school, and Mrs. Stovall is still the office manager there, becomes his office manager. [Laughs] Anyway, so Mrs. Stovall greets him at the desk, and while he's registering me, he says, "Mrs. Stovall, can I ask you a question?" And she looks at him and says, "Yes, Mr. Furumura." He asks, "Are there any Orientals at this school?" He's asking for me. And Mrs. Stovall chuckles and says, "Mr. Furumura, Coliseum Street school is sixty-five percent Oriental." So, of course, he's relieved to hear that, but I'm still remembering, "If anybody calls you a 'Jap,' you hit him." Anyway, so I wound up getting into fights with Gary Royce, Glen Hirayama, and I think Albert Grannucci or something like that, my first week I get sent to the office three times. Not because they called me a "Jap," no one ever did at that school, but I was kind of pudgy. Like even Auntie Suzanne, Uncle Nori's wife, would call me "Butterball." So it was like, "Oh, how's my little Butterball doing?" So my dad's instructions were, you fight anybody who disrespects you. That's how I interpreted what he said. He was probably more specific in his meaning, but to me, to my nine-year-old ears, I heard it the wrong way, maybe. So ever since then, it's like, I don't know, you've seen the movie with Steve Martin, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid?

BN: Yes.

JF: So whenever somebody says, "cleaning woman" to him, he's triggered with this uncontrollable rage, and that's the way it is with me. If anybody throws a racial epithet my way, specifically at me, I just can't stop myself. [Laughs] So it's gotten me into trouble sometimes, but at least I have lucked out. Nothing legal, legal trouble, just interpersonal kind of things. [Laughs] Because it's always interpersonal.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.