<Begin Segment 7>

BN: Were there a lot of kids your age in the neighborhood?

KM: A few, a few kids, not very many. Mostly older people and maybe one other family. The Russian family had kids that were our age or a little older, and we were always in their house. They were kind of a crazy family.

BN: But then you didn't go to school in the neighborhood, right?

KM: No, we didn't.

BN: What's the story behind...

KM: We weren't Catholic, and we would have gone to public schools, but my grandmother, my father's mother, stepmother, said, "Oh, no, the schools are not good here, you have to go to Maryknoll." So we went to Maryknoll, and the bus picked us up. So we both went there all the way from kindergarten to eighth grade, and eventually became Catholic only because my sister, who was nine years old, decided that she wanted to become Catholic. So my mother and I, my mother went to catechism and I guess I already was in catechism, because I was in the school. I became Catholic at seven years old, and my name was changed to Mary Kathryn. So from then on, age seven to the time I left Maryknoll, everybody called me Mary Kathryn. And I remember the feeling I got when I was brought to the front of the room by the nun, and she told the class, "From now on, all of you, this is Mary Kathryn," and this is what everybody called me. I had no choice. I just remember feeling, ugh, kind of this suffocation. And then because I was the new convert, I was given the honor of crowning Mary, the statue of Mary, I think, in the church. And that was a heavy burden for a seven year old, I had to walk down the aisle or whatever it is, aisle of the church, and they had rehearsal, and at the rehearsal I threw up in the middle. It was so much pressure, I thought, oh my god.

BN: But your dad didn't?

KM: No, he never did. He maintained his religion, and he always searched out different religions. He eventually became Perfect Liberty which is another little offshoot religion. There was always this little Perfect Liberty church myth, I don't know, just kind of odd things, just seeking.

BN: Looking back, I mean, how do you feel that experience, the conversion and going to the Catholic school kind of influenced you later in life?

KM: Well, it was not a... it was not a happy experience, it was very suffocating. You know, it always felt very alien. We never learned about what being Japanese was, even though all of us were Japanese. And I was a good student, my sister and I were both good students. So my mother was like, "Always do what you're told, do your best," so that's what we did. And I don't think we were competitive, but we both ended up being at the top of our classes. But my sister, because she was so expressive and not compliant, she often got in trouble. So she was, my mother was called in a couple times because of my sister reacting or challenging other classmates. And I was really closer to my sister's class friends than my own classmates. Because I think what happened at Maryknoll was that it sort of intensified all of the negative Japanese aspects, which was like very cliquish, kind of bullying, and that was, really impacted me in terms of how I looked at Japanese Americans. I felt like I couldn't trust Japanese Americans. Not that I was the victim, but it was like you're always fearing that you might be the next victim, right? So what do you do to protect yourself? So my goal was, I'm going to be better than, so outside of the box that they can't even touch me. So yeah, I ended up being the smartest kid in the class, the person that the teacher, I don't know, maybe teacher's pet, but someone that they really couldn't isolate like that. And I didn't really try to be in that group, but people were really horribly picked on to the point of families coming in when you saw it, and then we also, there was a new kid that came from Japan, nice guy, and he took it. People would make fun of him because he was from Japan. And then people that were not all Japanese, hapa kids, and it was always like, I'd always be thinking to myself, "What is going on, why is this happening?" Loretta, I remember this girl Loretta on the bus, and she always looked kind of sad, and then she'd get off the bus. She eventually left the school, and I met her sister many, many years, like a few years later, happened to meet her at JANM. And she said, "Oh, you must have been in my sister's class." I said, "Yeah, who is your sister?" She said, "Loretta." I said, "I always wondered what happened to her." She said, yeah, she never talked about Maryknoll after that. It's like, yeah, I can understand why. It was not a happy time, and the nuns were, they were strict.

BN: Were the nuns all Japanese also?

KM: No, no. We had one Japanese nun, Sister Bernadette, that was not even a teaching nun. She was there, she went to Manzanar, she was older. And no, most of the nuns were white. The younger ones were really nice, but they came when I was leaving, and we really loved the younger ones because they were kind. The older ones were like, I mean, seven years old, we had the worst nun in the world. And in that class you had kids throwing up, peeing in the classroom, everybody was so traumatized. She locked somebody in the closet overnight, they had to come and get their kid, but people wanted their kids at Maryknoll so you put up with it. Or one kid was chased around the yard with a belt by one of the brothers. So physical punishment was okay. We'd stand there holding books like that, that was the kind of punishment you got. Again, so here I am, you got to protect yourself from the nuns, protect yourself from the other kids, it was like constant.

BN: But from the parents' perspective, they liked Maryknoll because, presumably, it's a good school academically?

KM: It was probably a good school academically because even average students were probably better. They knew more than the public school. And we are Japanese, that was taught by an Issei lady, Mrs. Chujo, whom we didn't take seriously.

BN: Did you have to go to Japanese school outside of that?

KM: No, no.

BN: In part because of that, you were actually learning Japanese, presumably?

KM: Presumably we were learning Japanese, but I think that my mother would not have wanted us to go to Japanese school. She had gone to Japanese school. But no, I wish we had, but no.

BN: Okay. Most Sansei wished they hadn't, I feel like.

KM: Wish they hadn't gone?

BN: Or at the time, didn't like going. Maybe looking back, you regret you didn't learn more, but there were only a handful of Sansei who actually liked going to Japanese school.

KM: I might have felt the same way.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.