<Begin Segment 12>

PW: I'm going to ask one more question before we take a break.

RO: Sure.

PW: So now you're like a teenager. I'm kind of curious, what were your obsessions? What were you into?

RO: Well, when you're in high school, you're taking then the classes that are offered to you and you take English and math and this and that. And you had to take either a home-ec class or an art class. I remember then that the home-ec teacher was the art teacher, and then in the classroom, then, they had a desk and so on. And you didn't give the appearance of an art school, art classroom and so on, but there was a row of books lined up on one side. And the teacher says, "I want you to go ahead and take a book." And these were these traditional, what they called Walter Foster How to Draw books. Animals, horses, humans and so on. And she said, "Well, just pick a book and take a piece of paper, go back to your desk and then copy that." So that was my art training. Other than that, then, you took a class in, you were, of course, then involved in athletics and so on, it was another way, because you were with this tight group of people. And so you played basketball, football, and you ran in track and so on. Because the school was so small, you knew everybody by that time. So then... what was I going to say? I lost my train of thought. So anyway, that was...

PW: What about books or music?

RO: Well, in fact, one of things, I think back, I said, "How did this happen?" But as I was a sophomore, and they were choosing then the officers for the sophomore class, and someone nominated me. And so then, of course, I happened to be part of this very hip group, so eventually then I was chosen as president of the sophomore class. What do you do? I'm not that kind of a person. But again, that kind of thing happens, and all of a sudden you realize that all these things you've tried to do to be two hundred percent American, because you're trying to go and change that identity after you'd come back from camp. You don't want to look like who you are. And so you're trying to do everything necessary to kind of move beyond that point, and so you get yourself involved in athletics and the administration, the yearbook, all these things that gave you a place within the school. Because during lunch hour and so on, there was always a small group of friends that used to go to this hangout, but going and having lunch together or sitting around the campus, the same group of people that I had known for this period, as well as some of the kids that I knew in kindergarten. Finally they came back to a point where they, I remembered them and they became very friendly. I remember then that at a retirement get-together, the class would get together and they would say, "Hey, Robert, you remember where we used to go to dance?" I said, "No, I didn't do that." And they didn't realize at that time then that the Asian kids, as few as there were, never attended the prom or things of that nature. And so then these other Caucasian kids, they said they didn't realize that I did not partake in that. My association with the community was the beginning of school, end of school. End of school, I went back to the restaurant and worked at the restaurant.

And I remembered then, when I was a member of the football team, because at that time there was a B class and A class, a difference in age and height and weight and so on. So we played right after school, so then I would tell my mother, I said, "I'm playing football," so then I'd go and play a football game, and then get dressed and come back and work at the restaurant. I didn't go back and hang out with the rest of the class, I went to the varsity game or whatever's on. So my life was very limited at that time, and there were kids that would come to the restaurant, "Hey, Bob, let's go out." "No, I can't, I'm working at the restaurant." That's the commitment that you make as a family member, because the three boys, that's what we did, we grew up doing that. Washing dishes, and eventually they were waiting on tables, doing the cash register and all of that. It was my identity after school. [Laughs]

PW: So I dare not ask if you dated in high school?

RO: No, no.

PW: Your mom and dad had you at the restaurant?

RO: Right. In fact, I remember even after graduating, this other very good friend of mine, I thought that after graduation I had no desire to do, I had no direction of what I want to do. And so then this young, good friend of mine says, "Hey, let's go to college." And that was the last thing I wanted to even think about doing, but there was Reedley College, and there was a bus that came and picked up people. They said, "Okay, yeah, we'll do that." So then we went to Reedley College with a lot of other classmates that I graduated from Selma, from the school. So that was then my introduction then to what art was like, was beginning to look like. I had no idea what that was, and so I had this art class, and I was, "Oh, is this what this is about?" And the instructor I had was, introduced us to a lot of things that we had no idea that was a part of what the art was about, because we didn't learn that. So this was the early beginning of my art, the early beginning of my art training. And from that point on, that seemed to then propel me, and say, yes, I want to continue on with my career and transferred to Fresno State and got my degree. Circumstances and so on, I don't know, just happened.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.