<Begin Segment 24>

VY: You know, as you're talking about, throughout your life, I'm wondering if this question I'm about to ask you maybe changes a little bit. But I'm wondering, specifically when you were a child, how connected you felt to the Japanese American community? Because you did move from more of a Japanese, American Japanese neighborhood --

MM: That's a good question.

VY: -- to more of a white neighborhood.

MM: It's a very good question, okay. Not much at all. I didn't have... first of all, I had very bad feelings about the Japanese community after we moved out because I started realizing what happened to my mom. And also there was enmity going on between people who answered "no-no" versus the Japanese... what's that group called?

CC: JACL?

MM: JACL, yeah. And my parents didn't have very much good to say about them because they were always on people like my dad and my mom who answered "no-no." So I didn't have very good feelings anyway about that, and I think just, I didn't realize this at the time, but I think that part of the reason I felt so disconnected from the Japanese community at that time was because of what I went through when we lived in that area, and how it was so much easier to live with white people than it was to live was to live with Japanese people. But that's because I think, in our community, things were so regulated and so, I mean, it just seemed like you had to do this, this and this. And that might be why I actually seemed smarter when I got over to Hawthorne. Because, I mean, really, when we played and when I lived on Twelfth Avenue, we played school. And my cousin, the oldest one, was always the teacher, and she would be on your case if you didn't get it right. I mean, things like that. And you always felt in competition with everybody else, and I didn't feel like I had to be in competition with all my white friends. So if any competition happened, it was with my white friends and music, but it wasn't a bad competition, it was like, for me, it was just a scary thing. I'm not a competitive person, I'd rather back away than to actually compete. I don't want to compete, I just want to enjoy my music, and that's why I'm not a soloist like everybody expected me to be. Because I knew, when I was really young, that I didn't want to tell my teacher that, but I said, "I'm not going to be a soloist." I'll be a teacher, but I'm not going to be a soloist. And he told my mom, "Well, she's not going to be a soloist," because I had played with a major symphony orchestra by the time I was sixteen. So, yay, thank god. [Laughs] But I still liked music and I like it... I think I've had a really good life being able to be in a field that, make money in a field that I really enjoyed and didn't mind working at. Although it was hard; musicians don't make very much money unless you're at the top.

VY: You know, I do want to talk to you more about some questions about identity and when you first became aware of things, but I feel like now is a good time to kind of hand it over to Caitlin and talk about your education and your career.

MM: Okay.

CC: I mean, I think we've talked a lot about elementary school up through high school. So you went to Bailey Gatzert and then when to Hawthorne, and you went to Franklin High School. Was there a middle school? You said there wasn't middle school at that time, it was junior high?

MM: Yeah, it's a junior high, so I went to Sharples. It's now called Aki Kurose.

CC: Oh, yeah. And you never went to Japanese language school?

MM: I did.

CC: Oh, you did?

MM: Yeah.

CC: Can you tell us about that, and when you went?

MM: Well, it was right after we got out of camp, or soon after, I think, because I still sort of remember it. It was, let's see. I think I was going to the Buddhist church. Anyway, I went to Japanese school every Saturday for, not like a long time, maybe a year at that.

CC: Short time?

MM: Yeah. So I learned how to spell my name and a few things, but I've forgotten. I still know how to spell my name, I think.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.