<Begin Segment 24>

LH: So throughout your school years, were there any other times when maybe this sort of sense of your identity may have come up?

MN: Oh, there was insensitivity, but it's true with everybody. I remember once when somebody, a substitute teacher came in and, "Masako, Masako, is he here?" And all of kids twittered because it was not used to Japanese. So every time they come across it, they can't say it. They trying to call your name. We used to sing these different songs. You know there are (songs), if translated in Japanese, it would be kind of embarrassing songs. You had a lot of those kind of stuff going on. Nothing really serious. There were undertones, though, definitely. You knew you were different. You knew that sometimes -- my closest friend was a little white girl, and I was invited -- I walked her home one day and her mother was home, and she invited me to stay for dinner. And I kind of felt honored. This white family was asking me for dinner, but I knew I couldn't stay. I mean, I just knew I call my mom and let her know and ask her permission. So I came home and explained to my mom that I was invited to stay for dinner and her kind of response is wow, some white families don't mind. That kind of thing so the breach was always there. It wasn't as overt. I remember, now I don't even know if this is true. I recall a ugly look on this woman's face and she spit on my mother's coat saying, "Jap."

LH: And when was this?

MN: I don't know when. At this point in my life, I don't even know if it really happened, but that gut-wrenching, vile in my mouth, that's real. I don't know if I dreamed it or when it happened, or what happened, but I know my mother just didn't do nothing. She just walked right over to the bathroom and got a paper towel and wiped it off and didn't even look at me. I don't know if that's real or not. [Laughs]

LH: Okay. There might be some who view this tape and would say okay, here's an example of where somebody just was insulted and didn't react or didn't reciprocate. And then they might say in the broader sense that okay, the Japanese Americans that were incarcerated, why do they take the insult? Why do they take --

MN: I've heard that. It always makes me mad when I hear that.

LH: Well, what would you say to that?

MN: You're blaming the victim. [Laughs] I mean, it's like why didn't you leave your husband when he was beating you? I mean, the problem is not why didn't you leave your husband when he was beating you, the problem is why do your husband beat women? That's the problem. We're looking at the wrong set. People react in different ways for all their experiences and reaction. You can't blame the reactor. You have to blame the perpetrator. The fault of the action is not the victim, it is the perpetrator, and we have to make sure that -- and we start looking at ourselves. Why did we do that? Some of us think that because we were cowards. We start blaming ourselves and it's always the onus of the victim to start saying what's wrong with us and after you get through, what's wrong with us, you start hating the opponent. Whether you hate yourself or hate your opponent, it is -- breaks down, it is a dehumanizing, negative thing to do.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.