<Begin Segment 30>

LH: Well, and specifically I guess I was wondering about the relationships between the Japanese Americans in Crystal City and the Japanese Peruvians and what that might have been like.

MN: Okay. You want me to say it now?

LH: Sure.

MN: Is he on now? What was that like? I don't know if my recollections are accurate. I really don't know, but maybe partially I, also at that time did not know that all the people in Crystal City were more or less elite people. It was a selected people that were... so the Americans, the people who resided in America, whether Japanese Americans or nationals, were Buddhist ministers. In fact, Hawaii people were there, too. We had a lot of Hawaii people, Japanese language school teachers. They were the leaders or responsible people. They were more the Buddhist ministers so maybe they were kind of a select, highly educated group, I think more so than in general. And then the people from Peru, I understand, were just anybody. So they had a wide range of people, and the immigration of Peru was more recent so I think they had more farming people, more lay people, there. So maybe those are the reasons, but I mean, I really don't know, but...

LH: So was there a hierarchy amongst all the people?

MN: I really think there was. I don't remember any animosities or any breakouts or any kind of a conflict, but I do as a little kid felt like we were kind of benevolently nice to the Peruvian folks. We were told to be polite to them even if they were a little bit crude, and a little bit... their Japanese language, the language they spoke was a little cruder if I remember correctly. They let their children run around with no clothes on. Isn't that embarrassing, but we pretend like we overlook those things in their lives and... I think we had a little superior attitude towards them. I really do. It was a classist. The Japanese culture is pretty classist and I think that it is not a, just a mere recollection on my part, I think there was some feelings of American people feeling superior to the Peruvian Japanese people.

LH: And their language was Spanish?

MN: They spoke Spanish as well as Japanese, but their, the Japanese has various levels of politeness and class much more in the regular language, and they spoke a cruder Japanese.

LH: So did these groups live together or were there separate quarters?

MN: I don't know to how they made the selections of where people lived, but you know that map? One side, we were, they were, on our side of street there, I know our neighbor was Hawaii Japanese. He was a Japanese language school teacher. There was another Pacific coast newspaper person. See, these people held responsible kind of jobs. Across the street were the Peruvian Japanese. Across that little roadway there were a couple of Peruvian families there. I don't know if it was segregated or not though, but I do know that. So they lived close. I don't know if they were completely intermingled or not, but I think there was a little bit of a disdain that was covered over with politeness. Now, from their perspective, there might have been more overt kind of discrimination. I wouldn't know. It's always we try to interpret the oppressed from the viewpoint of the oppressor rather than the oppressed. [Laughs] So I would think that since we were more in the majority as well as superior stance so to speak, I guess how much discrimination there really was, you have to ask from their perspective.

LH: Okay.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.