<Begin Segment 12>

FN: And then during, during my high school years I was quite athletic so I was on the basketball team and I made the baseball team and so. And we, we thought nothing of participating. But socially no, when they, the kids had parties I never used to go to them. Even if they were invited, I, I...

DG: You're talking about the hakujin...

FN: Yeah, I'm talk, talking about.

DG: The hakujin parties.

FN: Yeah, see there were mostly hakujin.

DG: Right...

FN: Because there was no Japanese in the school at all, even in the high school, so.

DG: Did you want to go?

FN: Well no, I, I didn't think, think anything if they didn't invite me. They, you know, well I knew, I had, I had a feeling in the background because I am Japanese and there, there were very few incidents. There was one time when one young boy, we were in history class and they were talking. They were talking something about Japanese, but the subject came up and, and the boy and the boy piped out and says, "Oh, I remember those Japs living in those squalie houses in Auburn." You know Auburn and they had a lot of farmers living in that one area. He says I, and then he, he the minute he knew, said that, he knew I was there. So he felt quite bad. But otherwise there was no, no incidents in school at all. So we, we just don't recall that if anyone did say anything. Because even during the tulip, you were talking about the tulip festival. I was maid to the queen one year. And so, we, they just really, we didn't feel that we were different than the rest of them. Now...

DG: So what, what did you think Japan was, or where it was at that time?

FN: Well, well... I don't know, I, I. So naturally even to this day I'm not really, you know, a real Japanese in my way of thinking. Because culturally I really never learned how ikebana or flower, flower arrangement or anything. So I feel myself not a very talented person. [Laughs]

DG: But I think that's a real good indication of when you were in a community where you were among --

FN: Uh-huh... right... uh-huh.

DG: -- whites...

FN: We always had neighbors that were white and always got along. And also we, we never thought of any other way, you know.

DG: But the Japanese seem to get along in --

FN: Uh-huh, yeah.

DG: -- in those kind of community. Why do you think...

FN: Uh-huh. Yeah.

DG: Why do you think you were able to get a long so well and easily?

FN: You mean.

DG: Like, like, being Japanese, you were what, quiet or -- ?

FN: Uh-huh.

DG: Did you learn manners and things? Did your mother teach you how, anything? Or -- ?

FN: Well, we were all respectful to, you know --

DG: Well see, and that's why.

FN: Uh-huh.

DG: Why were you respectful?

FN: I don't know. Just, just the way my mother was, I think my mother.

DG: I think so.

FN: My mother taught us to be. So... even among the five of us that we tumble around, we were. And with, with the brother and sister we've all been friends too. There's no, no real enemies among us. Some brothers and sisters can maybe hate each other, but we've always more or less been a close family.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.