<Begin Segment 8>

BK: Well, growing up in Petersburg -- being mainly a Caucasian community -- did you have any kind of feelings in terms of your own ethnic identity? Did you have any questions, any kind of feelings?

JT: No, I knew that I was Japanese, Japanese American, I guess you put it that way. And I always felt just like the rest of the kids that went to school. And there was some, there were Indians in Petersburg as well as the Japanese and I don't remember... there were no black people of color other than the Japanese. And the Indians, the local Indians there, I think, I think they were of the Tlingit tribe, and, but I never knew a black person. Oh, there was one Korean man there, I don't know how he got to be there but he was there and he was Korean. So he was the only Korean man I knew and the black persons were rare. If they came up, maybe one or so was there for a while. And I remember knowing, seeing one person there and knowing who he was but I don't know what happened to him. But there were no black people there. And so we mainly grew up among the natives and the Norwegians, and I'd go, we'd all go to the bazaars and things. The Norwegians were great for having bazaars and having all their native foods so that was interesting. But there was nobody to do anything for the Japanese except for the New Year's and things like that. They didn't really have many activities, no movies. The movies were all American and they used to go to those. But outside of that, not much activity, except visiting socially back and forth among the families, and their work.

BK: So at school, were most of your friends Caucasians?

JT: Uh-huh. They were all Caucasians and a few Indian kids. I used to belong to Salvation Army and there was this little group of girls called the Sunbeams and I was a Sunbeam. And I thought basically, "I think this is for Indian people," I remember thinking. But I was among them. I don't remember any Caucasians in there. And we had our little gray uniforms, and we had meetings, and we did different activities, and that was fun for us. And the Salvation Army was right nearby and so we used to, I used to go there for Sunday school occasionally, too. And as I got older then that's when I went up to the Lutheran Church and attended the adult services.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.