<Begin Segment 9>

DG: How about the Bainbridge community at large, even the Caucasian community, was there a good relationship there or prejudices, or both?

DR: Well, I think there's, there was prejudice, yeah, there definitely was. And yet there was a lotta nice people, too. So you can't really put it all in one barrel. Yeah, there was prejudice and we kind of just kindly went our own way. We always just, seemed like we all, two of us worked together all the time, just for safety. That's probably why we have a community now, too, because of that. We'll get together without any prejudice and just have a good time.

DG: Can you tell me some stories of examples of that prejudice?

DR: Well, it's just... for once they called me, one time they called me a "brown monkey," why don't I go back to where I belong. And then they said that and I thought to myself, hmm. It really hurt my feelings. Then I thought to myself, "I should have just came back and told 'em, 'Hey, my mom's people were over here at Plymouth Rock when you landed. You go back.'" [Laughs] But you just don't say things like that.

DG: How about, how was it like for you going to school on Bainbridge Island, growing up through the schools?

DR: Well, you know, it was kind of, it was okay. It was okay. We did go, but we just kind of... I think you have to kind of have to keep to yourself, really. I think that's what everybody else did, too. Just keep to yourself and then don't say anything. And then just be... we were just kind of with ourselves, you know.

DG: And did you notice a similar thing with other minorities on the island, such as the Japanese?

DR: Yeah, yeah, the Japanese have always been with their self and respectful, too as we were, too. And lot of... well, lots excelled, too, at school and different things, but they said there was a lot of prejudice, too. Because my friend Florenda Membrere, Toby's daughter, she graduated valedictorian, too. And she told me she really was hurt... she was sitting there shaking hands in the line when she graduated and this lady came to her, "Now you're smart enough to marry a white man." Things like that.

DG: And I remember hearing a story of some young men, before the war, coming over and staying in some bunkhouses and experiencing some trouble at the bunkhouses?

DR: Oh, yeah, there was, there was people, sittin' there throwing rocks on 'em, tellin' them to go home and everything. It was, it was things like that, you know. We weren't very accepted. So you just kind of just stayed out of everybody's way and...

DG: Yet through all that they still stayed here and settled.

DR: Yeah, they did.

DG: So what do you attribute their staying power to?

DR: [Laughs] It's a new life. It's a life that was better than... 'cause they, like you said, they traveled back and forth from California all the way up. And there's, like you say, safety in numbers. There was everybody... the community was all together. And that's how we have this Filipino Hall now.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.