<Begin Segment 6>

SY: And you remember when you were in, so when you graduated from junior high school you went to what high school now?

YY: Roosevelt.

SY: Roosevelt. And that, do you remember having certain interests when you were in high school?

YY: Well, I went out for the teams, but we were, like most of the athletics, things were divided into varsity, B, C, and D, and we were, we were always in the C and D classes. [Laughs] I know I played basketball and ran track in high school.

SY: Was that, did you enjoy the sports?

YY: Yeah. We always did something, anyway. We'd go to the playground and play basketball or play paddle tennis, things like that.

SY: This was a different area, recreational area?

YY: Well no, at Evergreen Playground.

SY: Still Evergreen Playground. And so everybody kind of hung out there after school or after...

YY: Well, a lot of people did, so... we were, I was only half a block away, so it was real close for me. In summertime the pool was open, so we'd go to the pool.

SY: So this, the kids that you grew up with in that Boyle Heights area, did you stay in touch with them when you became an adult?

YY: No, not too much, because we, when we moved in '39 to Terminal Island, well, I made different friends.

SY: You lost touch.

YY: We lost touch with them.

SY: So talk about that move. Why did you decide, why did your father decide, and mother decide, to move?

YY: I don't know, actually, but I always figured that they told him that he could make more money over at the other place. And so I was, it was kind of a shock to me when we, he said we were gonna move.

SY: Was it hard for you?

YY: No, it wasn't hard.

SY: 'Cause you were in high school, and then they were just leasing their house? Do you know if they were --

YY: Uh-huh.

SY: So they just got rid of the house.

YY: Right.

SY: And where, where did they end up...

YY: We moved to Terminal Island, and my father started a drugstore there. Well, he took over a drugstore that was, it used, a place where it used to be a drugstore. And he started that 1939.

SY: So what happened to his drugstore on First Street?

YY: Well, I don't know what happened to it. I never went back. Now it's demolished, the building's gone.

SY: But he just left and he managed to find another place, and then do you remember what time of the year that was that you moved?

YY: No. All I know is it was 1939.

SY: And you were still in what, when...

YY: I was still in high school.

SY: You were what year in high school?

YY: A senior, I'm a senior in high school.

SY: So you had to change high schools?

YY: Well, no. I stayed through with some friends, and I just had to go one semester over there.

SY: So you stayed in Boyle Heights and your parents --

YY: For one semester.

SY: -- and your parents moved with your two sisters.

YY: Uh-huh.

SY: And so what was that like, living by yourself?

YY: I can't remember. [Laughs] I don't even remember what house we were in, I was, we were, I was living in.

SY: 'Cause it was with a family, but you had, but there was someone your age living in the same family.

YY: Right.

SY: So you just stayed and shared a bedroom?

YY: I think so. Maybe I had one for myself. I can't remember.

SY: Can't remember. But so, when your parents, that was something that they decided, or did you ask to stay?

YY: No, I'm pretty sure that I would have asked. 'Cause I was graduating and it was, I was a winter graduate, so end of '39 was graduation. So all I had to do was just stay one semester.

SY: So you ended up going through the whole graduation ceremony after high school, and you remember what that was like? Was it a big graduation?

YY: I think there was about five hundred graduates. But I remember the auditorium, but I don't remember anything else.

SY: And your parents came to your graduation?

YY: That, I don't remember. [Laughs]

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.