<Begin Segment 22>

SY: So, now, in San Fernando, is there, was there, you said there was a sizeable Japanese American community.

NG: Yeah.

SY: So you still had the Buddhist church?

NG: Right. I hung around with the Japanese kids. My friends were all Japanese. Well, we had, we had Caucasian friends, but not, where we did things with them, but not, they didn't come home with us. They were in your class and things like that.

SY: Mostly social. And do you remember any kinds of anti-Japanese feeling?

NG: No, but see, I am always just so oblivious to -- okay, at San Fernando, well, my, this teacher that I taught with went to San Fernando. She's my daughter's age, little bit, maybe a little older. So San Fernando had their hundredth anniversary, and she was a cheerleader so they, at one of the football games all the cheerleaders from past years are there and cheerleading, leading the cheer, and she looks up at this, the stands, and they're old white people. She's Hispanic, so when she went to school, of course, San Fernando was all Hispanic, so it was like culture shock for her. Well, when I went to school there it was mostly Caucasian. I don't remember, one or two black, African Americans, and I don't remember the Hispanics either except that they had a car club. And so of course my friend who was, the Japanese kids who were leaders were in government, and all the white kids were in government, so I never saw anybody, I don't remember being with the Mexican kids except when there would be a dance and they would do that little choke dancing, and we thought that looked really good. And the car clubs, and they would get into some problems all the time with these car clubs. Anyway, we were, so we're ready to vote for our class, eleventh grade, we're ready to vote for our class name, mostly our class logo, and this -- I didn't, this I found out later, but anyway, I liked this, we were called Utopians and I liked that, was like a Disneyland castle, you know? But then there was one that was Atlas with, Atlas with the world on his shoulder, and evidently it got the most votes, but it came out that the Utopians won. So the group of Hispanic kids all got together and protested, and they had the principal there, and that was my first time that I realized how this, there's discrimination, you know? [Laughs] And I, sitting there listening to it, I realized, you know what, even though I didn't like Atlas, it won. And they were saying that they had overheard during the balloting and whatever, and I believed them, that, I think that's exactly what happened, because those kids, those, they ran the school, you know?

SY: And they didn't, the administration wasn't happy about that?

NG: Yeah, and I think they, he favored, 'cause they were the students, they were the, I don't, the Hispanic kids, I'm sure, were not academically upward bound and whatever, so I'm sure the administration favored, I mean, I know they did. They were those kids who were very active in all the student government and everything.

SY: I see.

NG: But it was an eye opener. I was very sheltered. [Laughs]

SY: And the, and the faculty was mainly Caucasian?

NG: Yeah. Yeah, they were.

SY: So when you say, so you're, you really stayed fairly close to these Japanese kids. You were one of the ones who kind of stayed... is it because of, you had similarities in church and you had social activities separate from everybody else?

NG: 'Cause now my friends were, went to the Holiness Church, some went to the Buddhist church, so now it wasn't, now there was diversity in terms of --

SY: So there was Christian, there were a lot of Christian Japanese as well as Buddhists.

NG: Right, right. So I, you just make, start making friends and they, you're comfortable. 'Cause I know my cousin, her best friend was this Hispanic girl that she's known since, like, kinder.

SY: Yeah, because that area really is fairly, well, at the time, was Hispanic. So you, yeah, but that's, you never noticed any kind of, other than this incident, did you have incidences where you felt discriminated against personally?

NG: I always did, yeah, outside. But I think it started when, you know you're, when you grow, it's like if you grow up in Hawaii, I feel like you have a real good sense of who you are because you're, you're the majority, and I think my growing up on the island with only Japanese people, I mean, I just, I knew who I was. But then you get out and you get these subtle, nothing overt but... and then you go the other way. Now, so now everybody who looks at you a certain way, you're, you lash out. You go the other, a hundred and eighty, right? [Laughs]

SY: This was you when you were in high school?

NG: Yeah. I think I was just, we were just insulated with our group, 'cause we went, when we were seniors we went to our first, we went to the beach party with the class, with our graduating class. I mean, they live a different world. They were smoking. We were very insulated. And then my, another time was when my, I love sports, so my friends said there's a softball league and her friend belongs to the softball league. I said, "Oh good. Let's go ahead and let's join." So we go to this house and they're drinking beer. I mean, it was just, we were really naive. That's just not...

SY: And all your friends were like that too?

NG: Yeah, we were.

SY: So you stayed pretty much to your own group.

NG: Yeah, we did. [Laughs]

SY: Now, did you feel that you were different less than or different, just different?

NG: I think later on I felt less than. Yeah, definitely felt less than, that I --

SY: 'Cause you thought that this, this sort of more active or experienced group was better?

NG: Yeah, I think so. I think I felt like... the fact that I was not confident, I think that made me feel like, well, something's, something's missing here. That, why am I, if I'm feeling something that's, there's something that's there, 'cause otherwise nothing would be affecting me.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.