<Begin Segment 12>

SY: I see. So just a little digression, but back to coming back to L.A., you mentioned that it was a hard time for you.

RN: Yeah, that's probably, looking back as an adult, where I feel the most kind of resentment and anger was coming back. Just a couple... one was I was part of Cub Scouts pack, and we went, as a group went to Bimini Plunge, it was a swimming pool right off of Vermont. And when it came my turn to buy the tickets, they said, "I can't sell you a ticket." And I remember, he said, "No Orientals allowed in the pool." So that was like, in front of all my friends. And so, of course, our whole den, pack, didn't go in, but I'm sure after they dropped me off that they went. So that was... and then probably I know, I can remember four times of not being served in a restaurant and sitting there. And they wouldn't say, like, "Get out," but they just wouldn't serve me. And that's the story I always tell, is even today, this is fifty, sixty years ago, and when I'm in a restaurant and the service is slow, I get really upset, and I know it's not the same. So, yeah, not being served and not being allowed into the pool, being called "Jap" and "go back to Tokyo," all of those things from adults. My peers, I didn't get too much from young people, but the adults. 'Cause that was after the war and I'm sure they had sons who got killed and all of that. Yeah, so that was very, very blatant racism. I mean, you can't get more blatant than being put into the concentration camps, but I mean in terms of post camp experiences, it was very, very... yeah, if I think about those times, I get very angry. The camp itself, it's kind of mixed with nostalgia and all of that. But coming back to L.A. was not a good experience.

[Interruption]

SY: We were talking about the continuing discussion of racial prejudice after the war.

RN: Oh, okay. Yeah, so those were the... and any time there's some kind of conflict, they use being Japanese American as the final insult, right, calling "Jap" like that. Someone had rear ended my dad... I went to work with my dad during the summers and weekends, so someone, it was a slight bump, and I remember the guy getting out and saying my dad stopped too fast, etcetera, and my dad saying no. Anyway, and then he says, "You know what you are? You're just a damn Jap gardener," and walked away. But those kinds of things that were quite common.

SY: And do you remember how your father reacted?

RN: Well, he's a fourth-degree black belt, but he knew what would happen. So I know he was really pissed off.

SY: He never showed his anger?

RN: Well, you could see it, yeah. But what can you do?

SY: I was asking you whether you talk about these kinds of things with people who went through it at the same time?

RN: I don't have too many friends who, I mean, that are my age. I don't know why, they're either older or didn't go to camp, so I don't have a whole lot of people to talk about it.

SY: Because it seems to me it happened with more frequency than people usually talk about with you. It seems like you remember it happening quite frequently.

RN: Yeah, maybe it's where I live. Once again, I lived in... not a big Japanese American community area, number one, it wasn't like Gardena.

SY: You weren't sheltered by being within your own...

RN: Yeah. And the other side of the street was pretty much working class white families. And so maybe I got most of it from there.

SY: Was it generally coming from people who were white as opposed to other minorities?

RN: Yeah, my Latino friends, there was no issues at all. Because I think they were used to being treated kind of the same way. So I had absolutely...

SY: So would you gravitate to those kinds of friends...

RN: Yeah, well, even then, there was a lot of gangs around, but if you lived in the hood, you were okay. I didn't join any gangs, nor was I singled out by the gangs there. But I didn't... I had a few friends, but it's not like joining one of the gangs.

SY: Were you in... when you said gangs, they were Japanese American gangs?

RN: No, no, they were Mexican American, Latino gangs. Because that was that whole body over there.

SY: But there was a time at which there were Japanese American gangs?

RN: Yeah, I was a little young, no, or older.

SY: I think was later.

RN: Yeah, it was later.

SY: Yeah, it sounds as if there weren't that many Japanese Americans that you...

RN: No, I didn't really interact with a whole... except for the kind of Kagoshima people, and they were mostly Isseis.

SY: Was there any kind of religious upbringing that you had that your parents...

RN: My parents were Buddhist, but not like real practicing Buddhists, but funerals and all of that, were Buddhists.

SY: They didn't go to temple or...

RN: Not that often, no.

SY: ...encouraged you, you weren't active...

RN: No, no.

SY: So that was a way that a lot of Japanese Americans stayed together, but you didn't necessarily?

RN: I wish I had. Later as an adult, we go to temple all the time, partly for, so the kids could have some exposure to JA, Japanese culture.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.