<Begin Segment 31>
SY: So now that you've experienced being a Japanese American in Japan, and as a semi-adult, still kind of a young person, but did you have any reflection about, about camp at this point? Like do you, did you feel, I mean, did camp somehow have an impact on your life at this point? Or did it come later? Or did it ever come at all? Did you ever feel that camp had some sort of... the fact that your parents were in camp.
BW: Well, I'm not sure whether it happened right around the point when I was in Japan or had just come back from Japan, but I did notice that when I was growing up I was very shy and many of my Japanese American friends were on the quieter side, maybe reflective. But we didn't make trouble, we didn't act out. Many of my friends were leaders, but they were always very in control. However, when I saw the people in Japan, the college students, they were very different from me. I was kind of controlled, subdued, quiet. They were boisterous, noisy, gettin' drunk, and all kind of -- and I realized, "Why are they so different from me and many of my friends?" And then I began to realize that we're a minority in America and we went to camps. We were treated differently. And I remember my parents saying, "Don't make trouble, 'cause if you make trouble bad things can happen to you." And so we kind of learned -- or I did, anyway, and I think many of my friends did -- that you don't make trouble. You try to stay under the radar. And seeing how Japanese people were made me realize it wasn't being Japanese that made us quiet, it was being Japanese American. 'Cause the people in Japan, people in Hawaii, and even people in Gardena, they don't act the same way as those of us who grew up in the Valley, I don't think. So I think that was one impact, and I thought about camp. Camp was an experience where it's better to stay under the radar. So it was an opportunity to rethink that kind of an experience.
SY: Did it, was it important to you at that point, learning Japanese, to talk to your mother about camp? Or was it, did that come later?
BW: It came later because then I knew I at least could converse with her about stuff, and my father. So it was nice, coming back from Japan and being able to talk to them in Japanese.
<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.