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TI: So when you say "segregated school," you mean so the Japanese American students could not go into the town school? Or was it just more convenient? I'm trying to understand, was it, was it legally segregated, or was it just more by convenience segregated?

NA: I think, I think both, both convenience and semi-segregated, because we still had Mexican kids and Caucasian kids coming to the same school. So...

TI: So the, I'm sorry, so the country school, you had Mexican and Caucasian students there?

NA: Yes.

TI: Okay, there. But then in town, the town school, were there any Japanese Americans?

NA: Yes, the two families, the one that owned the chop suey house, and the other, the grocery store, their kids went to school within the city limit. So whether we could have gone in there or not, I don't know, but one of the farmers' boy, he said he wanted, he wanted to go to Lindsay High School because it was closer. But they wouldn't allow him to go to that high school, he had to go to the neighboring town called Exeter to go to high school.

TI: Interesting.

NA: So, so I think, in a way, it was, they had a little bit of segregation there when it came to going to school.

TI: Although the, the Japanese Americans who lived in the city limits, they were allowed to go to Lindsay High School?

NA: Yes. And once after we graduated, this Japanese American graduated from the country school, then we were allowed to go to the high school in Lindsay instead of being sent to that other town's high school. Instead of Exeter, we lived in Lindsay, so we went to the Lindsay High School. But this one particular family, he lived closest to the Lindsay High School out of all the family, and still he had to go to the Exeter High School. So I think -- and he was quite a bit older than us -- so I think up a certain year, Lindsay must have had "no Japanese kids allowed" in the high school over there. They were allowed to go into grade school but not high school. But that policy might have changed, because after he graduated from Exeter High School, then we were allowed to go to Lindsay High School.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.