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MA: So how involved, then, was your family in the Japanese American community?

BU: Okay, the, again, my grandfather, the Utsumi side -- oh, my father and mother were not at all. Oh, excuse me, my mother was very active in the JACL, and the JASEB, Japanese American Society for East Bay... Services. Japanese American Services of East Bay. She was very active in volunteering for that, that was a lot later. That happened while I was away in the Air Force. But...

MA: But your father wasn't at all.

BU: But my father was not, he was not a joiner. The only thing -- well, he was always a camera, candid camera buff when he was growing up, and he helped organize a, the East Bay Japanese Camera Club, I think is what it was called. So he was active in that respect, but he was not, politically he was apolitical. He didn't want to join anything to, he just wanted to stay away from it. That's the Utsumi side. My grandfather was not, but his son-in-law, my, the husband of my dad's older sister, (was).

MA: Who was the dentist?

BU: Dentist, he was very active in the Japanese community. I think he was the president of the local society and things, and he was very, very active.

MA: So when you were growing up, how many of your friends were Niseis, or was it sort of a mixed-race group?

BU: Well, again, I really didn't get into the Japanese community regularly until my folks bought a photo studio in downtown Oakland in 1940, okay, which was right before, I guess I was eleven going on twelve. And at that time, when I moved downtown, then I moved in little of what there was of Japantown in Oakland, and I joined the Boy Scouts, Japanese troop, and made many friends there. Had several, but looking back on it now, I'm one of the survivors, I think most of 'em are gone now. But that's when I really got into the Japanese society. Because when I went, transferred to -- not transferred, moved to Oakland, downtown, I attended, transferred, went to Westlake junior high school. And there, there were several Japanese. And in my class, there was about half a dozen of us. We all ended up in Topaz together and (were) all in the same class, and we had lasting friendships there.

MA: Okay.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.