<Begin Segment 12>

TI: Okay, so Yo, we're going to start the second hour of the interview. And we had covered your, kind of, more early life in San Diego, going to Berkeley, Tanforan, and now we're at Washington University. You mentioned how you were there with about thirty other Niseis, ten from Berkeley. So I'm curious, what was St. Louis like for you?

YM: Well, I was, of course, being from California, we had our first experience with snow. And of course, the weather was, the summer is real hot and humid being in the valley there, Missouri valley. But people were very nice and we got along well. In California we rarely socialized with Caucasians, but there they greeted us and invited us to their homes, and we used to go dancing with them, things like that. Very friendly.

TI: Now, during this time, did the war ever come up in terms of the war with Japan and the fact that you were Japanese American?

YM: No. We might have discussed it, but it was nothing serious. I took a job as a houseboy shortly after I was living there. I lived in the dormitory for a while, but I think maybe, maybe the finances got a little tight or something. Anyway, I looked for a job and got a job as a houseboy at a home about a block away from the university. And she was a writer, she was divorced, she had kids and the grandmother was living there. My job was to wash the dishes in the evening, do the housework on the weekends and mow the grass and so forth. In return for which I got a nice room and fed, you know. Very convenient. They liked me and I liked them. As a matter of fact, they would always invite me to sit at dinner with them, you know. Whenever they had company, I would be invited to join the company dinner and so forth. I was treated very well.

TI: I'm curious, this family, did you ever stay in touch with them, like, after the war?

YM: For a very short while. And I don't know what happened, one of the sons went to the Coast Guard Academy, the daughter, they had one daughter that went to the school at, a women's college at Harvard, I forgot the name of the place. And the youngest son was kind of a different one. He spent a lot of time living with the Indians down in... I don't know where it was in Arizona or New Mexico anyway. He liked to spend his, a lot of time down there. Anyway, she was very good to me.

TI: So I'm curious, St. Louis, you're now more in the South, too. Did you notice the race relationships between whites and blacks when you were in the South?

YM: Never, I never noticed that, no. Not even when I was taking basic training in Florida. We didn't have much contact with the black community, and so we didn't see anything that said "whites only" or "blacks only" or whatever. We knew that the blacks lived in very poor conditions down there, that's about all.

TI: Now, at Washington University, were there blacks attending the university?

YM: I don't remember any. Being wartime, there's probably not too many, not as many as there normally would be. It was a nice school, we had a good time there.

TI: And how would you compare the education level between Berkeley and Washington University? You took courses at Berkeley and then you would take, I guess, more advanced courses at Washington University. How was that?

YM: I don't know. It's kind of hard to compare, 'cause you didn't take the same courses. It wasn't particularly difficult. Not much different from Berkeley, I don't think. It was a very good school, good instructors.

TI: And so this is during the war. How about just in terms of the number of men on campus? Does that drop off because a lot of them went to the war effort, or was it about, still the same?

YM: Well, I think there were fewer men during the war. I think... I didn't notice it so much. There were, we had men in our classes. One thing I did notice, though, is that there were a lot of Jewish guys there. As a matter of fact, it was the first time I was introduced to Jewish food. We'd go out on some project like doing a project at the powerhouse overnight, and they'd give me a lot of their sandwiches and things. Real good corned beef sandwiches, first time I ever had that sort of stuff. But no, I think there were fewer men. And, of course, there were no sports going on at the time, either. No football or basketball or anything like that.

TI: Any other memories of St. Louis or Washington University?

YM: No... I think we stayed pretty much on campus.

TI: How about things, I mean, you... I'm just curious about, like interracial dating. Was that ever happening amongst the Nisei men on campus like at Washington University?

YM: Yeah. I don't know about the others, but I dated some hakujin gals.

TI: And how was that viewed in St. Louis?

YM: No one seemed to notice. I think they were more liberal in that respect than the West Coast.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.