Densho Digital Archive - Mary T. Yoshida Interview (denshovh-ymary-01-0012)

<Begin Segment 12>

MA: And so you went all the way down to Texas for college. What was Texas like? I imagine it was quite different from Oregon and Minnesota.

MY: It was quite different, especially the drawl, the southern drawl. That was hard to get used to. Funny thing is, when I spent four years down there and came back up here, everybody was teasing me because I ended up with a drawl, I guess. [Laughs] I didn't know it, but the kids just thought it sounded so funny. [Laughs]

MA: And did you stay in the dorms or did you stay with a family again in Texas?

MY: No, they assigned me as a dorm assistant to pay for my room and board. In fact, they even assigned a, I call it, not really, but a bodyguard. They were taking precautions, I guess. So if I had to go off campus, I had to go with another student that would be like a bodyguard, I guess.

MA: So they were taking precautions in case someone in the town was angry or targeted you in some way. Did anything like that ever happen?

MY: No, no, except a positive thing is when I went downtown trying to get on the city bus, I at first didn't know where to sit, so I went and sat in the back of the bus.

MA: Was it because it was segregated?

MY: It was segregated, so the bus driver motioned me to come up. And so he said, "You don't belong back there," and I said, "Well, where do I belong?" He said, "Anyplace else." So that was my only experience with segregation.

MA: How did you feel having to have a bodyguard accompany you out into town?

MY: Well, he was a nice student, a senior, and kind of like a friend more than anything else. 'Cause I never went alone, I always went with this other girl or some other girl. You know, go shopping or something.

MA: Did it make you feel like you stood out in any way?

MY: No. I guess we just kind of fell in. And we didn't experience any kind of segregation. So I wasn't, I didn't have any qualms about going downtown, because we were well-accepted.

MA: How aware were people, I mean, at all, if at all, in your college? Or professors or... about the camps or what was going on with the internment?

MY: I don't think they knew much, from what I could tell. So I don't think they even realized that we were in a camp. And I don't know if they even realized that we were Japanese, because there were so many Mexicans down there. So I think that helped to integrate, you know, the community. I'm sure that helped in making it so easy.

MA: Just thinking back to when you were on the bus, was the segregation with white and Mexican?

MY: White and black.

MA: And were Mexicans sort of included in that segregation as well?

MY: No, it was black.

MA: Just black only.

MY: Uh-huh.

MA: You were studying home economics in Oregon State. Did you continue on that track?

MY: I, being in a church college, this was Wesleyan Methodist College. So I changed it to religious education as my major. But I never pursued that as a profession. Instead, I went into social group work when I came to Minneapolis, working at the YW with Y teens, teenage kids.

MA: And what year did you graduate from college?

MY: That was 1946.

MA: And you said that you always knew that you would go back to Minneapolis after you graduated?

MY: I think so. I felt comfortable here and accepted, and I didn't know where else to go.

MA: So going back to Oregon or Medford was sort of out of the question?

MY: Out of the question, I think. 'Cause I had gotten my sister out here, and my older sister was here, and my father and my brother, so we kind of planted our roots here, I guess.