<Begin Segment 8>

TI: Were there any kind of events or incidences with other people during this time? Were there any, like, white friends or something that said anything to you about, about the war?

TO: You mean discrimination?

TI: Yeah, discrimination, anything like that?

TO: No, I didn't go through that, but my brother had a little difficulty. So he was taking judo, and just, and his classmates or something, they get into some argument. My brother said that he would just go out there and drag them all to the grass someplace up around the schoolyard and just hold 'em and one by one, I guess. [Laughs] It was so easy for him to do that, he said.

TI: Oh, so let me make sure I understand this. So there was a group of boys that sort of challenged him.

TO: Yeah, that's right. Him and his Japanese friends.

TI: And so they, they challenged them and then went outside on the grass, and your brother, because he was really good in judo, fought them one at a time.

TO: Yeah.

TI: And then after that, did he have any more problems?

TO: No, he didn't. In fact, one of 'em was an Olympic runner, I forgot his name. It started with a Z. He was one of the Olympic athletes, can't think of his name.

TI: So this is Osamu that you're talking about.

TO: Yes, uh-huh.

TI: So he was about, almost ten years younger than you.

TO: That's right.

TI: So he was still in high school at this time?

TO: That's right. See, now, I graduated in '34 and the war started in '41, wasn't it?

TI: So he probably would have been... he would have graduated in '43, so he's, yeah, probably about a sophomore.

TO: Yeah, about fifteen, sixteen, I think it was.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.