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RP: What do you, what do you remember about growing up in Boyle Heights? Or, can you tell us a little bit about the community of Boyle Heights?

MW: Right.

RP: And ethnically, it was a very diverse neighborhood.

MW: Right. And so, but there were a lot of Japanese families on my block. I lived on, in East L.A. by First and Soto. And anyway, there were a lot of kids around there and activities and we were, when they started Maryknoll school, that was a Catholic school, for some reason, they came to my dad and my dad gave a donation and we went to Catholic school. [Laughs] So every day I remember the bus would come and pick us up and we would wear our little uniforms and we'd go to Catholic school. But then, when we went to camp, for some reason, I became a Protestant. I don't know... 'cause all my girlfriends were going to this other church, so I went there. But my parents were Shinto, very interesting religion.

RP: Can you describe Shinto for us a little bit?

MW: I mean they, I mean at... all I know is the rituals that they went through. They never forced it upon us and my dad says, "Well, this is America so let the kids go to a Christian church." So that's, my life was encompassed a lot in, in the church. And, but it's kind of nice that the tolerance was there. So I thought that's good. It made a great bearing on me because a lot... most of my friends' parents were Buddhist. My parents were Shinto and then there's Christians and so nobody said, "Oh, you're bad," or anything like that. It was accepted so I thought that was good.

RP: You also had a lot of Jewish friends too, growing up.

MW: Oh, definitely uh-huh, right. Especially after the war. After we came back from Utah, we settled again in, in East L.A. And it was, it was predominately Jewish. 'Cause all the businesses on Wabash Avenue were all Jewish. And anyway, my my girlfriend said, "You want to go to a show with me?" I said, "Sure, I'll go to a show with you." So we went to the show. It's just a block away. And anyway, the teacher said, "Okay, everybody get up. Boy, girl, boy, girl." And we're gonna do the Horah, right, da-da-da-da-da [Singing] and so anyway, said to get up. And so my girlfriend and I that went, we separated and a boy came in between us. And the boy says, "I don't want to hold her hand." So the teacher got really mad at him and says, "Why don't you want to hold her hand?" So obviously I thought I was the only Asian. Everybody else had a white face. So I said oh, here we go again. But he says, "I don't want to hold Fatty's hand." See, the girl I went with was obese. And I thought, wow. I mean, it was the first time I wasn't prejudiced. It wasn't because of me, but because of her physical build. So that stuck in my head forever. But then I did walk home with the kids to the Menorah Center, coming home from school and there was a swimming pool in there. But we couldn't go in there 'cause you had to be Jewish to go in there. So I sat on the outside and they left all their books with me and I'd do my homework. And then we'd go home. But, I mean, I didn't, I didn't think anything of it. Yeah. And then, of course, my Mexican girlfriends, I went to Catechism with them And, yeah, it was a wonderful upbringing and they, they took me in and when they made tortillas, they says, "Come on, Margie, I'll show you how to make tortillas." And so I made tortillas and they were just very... I had a great upbringing. 'Cause then when we went to school and brought our lunches, the Mexican kids would take out their tacos or whatever and I'd take out my rrice balls and the, they Jewish kids would bring out their bagels and we'd sort of taste everybody else's food. So, it, it was a very nice time for me and I'm really sad to hear that now in, even in junior high school and high school, that they young kids, if you're black or Chicano or Armenian that they, they fight amongst themselves. And I said that's so unfortunate because it starts right there. I think my thinking that you should accept people started when I was young. And so I was saddened to hear that.

RP: You mentioned the age discrepancy between your father and your mother.

MW: Right.

RP: You're father was much older and...

MW: Right. Because that was circumstances because his first wife died, which was the sister. And so my mom, she always tried to look old. That was interesting. In our culture, you know America, oh my god, you get Botox here and there and every place. But, and she always wanted to look old and I remember she had three dresses. One, every day she'd wear the same dress and then when she washed it she'd wear the other one. Then she had a black one. But she never wore that except if she'd go to a funeral or to a wedding, and that was it. That was the extent. She had no jewelry, nothing. Yeah. Very, conservative and frugal. But, I think I was interested in psychology probably because my mom was my best psychologist. She never had an education but she would say things like, "You know if there's three people don't whisper in somebody's ears because it would hurt the other person's feelings." And she says, "If there's three pieces of cake and you can divide it," she says, "Give everybody. But if it's not big enough for all of you," she says, "Just put it away for now." So I mean, these are things you learn as a child and I think that although my mom didn't have an education, she was certainly the best teacher.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.