<Begin Segment 5>

KP: Back in your childhood, what grammar school did you go to?

TF: I went to Hobart. I think it was Hobart Boulevard, except it wasn't a boulevard at all. It was... I kind of liked that. They had a principal who came named L.A. Trimp, and he was a tall guy, and boy, he was... well, I don't think he was mean, but I know that he took the ruler to quite a few people, you know.

KP: To you?

TF: Not to me.

KP: So you were a good student then.

TF: Well, that's what your parents want you to do, is to be as good student, at least listen to what they say. Because you don't want to have a report go home that you were bad. Then you get scolded twice, because if you're bad at school, your parents don't go for that. So it was pretty good. But in those days, Mr. Trimp was real nice, at least to me, because at noon we'd have little ball games and stuff, and the kind of records he kept, at the end of the quarter or semester or whatever it is, he has his own tally as to who did what on the field, and seemed like I was always one of those who was awarded a nickel ice cream, you know. And so you got to like him for that.

KP: What was the ethnic makeup of your school? How many Japanese were there, how many other...

TF: Oh, well, the Japanese community was located in that area, but I never really looked at it in terms of that.

KP: You just had friends.

TF: Yeah, I mean, in those days, seems like you played with everyone. And I never distinguished anything like that. It was after I got to junior high school when you start noticing that ethnicity seemed like it played a role.

KP: And what junior high school was that?

TF: Oh, I went to Berendo. At that time, the word "Japs" and stuff, you start hearing, you know. And that's not the only thing, because our neighbor built a house there, and this neighbor family seemed like they were the richest one around, because they owned the Granville factory, or Granville area in Monrovia. And to show how rich they are, they came and they built a house, and they had one of these old Buicks, we used to call it a gangster car, because you would hang on this thing, and they wouldn't move with it, but you play like that. And the son had one of those blue, I guess, auburn Cords where you could have these chrome strip, the three stripes on the side. It was a fancy car. He wouldn't let us touch it, but it's the times. Not because we were Japanese or anything, it was that no kids around, you know.

KP: So you said that you did start noticing differences in what you could do in the community, being, because you were Japanese, you mentioned some of the activities that you couldn't do?

TF: Well, the thing about it is that I remember when we were just youngsters, we lived kind of close to Wilshire Boulevard, Olympic to Wilshire, you're familiar with L.A. Well, the Ambassador Hotel used to be there, and they used to have a little pond. And there's another fellow and I went there, we got, we made hooks out of the safety, little things that your mother has, and we tied a string to that, and we were at Westlake, or Ambassador, fishing with that thing, not catching anything, except the guy came and sort of kicked us out of there. But not because we were, not because we were poor or whatever, it's just that you're not supposed to be there.

KP: But you mentioned to me when we were doing the pre-interview, there were certain things you couldn't do like bowling or swimming and stuff like that.

TF: Oh, well, I was too young for bowling, but I hear that you couldn't bowl, that the American Bowling Congress didn't recognize Japanese at that time. I knew that we couldn't go swimming because the swimming pool said, "No Japs allowed." We could go to L.A. High School for swimming, but it's this kind of stuff. And pretty soon, I guess as you get older, you kind of sense this kind of stuff. It's just that sometimes it's not outright, other times you just feel... that's what I mean in terms of the vibration. You don't have to say anything, it's just that you kind of sense it.

KP: Did you attend Japanese language school?

TF: Yeah.

KP: How far did you get?

TF: Well, first of all, I hated it, mainly because you were supposed to go one hour after school. And gee, you know, you have to rush home and then rush in there, and I really didn't like it, because... but I showed anyway. But it was what all the families do because I think they go around and make sure that the parents do have the kids come. I know one time when my parents said something about they couldn't afford it, they said, "Send them for free." And so we had no choice. But I was a poor student, but then I married a gal who was a good student.

KP: So did your brothers and sister speak Japanese better?

TF: Well, they might have spoken it a little better than me. But I think as a group, our family were able to speak Japanese to our parents. But to carry on a conversation in Japanese with someone else would be, I think, carried it quite far. But I would think that that's true with a lot of the kids.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.