Densho Digital Archive - Art Imagire Interview (denshovh-iart-01-0007)

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RP: What else did you recall doing for fun just as a kid growing up in Oakland there?

AI: Oh, other than breaking neon signs? [Laughs]

RP: Yeah, breaking neon signs and collecting pennies for your brother.

AI: Yeah, you know I don't recall... I had a few friends, upstairs from the shop there were living spaces there and apartments. And I had a couple of friends there but I can't recall their names, and I used to play with them. And one of the things I do remember, though, was that when we were, when we were burning our artifacts, one of the, one of my friends says, you know, "We saw you, you and your parents burning things." And said, "We could report you and you'd be in a lot of trouble." I said, "Oh yeah?" So I don't... nothing ever happened after that, but we did, we did have to get rid of a lot of stuff. My, we had... one of our friends was a photographer and he, we had reels and reels of motion pictures. You know, in that time that was pretty expensive to do, and they burned all those, got rid of 'em. So we won't have, don't have anything left of that.

RP: Yeah. A lot of your family history went with it.

AI: Yeah.

RP: And you actually watched these items being burned?

AI: Yeah, yeah. I remember it was just big old drum out in the back. It was burning all that stuff.

RP: Throwing things in?

AI: Yeah.

RP: Can you give us a little bit of a picture of the, the community that you grew up in, in terms of its racial...

AI: In Reno?

RP: Actually in Oakland, if you can recall.

AI: Oh, in Oakland? You know, yeah, I don't, I don't recall too much after the war started. I recall that when we... down the street was a movie theater and I had just come home from the movies and my folks had this long look on their face and they said, "Oh, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor," and all that sort of thing. And, you know, after that, I don't recall too much that happened other than the burning of the things. I don't remember having curfew or anything at that point, but in some of the books I've read about, about families... like there's this family in Sacramento that they had a travel limit. They couldn't be beyond three miles of their home. But, well, and then we experienced a little bit of that when we moved to Reno, but...

RP: Right. I was getting more at the ethnic composition of the, of the Oakland community that you grew up in?

AI: Other than the, the Japanese school, we'd have programs where we'd do, show our wares on how well we could speak Japanese and that sort of thing and they'd have variety show and that sort of thing. But I don't recall too much other than that.

RP: You said that, that this black girl took you to school.

AI: Uh-huh.

RP: Were there a number of blacks living in the area that, that you lived...

AI: Yeah, my recollection is there was, that there was. Where we were, Seventh and Market, is pretty close to where the Alameda tube was, it goes under the, under the bay to get to Alameda. So it was in a location that was predominately black. I would think that's why the Japanese usually settled, 'cause it was easier for them to get in there than into other communities.

RP: Than white.

AI: Yeah. And, it was... well, actually, the town of Reno, they always had the signs up in the restaurants saying, "Reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." And I was very naive about it, in thinking about that. But, it was discrimination and that, that went on for quite a while after we got to Reno.