Densho Digital Archive - Mary Suzuki Ichino Interview I (denshovh-imary-01-0009)

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RP: Did you, did you experience a pretty rich social life? Can you tell us a little bit about what, what your family did socially? Specifically how that social life interacted with Little Tokyo.

MI: Well... our social life was really wound around Maryknoll. And Maryknoll was a private school, parochial school. And if there was like festivities, like the Nisei Week, and they would have these dances where we would have to go and practice... we wore our kimonos and we would go, it was just a given. That was one of our social... in other words, culturally you're getting involved in your own ethnicity.

RP: So you went as part of Maryknoll school?

MI: No, we went on our own on that. But like at Maryknoll, we had our picnics, the family picnics.

RP: Tell us about that.

MI: We had our Christmas plays. There was nothing Japanese about that. It was all, you know, it was just good old American. Like Easter egg hunts, that's nothing Japanese. And yet, but we did have like maybe days when we dressed in kimonos. So there was no, what you call it, definite distinction, "this is going to be just us Japanese, and if you weren't Japanese, you weren't allowed." There was nothing like that. So I think that I was pretty sheltered. Because when I went to Sacred Heart, which was more Caucasian, there was cliques. And that's when I found out about what you call cliques, you know. Until then I was pretty naive. And so this clique did not associate with the girls who were -- at the time we used to call them Mexican. Now it's either Hispanics, Chicano, I don't know which one we're supposed to be mentioning anymore. But we used to call them Mexican. And the Mexicans and the, us Japanese girls, we got along real good. We didn't have any problems with each other. It's a happier group, really.

RP: So you... when did first start at Maryknoll? First grade?

MI: Kindergarten.

RP: Kindergarten.

MI: So, let's see, 1930.

RP: You, you were living in Glendale at the time?

MI: No, I was living in L.A. in Boyle Heights, I think it was. And Maryknoll, one of the advantage there was the buses came to pick you up. So there was a safety thing that the parents didn't have to take you to school. And then they took you home. And the brothers are the ones who drove the buses.

RP: The brother did. Which brothers do you remember?

MI: Oh, Brother Theophane. He was like, he used to call me Mariah, all the time. "Oh, here comes Mariah." And so I used to be the one designated to raise the hand signal, you know on the bus, right and left or pause, turn. So that seat was always reserved for me. And then there's oh, what was the name of that brother? There was another brother. It wasn't Alfonso. But he used to always tap his foot. [Makes tapping noise] So we used to always tease him about that. And there was Brother Bernard. Brother Paul was quiet. But, I don't know, Brother Theophane and I, we just got along. [Laughs] Yeah, so I have really fond... and Brother Theophane was the one that was a Boy Scout leader. And I was in the Girl Scouts.

RP: Maryknoll had its own Boy Scout and Girl Scout troop?

MI: Oh yeah, yeah, 145 was really one of the best Boy Scout groups. And then we had two Girl Scout, the younger one and the senior Girl Scouts. And that's, Sister Burkman was running that so we used to go camping.

RP: Where did you go?

MI: Big Bear. We used to do our own cooking. See we, so I feel that I was really, really sheltered. So, some of the things that I experienced... I was wondering who in the heck they were talking about. You know, or why were they doing that? 'Cause I never experienced that before.