Densho Digital Archive - Roy Murakami Interview (denshovh-mroy

<Begin Segment 38>

RP: Tell us about the... part of resettling was also trying to get these dojos started up again. And did your father resume operating a San Fernando Dojo or...

RM: Yeah. San Fernando, we started there. No North Hollywood.

RP: Never...

RM: Oxnard, no, and Rafu was different. Rafu Dojo became something else. Tamachi Dojo I think it was.

RP: So...

RM: Oxnard then I think in the '50s, late '50s we started. I went up there and...

RP: You, you helped start it?

RM: [Nods] Then I don't know how they did there but I don't like to stay there because you got black belts there and they should be able to take care of it. But I don't know what happened.

RP: So you went into Manzanar at what rank?

RM: White belt.

RP: White belt? And you came out...

RM: Brown belt.

RP: And then you, then you received your first black belt at...

RM: Sixteen.

RP: Sixteen? At San Fernando?

RM: No, it was tournament downtown.

RP: So why wasn't the North Hollywood Dojo opened again?

RM: Oh, they had sold it or filled it with lodge. Some kind of lodge. I don't know what kind of lodge it was. It used to be Japanese school, too, but that's all gone. It's a lodge, some kind of lodge there.

RP: So did many, many families resettle in the San Fernando area?

RM: Yeah just about a lot of 'em. They're all dispersing a little bit, little bit because the families getting bigger and go out into all these other places. Dentists, doctors, you know.

RP: So did you see, did you see judo expand its appeal in the '50s?

RM: Oh, yeah, it expanded. Yeah. Fifties, '60s, it expanded quite a bit. Seventies a little bit down I think. But...

RP: How about this Sansei generation, did they...

RM: There's some of them that's good you mean? There's some that are good, I mean really good. Some of 'em that just put the time in I guess sometimes.

RP: And you're still a consultant or sort of an advisor to the San Fernando...

RM: I advise, yeah.

RP: And your son is the sensei there?

RM: He teaches there.

RP: Uh-huh.

RM: Head teacher, instructor.

RP: And how has judo changed since the time that your father was teaching and, and how is it now? You're, are you in constant struggle to keep the old --

RM: Old ways?

RP: -- the old ways?

RM: Yeah, probably. The old ways out, and bring on the new. That's the way it's supposed to, looks like.

RP: So what is the new way?

RM: [Shrugs] I don't know yet. That's hard to say. Practice is different, a little different. But the flows are same. So you can't say in there.

RP: Is the respect still there?

RM: No. Not all of it. Our dojo we try to do respect, but a lotta dojo don't have respect for anything. They just want to be macho. Well, the good, old ways were good. New ways may be better. I can't tell you, really.