<Begin Segment 14>

RP: I was curious to know, was there any point in your life at this time that you had any interest at all in fleshing out your Japanese ancestry or culture?

CT: You mean to begin to...

RP: Begin to, to sort of awaken to that part of you.

CT: You mean as far as finding out who my relatives were, things like that?

RP: Not so your relatives, but just your Japanese cultural background and traditions and that type of thing.

CT: No, I really didn't because even though I was in a Japanese family at that time, all my friends -- see, my school was, I would say, ninety-five percent Caucasians and very few Hispanics and only one black family, and maybe two or three Asian families, so my contact was with Caucasians. So, and the fact that they accepted me after that small period when we were at Wilma's house and somebody in the street -- I was with Annie, she was much younger -- and they said, this was right after World War II, and they said, "Are you, are you Jap?" I says, "Yes." And they threw a brick at my head. And that's the only time I had discrimination, and then it was after junior high school that, that my peers, and they were all Caucasians, too, accepted me, as one of them. So I was happy about that. And then you move on.

RP: Going back to, to the foster home with the Japanese family, where were they located?

CT: Baldwin Park.

RP: And what was Baldwin Park like at that time?

CT: It was ninety percent Caucasians and it was a very nice town, small town. The welfare felt that I should be out of Los Angeles City because I was too wild and so they said, "You're gonna go live out on a farm with a Japanese family." I said okay. What choice did I have? So I went out there and met them, and the two daughters were sitting on the piano bench and right now, right then I was hostile. I've already, I started experiencing hostile feelings and didn't trust anybody, but they were so nice, the girls were so nice and everything, it was fine. And the mother was trying to communicate but couldn't. And, and then the surroundings was real nice. It was a big house and everything, but... so I moved there. I moved there and then after I got into school and everything my school became my family, and the Japanese, the peers, the siblings, my foster siblings, they were real nice people and they, but they were running their own lives, too, because they were in their twenties or on up.

RP: Right. Did you get any, anything from them, any lessons or as you go through life you pick up something from this person or that person?

CT: Well, Mary, the youngest girl, she was twenty-one at the time. I bonded with her, and I'm still very close to her. I bonded with her. She was like my big sister, but I chose her as my surrogate mother, even though we were, what, nine years apart. She was nine years older, but when you're thirteen nine years is a lot. But she was always so kind and so nice and I did bond with Mary, but I didn't bond with her mother who was sixty because we could not communicate. But Mary, to this very day, we meet, we meet almost every year for, they always invite me to the Nitake family reunions and all the nieces and nephews, now they, there are a hundred of them, from seven children, original children. And they were very friendly, very nice and I'm glad I met them just so I can have this association with them now. The home was okay, but it didn't matter to me because, like I said, my family was my peers in high school and it's very important in those days to be liked by your peers, more than anything else, at least that's what I felt.

RP: Right.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.