<Begin Segment 11>

RP: Did, during your upbringing, did you have any experiences with discrimination or prejudice? When did you kind of get awareness that you were Japanese American, maybe different than some of the other people in the, in the community?

NM: I think growing up that, it was a small community, so I don't think we felt discrimination as such. But later on, just before the war broke out, I guess around '39 or something, around that time when Japan was moving into China, that period, there was, a bomb, homemade bomb thrown into our yard. And this was done also on other farms too. But it didn't go off and I had a friend who went... I think the Mexican worker going out to the fields had to go by the road that was in the front and probably saw it. And so this friend who happened to be there got it and put it in a bucket of water. So I don't, I don't know whether it was a real bomb or just a makeshift kind of thing. But it was some young fellows who were out to have a good time. And so I know our place and then this other, Ishikawas farm, they had thrown a bomb there, too. Yeah, but other than that, I, growing up I don't think in like grammar school, high school, I didn't feel any discrimination.

RP: You were included?

NM: Yes, I was able to do things. It was my choice, I think, if I wanted to do more I could have but I didn't. Had to go straight home and work.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.