Densho Digital Archive - Yo Shibuya Interview (denshovh-syo-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: Did you have any plans to attend college, to leave camp and attend college? Is that something that kind of grew while you were at Manzanar?

YS: Well, yeah, my mom's, my mother said, "After you get out, go to college." And then, that's how I wound up back in Iowa. I went to Morningside in Sioux City, Sioux City, Iowa, Morningside College. Then I graduated from there. Then I finished up here at SC went on, went through my dental.

RP: Why did you choose to go to Morningside?

YS: Well actually... let's see. The World Student Organization, or something like that, were giving out like a, like a scholarship or a financial aid for those who wanted to go, and why I picked Morningside in Sioux City, I don't, I can't remember or... whether they offered, this group, the World Student whatever it was, that if I wanted to go there that I'd have financial aid. And then like Gordon, he went to Central College in Pella, Iowa. And would you believe, one day I was going down Sioux City riding a streetcar, I was going into town, and Gordon saw me on the streetcar. He had hitchhiked from Pella, Iowa, which I'm sure is a couple hundred miles away, and then he yells at me. He's on the street and he yells at me. And he's running towards the streetcar. I mean, you do these crazy things while you're young, right? [Laughs]

RP: So, also, weren't there other... did Bruce Kaji also go?

YS: Yeah, Bruce went. Bruce came in the second semester of the freshman year. I think it was February of 1945. He came, he came and another friend of ours in the same class was Sam Ono. He also attended Morningside from February to June. When the semester ended I think both of them got drafted, they went into the army, see.

RP: Let's talk about a little bit, about your music, musical pursuits while you were at Morningside College.

YS: Uh-huh.

RP: You were involved in a few local bands?

YS: Yes.

RP: Tell us about that.

YS: Well Don Oliver was one band. Let's see, it was four saxes, three trumpets, a trombone, and a... eleven piece band. And we played like gigs about every week. Like, either Friday-Saturday, or a Saturday gig. Yeah, he was a pretty well established band back there. And, and then I played with them for quite a while and of course uh... Another, another band I played with was Ed Osborn. I don't know whether I told you about that? Ed Osborn... another band was Brownie Walters... but they would call you, you know. If they were short a man they would just call you. Since I was in the union and if they were short a man they would either go to the union and find out who, they'd get a list of the names and then they're on the phone and then of course if you're available you'd go.

RP: And it wasn't like Manzanar where you didn't get paid. These were paying gigs, right?

YS: Oh yeah, it was a paying gig, yeah.

RP: So were you able to finance some of your school expenses?

YS: Yeah. Yeah, if I didn't have, if I wasn't playing I'd starve, I would have starved. I'll put it that way.

RP: So, were there...

YS: You know, I'll tell you, when you're making fifty cents an hour back then, washing dishes and you get, and you're in the union making three bucks an hour, that's a lot of difference. It's only three bucks an hour back then but when you can go have a cup of coffee and a doughnut for ten cents and you could have a hamburger steak dinner eat it for twenty-five cents or forty cents, three bucks goes a long ways you know. And so that was a, that was a lot of money back then. And, and the union paid a four hour gig, you got twelve bucks. And I was going to school and I was renting a room in a private, you know, a resident. And you're paying two dollars a week or two and a half a week, so twelve bucks meant a lot. It was a lot of money back then.

RP: So how were you treated in Sioux City as a Japanese American?

YS: No, I was treated fine, yeah. The first... well, when you go to play a gig in the Midwest they've never seen an Oriental. You go in some of these farm towns and you play in a gig there, all the kids would come over and look at you and say who is this guy, you know. They wonder... yeah. And same way that they... let's see, in nineteen-forty, '49 I went on a road band and we were playing one night in South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and of course during the break they'd come up and ask you, "What are you?" So we'd tell 'em, "Oh, I'm Guamese," or some ridiculous...

RP: You shared one story about touring with that band, I think it was at intermission, you went to go have a beer.

YS: Yeah, yeah. This was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And I said, "I'll have a beer." 'Cause everybody else, all the guys in the band... "I'll have a beer." And the lady, and the waitress says, "Sorry, can't serve you." I said, "How come?" She says, "We don't serve Indians beer." This is South Dakota. No alcohol for Indians in South Dakota. So all the guys in the band razzed me. [Laughs]

RP: And so initially what was your course of studies at Morningside?

YS: What did I...

RP: What did you study originally when you went to college there?

YS: Well, I was a math major, math and a chem major. Then I had the, well, I had the requirements for dental school and that's... then I applied. That's how I got, wound up goin' to SC.