<Begin Segment 6>

RP: So you attended San Fernando High School.

JO: Yeah.

RP: And...

JO: I went from San Fernando High -- well, it was junior high/high school at that time -- then I went to Manzanar. I spend what was it... ninth and tenth grade I think it was in Manzanar. Then we went, I went to Chicago. Spend eleventh grade in Hyde Park, you know, Chicago, and high, high school. Then we came back and I put my last year at San Fernando High School. And two month later I went into the service.

RP: So what occupied your interests during your high school years?

JO: Oh, I don't know. Well, some of the sports. I played football and I did some track. And then, about with a lot of interests... in those days it's not like, I mean, when you played sports you had to stay after the school thing and I lived three miles away from school and the bus was gone already so I had to walk home. So it's different. There wasn't too much other things I can do. My mom was working with the farmer there. And sometimes I would have to go out and help on the farm. And still you're talking about a small truck farm.

RP: Was the family, your family, religious at all?

JO: Well, they might have been. But after a while they just got away from it because even though my dad and my mom came from a church family, they didn't really push it. Because we had to work on Sunday. So they didn't really push it. But I did get some lecture from my mom about Buddhism and things which I remember. And she says, "The one thing you remember, you gotta really believe in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself," and then she says, "you gotta get out there. If things got to be done whether you know how or not, you do it. And so that would build your confidence and it will help you, your religious aspect and things." Which he also told me about the different kind of things like you don't come on this earth as a human before you're born, I don't know, a few times as a insect and animal and all that. And then you come in... now I don't know whether that's part of their philosophy or not but I remember her telling me that and other things. But she says the main thing, she says, the church building and all that can be there but, she says, if you don't believe yourself, forget it. I know she used to go before she passed away. She used to go to the church. And I don't know, not at all, whether every week or not, I don't really know. Because she was living by herself for a long time.

RP: Do you recall in San Fernando there being a Japanese, Japantown or section of town that devoted to the stores that catered to Japanese Americans?

JO: Well, in San Fernando there used to be a store called Nakamoto. And Ishikawa had one but they didn't, I don't know whether they survived. The Nakamotos went back to Japan I know that. It was just the father and mother. And the Arlita used to live above, on top, which had, I don't know, one, two, three, three boys or four boys. And there was a, they had a store there. And then there was a, I don't knowm the Takahashis had a... now, this is all along, well, I don't... Hollister or Kelcher or, I forgot the name of the street. Because that's within four blocks of each other. Then they, the other one was the Japanese school, they had the Japanese school on Griffith. However, they're not all... at one time maybe they lived... there used to be a little area across the street from where I lived that had about, I don't know, four or five small little homes or something in there. And they put... a lot of people lived there until they got settled or got a good job or something else and then they moved on. But I don't ever remember that all of us lived any closer than that. We lived within a block or two away from each other.

RP: Do you recall any picnics or social events where families would come together and...

JO: Well, they had the Japanese school used to put kind of things like that. They used to have the movies sometimes at night. And then they used to have some kind of picnic and stuff that they put together. But I don't remember too much about that. They didn't really have a lot of time because things weren't the greatest at that time.

RP: Right, the Depression years.

JO: Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there were that much activities going on. They had some, but not a lot.

RP: Did you, growing up in San Fernando, did you experience any discrimination as a result of your Japanese ethnicity?

JO: I did not have any problem with that, but my brothers did. One of my brothers did, 'cause he was telling me they were calling him names and things like that. Even though he had a bunch of friends, that they were like a gang, and he went, so I don't know. I didn't feel that I was getting discriminated against. But I know some of my brothers were talking about it. Well, they're older too. Maybe it's the difference. People... younger kids don't discriminate too much.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.