<Begin Segment 6>

HH: That brings me to this question, how would you describe the kinds of communities you lived in, in that vicinity?

ME: I lived in... in New York, I lived in a community of mostly Jewish people, and both of my boys went to a school which was attended predominately by children of Jewish ancestry. And I think it was good to be among people who were ambitious for their children. And I think in that atmosphere, my sons got through good schools, and I have to be thankful for having lived in that atmosphere.

HH: In that environment, do you recall whether you or your children ever encountered any kind of racial prejudice?

ME: Not specifically. But I think my children, boys did experience being called names like "Chink" or something like that, racial epithets in grammar school. I don't know that it happened in high school, but I think I remember some incidents like that in grammar school.

HH: Did you see any kind of trend over the course of your life, different forms of racial prejudice has taken through the course of your life?

ME: Well, in my school years, we encountered some racial discrimination. I remember clearly that when I graduated high school, all the Orientals and Blacks sat in the back row of the stage when the graduating class sat on the stage. I don't think we said, "That's the way it is, I guess." I didn't notice that anybody protested or anything like that but we felt that we were being discriminated against.

HH: Is that kind of an assumption that you were second class?

ME: Oh, I think so, yeah. I don't know that we had assumed that we were second class citizens, certainly, but we certainly were being treated that way.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.