Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1305/

Tomboy

At that time there was also the dust bowl and we were getting a lot of kids from Oklahoma. We called them Okies. There were a lot of kids—different kids started coming in and there was another girl kind of on the outskirts. She was a fat little girl. Sybil the Oklahoma girl and I grabbed her—her name was Edna. So we three ran around together. So kids would say, “Here comes Fat, Skinny, and In-between” [laughter]. And then during most of the time, even before I got these girls, I used to play baseball and basketball with the boys. And I got called into the office. I was a seventh grader. Called in and say, “We do not play games with boys!” [laughter]. I thought maybe they didn’t like my high-jumping with my dress on. But the principal said the girls play a different kind of basketball than the boys and they have their baseball. Why aren’t you playing with girls? I said, “because the girls don’t like me and the boys do!” [laughter]


communities postwar schools World War II

Date: August 27, 2012

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Cindy Nakashima, Emily Anderson

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project. Courtesy of the USC Hapa Japan Database Project.

Interviewee Bio

Terry Janzen was born in Tokyo, Japan on July 15, 1930. She is half Japanese and grew up in both Japan and the United States. She was incarcerated at Poston for 6 months during World War II. She has been a teacher and a Chair for the Adams County Democratic Party in Washington. (April 2013)

 

* Terry Janzen interviewed by Cindy Nakashima and Emily Anderson for the exhibition, Visible & Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History. A Collaboration with the USC Hapa Japan Database Project, videographer, Evan Kodani with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project.

Mike Murase
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Murase,Mike

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Rose Ochi
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