Her coordination had even improved enough that gym class was no longer an obstacle course for her, and Mrs. Winter, the teacher, invited her to join the girls’ intramural basketball team!
As pleased as she was, she reminded herself that this was the school where Ralph—now a senior and an inch taller—had been picked on by hakujin bullies, and he was not alone. It was not uncommon to hear the word “Jap” in use, either spoken directly to Nisei or behind their backs. It was not just traditional reserve that made Florin’s Nisei shyer than their white classmates. The unspoken message they had heard loud and clear growing up was: You are different. You are less. You are second class. Here, among all these loud Caucasians, most of Ruth’s Nisei friends could not help but shrink back a little, going out of their way to avoid any potential conflicts.
Which was not to say that many of the white students weren’t friendly or kind—like Ruth’s friend Phyllis Thomas, with whom she was reunited in school after eight years. And Ruth couldn’t help but notice that some of the boys were quite handsome—especially one in her mathematics class, Will Lockhardt. He was tall, athletic, and had blond hair, a nice smile, and eyes as blue as a mountain lake—exotic good looks for a girl who had spent eight years at an all-Japanese school. He was also absolutely terrible at math—each time Mr. McGregor called on him for the answer to an algebraic equation, he flailed like a drowning man sinking in a sea of fractions and exponential numbers. Overcoming her shyness, Ruth quickly raised a hand and answered the question correctly, so when Will asked her after class, “How did you know that?” she happily offered to tutor him.
In study hall they wrestled quadratic equations to the ground, and over the next few weeks Will began picking up enough to get by in class. And Ruth had an excuse to gaze into those clear blue eyes, to laugh at one of his unfunny jokes, or to occasionally brush her hand against his while writing out an equation—the touch causing a most wonderful flurry of goosebumps.
She had been tutoring Will for about a month when she innocently brought up his name at home one day. Her parents were fairly liberal for first-generation Issei, allowing her to adopt American fashions and hairstyles and not objecting when Horace married a girl of his own choosing, Rose Ishida. But now they looked at her with barely concealed dismay as her father blurted out, “Has he tried to kiss you?”
Mortified beyond words, Ruth said quickly, “No, no, we’re just friends, I help him with math, that’s all.”
Her parents looked visibly relieved.
“That is good,” her father said, “because it is our feeling that Japanese girls should only marry Japanese boys.”
Oh God, this was so embarrassing. “Papa, please! We’re only fifteen!”
“It is not a question of race,” her father stressed. “We lived in Hawai'i; as people of other races respected us, so we respected them. It is a matter of tradition. If you were to marry a hakujin boy, or even a Chinese”—Ruth sank into the cushions of her chair, hoping they would swallow her up—“how could he be expected to preserve our culture? How could he understand the importance of filial piety? These things that make us Japanese need to be passed on to the next generation, and generations after that.”
“Yes, yes, I see, I understand, Papa,” Ruth said, willing to say anything to end this conversation. “You’re absolutely right. And we’re only friends anyway, so there’s nothing to worry about, is there? May I go now?” she asked, certain she would have a stroke if her father uttered another word.
Thankfully Papa just smiled with satisfaction, nodded, and Ruth fled.
The next day she informed Will that he had learned everything she had to teach and he was sure to pass Mr. McGregor’s class with flying colors. In reality he scored a C for the year, but he seemed happy not to flunk out and she was happy—well, resigned—to trade those gorgeous blue eyes for no more skin-crawling discussions with her parents about dating.
* * *
Issei, especially those in rural communities, generally did not approve of American-style, unescorted “dating.” For young Nisei, most of the opportunities to mix with the opposite sex came in group activities—classes, clubs, dances. The one time a boy had asked Ruth to dance, at freshman prom, the poor fellow was so much shorter than she that he wound up staring, with exquisite discomfort, into Ruth’s bosom for the entire length of the song. Then he smiled, bowed, and vanished like smoke.
By junior year she had finally ceased growing, topping off at five feet seven inches—but now the Nisei boys were taller too. At the school New Year’s party, when a studious-looking boy named Freddy Kurahara asked her to dance, she sized him up—he was only two inches shorter—and said yes.
He slipped his hand around her waist as they slow-danced to Bing Crosby singing “Shadow Waltz.”
“I don’t know if you remember,” Freddy said, “but freshman year we both had Mrs. Barron for English.”
She tried to conceal her surprise but he just smiled and said, “It’s okay. I was just a little runt then, you wouldn’t have noticed me. But I noticed you. You always had something funny to say when Mrs. Barron called on you.”
Someone had noticed her? Two years ago? She had a secret admirer! Maybe his eyes weren’t blue, like Will Lockhardt’s—but there was a twinkle of humor in them that was equally appealing.
“Did you grow up here in Elk Grove?” Ruth asked.
“Yes, my parents own a grocery.”
“I’m a farm girl. My parents raise—”
“Grapes and strawberries,” they finished together. She laughed.
“What else is there?” he said. “Did you like growing up on a farm?”
“It’s beautiful, especially in April when the white blossoms appear on the strawberry plants and the fields turn white as snow.”
“Do your parents know you’re here? At the dance?”
“Well, sure.”
“You’re lucky. My parents don’t approve of dancing. They’re very strict and traditional—they believe ‘many temptations will come from the dancing pleasures.’ They’ve forbidden my sisters and me from engaging in it.”
“So, um, what are you doing right now?” Ruth asked, amused.
“I am enjoying New Year’s festivities and good cheer with my friends. At least that’s what I told my parents before I came. After all”—and there was that twinkle in his eye—“dancing may lead to temptation.”
He laughed, and Ruth was smitten.
They began seeing each other at school—at lunch, in study hall, and at extracurricular functions. He came to her basketball games, though he had no interest in the sport; she joined the Drama Club because he was a member. Their only physical contact, apart from dancing, was holding hands or a brief, stolen kiss; but that was enough to make her almost giddy with delight.
After two months of quietly not dating, they decided they were serious enough that they would tell their parents they were “seeing” someone at school. To their great relief, both sets of parents seemed pleased at the news. Freddy’s parents invited her to dinner at their modest home in Elk Grove, where he introduced her not as Ruth but as Dai and she was careful to call him by his Japanese name, Hisoka. His parents were traditional but warm, and at the end of the evening Ruth rejoiced that they seemed to like her.
That night she lay in bed, fancying variations of what her new name might be: Mrs. Fred Kurahara. Mrs. Hisoka Kurahara. Mrs. Dai Kurahara. Mrs. Ruth Kurahara. Counting names as others counted sheep, she drifted happily asleep.
But the next day, when Ruth saw Freddy at lunchtime, his face was a blank slate. He asked her to go outside with him in a tone she had never heard before. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, but he would not answer until they were alone behind the school.
Now the blank slate cracked, and the pain revealed itself.
“I—I’m sorry, Ruth,” he said softly, “but … my parents do not approve of us seeing one another.”
“What?” She was stunned at this apparent reversal. “Why not?”
“They—do not believe in interracial dating.”