by Amy Eto, as told to Matt Morizono
“Word got around that I was teaching the young boys how to dance to Duke Ellington’s music, and eventually, girls started to come around the office.”
As a young girl before camp, I would hang around my father’s grocery store at the corner of 7th and Center in West Oakland. The Black customers, who were mostly from the South, taught me how to dance when they frequented my father’s store. When I wasn’t sweeping the sidewalk in front of the grocery store, they taught me the Charleston and other popular dances of the day.
At Topaz, we had a record player and a little case of Duke Ellington’s records that we were allowed to bring from home. There was not much to do at camp, so my younger brother, Chet, and a group of his friends would hang around the camp office where I was volunteering as the secretary for the manager of Block 10. The boys were in their early teens and had no place else to go. Camp activities for the younger people mainly involved sports and a weekly dance held in the recreation hall.
So I took to teaching my brother and his friends how to dance. It was just your basic two-step and square dance; that’s all they needed to learn.
Ruth,
What a great story…April 29 was such an important day for the Japanese people because of Hirohito, but on this side of the Pacific, it’s the “Duke’s” birthday…
So America…the Blacks teaching the next immigrants the music and dance movements that bind us…now it extends to the world! The Arts truly are our glue, our stabilizer! Thank you for Your work! You do it so well! Each individual has a “story” an important story…you give us space to express them. Until it is done, thank you, thank you, Ruth!
Sincerely with Gratefulness,
Mary:).?