My dad remembers being in school with my uncle, and the teacher would say outright to the class that the Japanese were second-class citizens and shouldn’t be trusted.

Shinoda recalls a family story to illustrate how anti-Japanese prejudice in the United States could be explicit, institutional, and normalized—so much so that a teacher felt comfortable declaring Japanese people “second-class” in front of children. The quote underscores how racism is transmitted socially (through authority figures and classrooms) and how it shapes identity across generations: even if Shinoda did not personally experience that exact classroom moment, the memory persists as family history and cultural inheritance. It also implicitly connects private recollection to broader histories of exclusion and suspicion directed at Japanese Americans, especially in the early-to-mid 20th century.