<Begin Segment 18>

MA: What is your involvement with the church nowadays?

SO: I'm an organist for the church. [Laughs] I've been an organist, I played the piano, I started playing the piano at the Japanese mission when I was fourteen years old, and I've been playing ever since. [Laughs] And I, the only time I took off was when I had my babies, children, or when I was sick or something. I'm still playing the -- I never did learn the organ, but one of our minister's wives showed me the basics of the organ, so I, we don't have a pipe organ or anything, it's just a plain organ. But I've been playing that and just, there isn't anyone that learned the piano or organ. And the ones that did know how to play the piano have moved on to Seattle or other places, and so I'm stuck with that. [Laughs]

MA: So you've been involved with the church basically your whole life.

SO: Uh-huh, that's true.

MA: How have you seen the church change over the years?

SO: Well, I've seen the church decline because of the young people marrying outside of their race, which is fine with me, but it just... and then we've had some Caucasian ministers, too, and that's kind of hard, but they've all been good ministers, so we've been very fortunate. As the, it seems like, well, when we were growing up, we did everything for the church. Everything was centered around the church, where now, the younger generation, they have their sports, they get to do everything, and they're very fortunate, I think. And, but, of course, they, lot of 'em don't have time for church, that's the thing. Most of the sports are on Sundays, too, and so they don't have very much time for sports, and the parents have to bring their children for sports and everything. So we really, there aren't very many children, and then the families are not having as many children as they, we used to have before, so there aren't very many children any more, and we have more Caucasian children now. And we have, and the third generation of people, they tend, that's married to Caucasians, not all of 'em but some of 'em tend to go to the Caucasian churches. So it's kind of hard for our church. But I think every church is like that nowadays, they say. But we don't have very many children anymore.

MA: What has been... I mean, you talked a little bit about this, but what do you see is the impact that the church has had in the Japanese American community over the years?

SO: Well, I think when we were young, that church was the only thing that's... and that was used as a community hall, so everything was around the church. Now, you know, the young people, they have their baseball and their judo, and so it's, it's hard.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.