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ME: Now, there were four of you. Did you guys help out in the apartment, too?

AK: Oh yes, every Saturday it was our, my sister's and my duty to dust all the railings. And they had these railings all around the apartment, all four floors. And I had to take a cloth and dust it all the time. We'd fool around and just... that was our chore. And then, we, we used the library a lot, it was kind of a gathering place for young people. And we'd go down there, and walk down to the Central Library and have a good time.

ME: Now I'd imagine that at some point, after the chores were done, there might be some fun times to cause some mischief in the apartment.

AK: Oh, all the time. And then we'd slide down the banisters, we'd just do all kinds of, you know... and skip a lot of the railings when we were dusting. My older sister was much more conscientious than I was, you know. So she'd polish the woodwork real nicely and I'd slough off. [Laughs] And, but it was really always a fun time and good times. We were very fortunate. And in the summers we'd go off to the farms to pick beans or strawberries, or whatever, to make our spending money and buy our outfits for the school year.

ME: You and your younger sister, did -- you and Suma -- did you ever... any particular stories you remember about you and her in the apartment?

AK: Oh, I think I was very domineering, and she was much more meek. So I think I bossed her around a lot. [Laughs]

ME: Whatever you say, she did, huh?

AK: Yeah. And she was the baby of the family, and she was weak, she was very asthmatic. So we really kind of babied her along, too, also. But we all, we were always laughing. People were always commenting on us laughing a lot. We were a real laughing family.

ME: The two of you, or the whole family?

AK: The whole family kind of, you know. But Suma and I especially were the silly girls. [Laughs]

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.