<Begin Segment 8>

JT: Well, let's go back to those days when you lived in that, you called it the schoolhouse?

KN: Yeah, gakuen.

JT: You lived there. Did you go to school? By then you were able to go to school.

KN: Yeah, I was, like, in the fourth, fifth grade. We walked to Porter School.

JT: Oh, so you went to Porter School.

KN: Yeah.

JT: Did you have a lot of friends, Japanese friends?

KN: No, I didn't have any Japanese friends, because there was nobody my age. I don't know why, but all I had was my regular hakujin friends. And they were all nice to me, I was nice to them. Of course, I guess when you're younger, none of this stuff affected us.

JT: You don't remember being called names for being Japanese.

KN: No. I was their best friend and they were my best friends.

JT: What kind of things did you do with them?

KN: We had, we played our pickup baseball games and football games. Like Kiyoshi Naito was here. Came to the United States with his father, Reverend Naito.

JT: When you were young? Is he your age?

KN: And we used to walk to Porter School together.

JT: Oh, for heaven's sake. And Kiyoshi is Jane's...

KN: Jane's brother.

JT: Brother or father?

KN: Oh, no, Jane's father.

JT: I'm trying to think. Okay, because their father was the minister here, Naito.

KN: That's her grandfather. Jane is Kiyoshi's daughter, her father was, I mean, her grandfather was the minister here.

JT: Right, exactly.

[Interruption]

JT: So at Porter School, what kind of things do you remember? Were you, what kind of student were you?

KN: So-so.

JT: What did you like to do?

KN: Play baseball and play football.

JT: You were an athlete.

KN: Well, I was always on a good team.

JT: You were?

KN: Of course, because I made the team.

JT: Were you picked first?

KN: Of course. But I was small, too, I don't know why. Maybe that's why I am...

JT: You're like that guy on the 49ers, Frank Gore.

KN: There was one hard teacher that, his name was Oppenheimer. And why I remember him, I have no idea, but it was probably the strictest teacher, but he was straightforward and I don't know why I liked him.

JT: Did he like you?

KN: He liked everybody.

JT: You liked him because...

KN: I kind of liked him, but he was...

JT: ...you respected him.

KN: And today, for me to remember his name like that, is incredible. I can't remember half of the people in my high school.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.