<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Well, going back to just some of your early memories of Mount Eden, just growing up there, do you recall any, like, stories of what it was like growing up as a child?

TA: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was fun time. We were poor, schoolteachers weren't paid that much. I think about a buck per, per student. The farmers were poor.

TI: That's a buck per year? Or buck per...

TA: Per month.

TI: Per month, okay.

TA: A dollar per month. And, you know, that's not much money. And, but anyhow, as poor as we were, we still had fun. We played marbles, played with rolling the tires, the tire rims, you know. And making rubber guns and playing Cowboys and Indians. It was a good time. And, of course, we had our, this Japanese school was there, they had the Japanese activities like the festivals, all the Japanese came, all the kids, they played. We, we did things together and it was pretty nice.

CO: It's my memory that back then, that most of, like, the farming types that came from Japan, maintained a certain village solidarity. I mean, there was a lot of helping each other out.

TA: Yes.

CO: I, I remember that, and I heard stories of where they would go as a group to help somebody plant something or harvest something. It was...

TA: Yeah, they, they helped each other out. Like my father, being, majored in agriculture, whenever they had any problems with, with growing certain things, how to grow or do things, he would go out there and help. Likewise, the leaders of the community, whenever there's problems, a death in the family or, or they didn't have enough money to improve their farms or whatnot, they sort of pooled their money together. They, it was a community. It was a good community and, and the community stuck together. We had our annual picnics. We had our own kenjinkai, the prefecture type picnics, we went out, the Fukuoka people went out and had theirs, the Saga people had theirs. And so, there was camaraderie and not only that, I think that the community not only helped, but also controlled our activities. Like you do something wrong, "haji." Don't, don't cause shame. And people, and they, if you went out alone or walking and something happened, they're always watching out for you. They're there and you know they're there, and so it's not like today where you don't even allow your children to go in the backyard. But then we roamed, and the community people, they knew you by name, and it was friendly. We thought it was great.

TI: Was there extra pressure on you because your, your dad was the Japanese school teacher?

TA: Yeah. Extra pressure. Pressure that I should behave better than the rest, pressures that I should speak Japanese, which I hated. [Laughs] And I should have learned more, but anyhow, I... and he was a disciplinarian. He, he wanted us to follow the Japanese culture, and as a result, I had to go that extra mile to be a "model Japanese child," I guess. The same way for the rest of the family, yeah. It's pressure.

TI: Now your, your father was a, a college graduate. Was that unusual for the community to have someone --

TA: At that time, yes. At that time.

TI: As well as his --

TA: Very small percentage.

TI: -- his, probably his English-speaking abilities was probably better than average, also.

TA: Right. That is another thing that, that was a plus. I mean, they relied on him for, to deal with the, with the, the public, the Caucasian public. When one Issei had an application to fill, he'll go there and help him out, and bring it. He was a sewanin, a helper. I think he spent all his time helping others rather than help the family, it seems. He was always gone. [Laughs]

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.