<Begin Segment 11>

TI: How about within the community, perhaps some more organized things like, like Japanese language school? Did you need to go to Japanese language school or church, were there some things in the Japanese community that, that you participated in?

RY: Yeah. We had, we had, we had to go to Japanese language school, or what they called a "tip school," and it was, it was held in our church. And, and we'd have a lot of the, after school, we'd go to tip school.

TI: Now, do you know why they called it "tip school"?

RY: Well, "tip school" is because it's, because I guess you'd get a "tip" on how to, how to speak Japanese and write Japanese. And even now, some of the, some of the Niseis, very few of 'em know how to do that, write, write and read, people in Spokane. 'Cause like in Seattle, for instance, their Japanese was perfect. I mean, they could speak Japanese even when they're like me, my age group. They spoke Japanese and probably wrote better than I did. But when we were growing up over here, we spoke nothing but English. But you go to Seattle, and they, all the Niseis were speaking Japanese, and I said, well, that's all right, too.

TI: So what, I don't understand what the difference is. Because in Seattle, they also had "tip school," too.

RY: Oh, yes.

TI: And then you had it in Spokane, so why would it be different between Seattle and Spokane?

RY: I don't know. It's, I guess in Seattle, the way I would take it is that more, more people from Japan was coming over and staying in Seattle. That's the way I took it, that therefore they spoke more Japanese and, with each other. But we, over here, you could just about tell the difference between the Spokane Niseis and the Niseis, Seattle Niseis. Certain, certain, well, I don't know, they spoke a little different. [Laughs]

TI: So how frequently would you have to go to Japanese language school?

RY: We had it every, every day, right after school. And we'd go for one hour after school. So in those days we went to tip school one hour every day, so, so after school activity was very limited. And when I got into high school, my mother said, says, "You only can do one sport," so I'd like to do football. I'd like to play football, whether I was good or bad, I liked it. So that was my time to skip tip school, is football season. And the rest of the time we went to school every, after school hours, we went to tip school.

TI: Now, was going to tip school something that you looked forward to, or the other, other Japanese looked forward to because you could see your friends? Or how did you, how did you think about tip school?

RY: Well, I guess that would be it, too, but I guess, I don't know. I guess the thing is, most of the people that went to tip school were around the neighborhood, so we saw each other as far as that goes. And there was no big things about getting together again, but some of 'em really learned how to speak Japanese and write Japanese, but I don't know, I didn't.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.