<Begin Segment 6>

MA: In general, did you speak Japanese at home with your parents and eat Japanese food?

BK: Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. 'Cause my mother only spoke Japanese. My father picked up English and he did very well. And he wrote English very well, too. My mother did never, never did pick it up. So we all spoke Japanese to her. And then as the older kids would go to school, so we all learned English, too. And I'm always sorry that I did not teach my kids Japanese. Yeah, I regret that.

MA: What types of activities would your family do together? Like picnics, or...

BK: We went fishing a lot. My mother and father loved to go fishing. Yeah, we would, on Sundays, he would take time off from farming and we'd pack a lunch and go up and fish. My dad was really a kind man, a very kind man. And he was very good to the kids too. And so he would always, he was on the board for the La Jara Buddhist church and so, as a result of that he was on the board for the Denver Buddhist church. And so he would go to these meetings, and the younger ones of us would get to go with him. And he'd stop and show us sights along the way, and take us to the zoo when we got to Denver.

MA: Oh, so you'd go to Denver with him.

BK: Yeah.

MA: You'd accompany him.

BK: Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah.

MA: What were your impressions of Denver back then?

BK: Oh, my gosh. I thought, well, I don't know if I'd like to live here. I still prefer the small town, but it was exciting to come.

MA: Would you go to the Japantown, or Nihonmachi?

BK: Oh yeah, yeah. We'd stay in a hotel that was close to the Japanese temple, yeah. All the Japanese stores. And there were quite a few back then, Japanese restaurants, yeah.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.