<Begin Segment 4>

MA: So I'm... I wanted to talk a little bit about your family and what, what religion did you practice?

GF: Well, my folks were Buddhist. And we went to the Buddhist gathering with the parents, but not saying that we went to the Buddhist church, you know. You know what I mean? We didn't study the Buddhism. We just went with them and that was it.

MA: So there was a Buddhist temple in, in Ault, or...

GF: No, we just had a little, a church that they had a Buddhist gathering in. And most of the time our minister would come from this, Denver, to our little community once a month and that's when my parents would take us and we'd go to the church.

MA: And so it, was it just those families in Ault that would go or did other people come?

GF: No, it was just the families right there in Ault. Yes.

MA: And what, what about Japanese language school? Was there a school in Ault that you attended?

GF: They had a Japanese language school. I went a little bit, but I didn't really go to study. I think I really went to play. [Laughs] 'Cause I didn't learn anything in Japanese. I mean, that was a hard language to learn. So I didn't learn it. But I had a younger brother that knew a little bit more Japanese than I did.

MA: Did you speak Japanese with your parents?

GF: Oh, yes. We spoke, I'm sure we spoke Japanese until we went to American school. But once we got to the American school and I, and I learned English, why, I got away from it and naturally my brothers and sisters younger than me, they picked it up from me and so they kinda got to where they learned English, too.

MA: So tell me about your American school. What, what was the name of it?

GF: Oh, I don't remember. That was in Longmont, so...

MA: Oh, I see. So it wasn't, it wasn't in Ault?

GF: Well, some of it is in Ault where I, I went to Ault and Pierce. But they had high school, but the other school before that, I'm not sure that they had high school.

MA: So in Ault, what, what school did you go to?

GF: I guess they just called it the Ault School, Ault High School. In fact, there was two, two schools within 10, 15 miles apart. One of 'em was, was in the city of Pierce and the school in Pierce. And there was a school in Ault and they were called by name, Pierce High School, Ault High School.

MA: How many Japanese students were in Ault High School when you were there?

GF: I don't think there's too many Japanese student. I'm gonna say, probably at the most, fifteen students going there at the time.

MA: And how did the Japanese students get along with the white students and...

GF: Most of us, I think we got along pretty good. We didn't have any trouble with them.

MA: And in general, in the town, was that the same? The Japanese and whites got along okay?

GF: Yes. We were not segregated as Japanese and so forth. Yeah, we got along pretty good. Yeah.

MA: Did you ever feel, with the other farms, the non-Japanese farms, there was any competition there? Like any tension, competition over...

GF: No, there really wasn't competition. When we, when I got up to about sixteen years old, I learned how to drive a truck and haul our, our sugar beets. And I think us younger people was the only one that had a little competition with the, with hakujin people 'cause we wanted to load up a truck as quick as we can and get to the dump. But other than that, as farming competition, we didn't have it.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.