<Begin Segment 6>

TI: So I'm going to now ask you, what about Japanese school? Did you have to go to Japanese school during this time?

KK: Well, our Japanese school education was sorely neglected, I think. Since there were no Japanese in the area, you had to go a distance to get to it. And there's no way that you could transport us downtown to where the majority of the Japanese schools were. So every few years or something, it seems like somebody thought that there should be a Japanese school around there. So they set up the thing and we'd start in with the first book. And we never got beyond the first book. [Laughs] The school went broke, and we had to quit. So I think we started Book 1 about three or four times. And that was our Japanese school. It was kind of sad, but then my mother tried to teach us at home, but then kids don't listen to their parents that much.

TI: Well, at home, when you communicated with your mother and father, was it in Japanese?

KK: Yeah, with them, it was Japanese. Until after Shiz went to kindergarten, she learned to speak English. And so, of course, we all learned English along with her.

TI: And so before Shizue went to school, then just Japanese was spoken.

KK: Yes.

TI: And so for you, probably, until she went to school, it was all Japanese.

KK: Probably so.

TI: Okay. So let's talk about school. What was school like when you started going to kindergarten? What was that like?

KK: Well, of course, we were the only Japanese family in the area, so people didn't know just what to make of us, you know. They tried to say we were black people, but then that wouldn't stick. Whatever else they thought, I wouldn't know, but they were a little bit afraid of us. And those days, any Oriental in the movies and all were gangsters, and sort of evil folks. So maybe they thought that we came from that kind of stock, too, I don't know. But they pretty well stayed away from us. There were a few families, they must have been Christian families, that had no qualms. And so then we, they didn't care whether we came and played in their yard or anything. So it was not too bad. But then we did have to deal with the discrimination from way back.

TI: And how would that discrimination show up? What would, how would people discriminate against you or your family?

KK: Well, I know in school, when they made choices to make a team, we were the last people to be chosen. I'm sure my other, my siblings had the same experience. But we learned to overlook that kind of stuff. It had no harm in it. But we did know that they were sort of scared of us, I think. Maybe they thought we had, kind of, disease or something.

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