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TI: So, let's talk a little bit -- when he and your mother went to Fresno, how much do you know about the temple in Fresno? What was that like when they worked there?

SI: I think that Fresno became the headquarters of the Central California Buddhist Associations, was a fairly large temple with a fairly large membership. All I remember about the temple, because I was only about three years old, is that they had a building that had a number of steps going up to their main chapel. I think in those days they believe that in order to... I don't know why, but the temple or the shrine portion always had to be on the second floor. So they had to go up a number of steps. They also had a nursery along with the usual church activities, where the kids would come together and be taken care by some of the mothers. Most of it I just kind of remember through photographs that I'd seen of the Fresno Buddhist Temple.

TI: So how did he come to Seattle? So he's Fresno for a few years, and then he came to Seattle. How did that happen?

SI: When I was about four years old, my dad and mom decided to go back to Japan because I believe my dad's mother had passed away. And so he returned to Japan for two years. There, he was assigned to a temple in Kobe for almost two years, and then in '36, 1936, he returned to the United States and he was assigned to the temple here in Seattle.

TI: So what memories do you have of Kobe?

SI: Very little if any. All I can remember is that there was a park close by to our home where I used to go to play. There was an ichiba, or market, where we'd go to shop for groceries and whatnot, you know. I can't really remember too much about Kobe.

TI: Okay, so it sounds like you're about six or seven years old when you come back to the United States?

SI: I was six years old when I came back to Seattle.

TI: And at this point, did you know or could you speak English at this point?

SI: Well, as you know, being that I was in Japan and my parents spoke Japanese, I spoke Japanese at that time. And so for me, it was a brand-new language, coming back to this country. So I had some difficulty in adapting to the English language when I went into kindergarten. It took me a little while to learn the language.

TI: So I'm curious, when you went to kindergarten, were there other Japanese Americans who were similar, where they had just spoken Japanese at home, and then when they started school they didn't know English?

SI: I was fortunate in being able to go to Bailey Gatzert school at that time, and the majority of the students there were Asians. Some of the older students, of course, spoke Japanese at home. I don't know, maybe the majority of them spoke Japanese at home to their parents. So between Japanese spoken within the family, Japanese spoken at the temple, English spoken at school, I quickly became bilingual.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.