<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So going back to Gilroy, tell me about your school, your regular school. What was that like, and I'm trying to get a sense of, like, how many Japanese were at the school relative to the rest of the school population?

SY: I was in the eighth grade, and I think there were one or two other Japanese in the class, in my class. And I can't remember if there was any in the other class. We had two classes, eighth grade.

TI: So you had one or two other Japanese with you, and how large was the class? How many classmates?

SY: I think there were about thirty, a little over thirty kids.

TI: And of that thirty, so you had about three Japanese. What were the rest of the class? Like what race were the rest? Were they...

SY: Oh, they were Italians, I guess that's about all I... I couldn't tell where they...

TI: But a heavy Italian community in terms of Italian Americans.

SY: I guess so. I guess there were other nationalities that I can tell. There was one anyway that I knew, she was Italian.

TI: So we talked about earlier how your father would move the family around. So when you got to Gilroy, you said you stayed there, the last place you stayed there a little longer, were you able to make some friends in Gilroy? Some good friends?

SY: Japanese friends, yes.

TI: And you mentioned Italian. Any Italian friends?

SY: No.

TI: So mostly Japanese. And how were the Japanese in terms of accepting you as someone new? Is that, were they pretty good about that?

SY: No, I didn't feel anything.

BT: I'm curious why it was that your family was going to the church in Salinas rather than going across the mountain to Watsonville which was closer, wasn't it? There was a Buddhist church in Watsonville, and you know, you just go over Hecker Pass Road, that mountain road.

SY: I don't know. Isn't Watsonville, isn't it farther away?

BT: I don't know. I guess I've always thought of Watsonville as just over the hill.

SY: No, I think you pass Salinas and... yeah. And my father had his friends there, too.

BT: Oh, in Salinas.

SY: Yeah. [Laughs]

TI: So you mentioned going to church in Salinas, so was that like every Sunday you would go to Salinas?

SY: Yes, uh-huh.

TI: And so were there community events in Salinas that you attended, like Japanese...

SY: Well, Japanese school, we went to Japanese school. We were going to Japanese school there, too, when we were living in Castroville.

TI: And then the church...

SY: Oh, no, I'm... my mistake. In Castroville, there was a Japanese school there.

TI: Okay. But in Salinas you went to the, was this the Buddhist church?

SY: Yes.

TI: And were there, like, picnics for the Buddhist church that you attended or any community events in Salinas that you can remember?

SY: No. They were having some entertainments, you know, like the Japanese dances and things like that, we'd go see that. We used to go.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.