<Begin Segment 6>

TI: So, so we talked a little bit about school. I want to go back to, kind of your family life. Earlier you mentioned your father was a haul man, haul man who hauled the crops, but then I think later on he became a farmer and, and had his own farm?

BS: Yes.

TI: So can you tell me what kind of crops and the size of the farm? Or just describe the farm.

BS: Oh, size, I don't know, maybe twenty, thirty acres. At first his main crop was raspberries. I remember he had rhubarb. I don't know why rhubarb was so popular in those days, but farmers were growing rhubarbs. And then the other normal vegetables of cabbage and cauliflower and cantaloupes, romaine, those kind of things.

TI: And what was your role, or what kind of chores did you have as you got older on the farm? What kind of things did you do?

BS: Well, I just, I remember I started to learn how to drive a tractor and I... and then we used to grow a lot of cauliflower and I used to put the lids on the cauliflower crates, and I guess I did all kinds of things. I was kept busy on the farm. One thing I do remember, come to think of it, is that my neighbor was a white man, see, and he was a retired person and once a week he would work in Los Angeles City and so he had me feed his chickens, and so he gave me a nickel every time I fed the chickens, once a week. And I thought that was pretty good. A nickel, I could buy a ice cream cone at school, so it, it was a pretty good job.

TI: So that was like your first paying job. You got to keep the money and do what you want.

BS: Right. Right, and I used to save it.

TI: Well, so sometimes you bought a ice cream cone, but what would you save the money for? I mean, what you buy with the money?

BS: Well, I guess ice cream cone. I wouldn't buy clothes or anything like that with it. [Laughs]

TI: And so what would be, let's just talk about a typical day, say when you're, I don't know, like nine or ten years old, like, about how early would you rise and what would the typical chores and school and... just describe that for me.

BS: Must've got up six to seven o'clock in the morning, I think, and then get ready for school and get picked up by the bus.

TI: Well, like breakfast, did you have breakfast before?

BS: Right, right.

TI: So describe that, like would the whole family be there for breakfast or, describe all that for me.

BS: Yeah, okay. I think breakfast, we would all eat together, and I remember my mother used to make miso shiru for breakfast. I guess it wasn't the normal American style eggs and stuff like that, but it, it was sort of Japanese style, and I still remember that miso shiru in the morning. So then we would get ready to go to school and so my two sisters and I would go on the same bus to the same grammar school. Then we would attend the school, and I remember after the war started that we had a victory farm where we were asked to plant vegetables and I remember I had my own small piece of plot and I remember I grew spinach and it came out quite well, and we took it to the cafeteria. There was, I remember we put on a play, a Christmas play and we would have to memorize our lines and put on a performance. I remember having open house where we would display written materials that we did and have our parents look at it. I remember one day, yeah, this was just before the war started, we had a Japanese day in our class, and so the Japanese students brought Japanese things, some food or clothing, things like that, so we put on sort of a class, class thing and informed everyone in the class on, about the Japanese culture.

TI: And before the war, when you're doing things like this, how did you feel about being Japanese?

BS: I wasn't that conscious of being Japanese or being that different. Well, I guess we went to Japanese school, but I didn't feel like a minority at that time. I knew we were, we had our own separate picnics and things like that and we did not mix with the whites, but I didn't think anything of it at that time.

TI: Or how about, were there expectations by your parents or maybe Japanese language students that because you're Japanese there were certain things that, that you had to do or be careful about, or were there certain, yeah, added expectations by being Japanese?

BS: Well, we had to behave and we had to be good kids. They taught us all that kind of thing, to be honest and all, all that kind of thing, so in a way that was very helpful, and I think, and because of that, and I guess all the Isseis, knowing that they're minorities, they taught us these things to behave and to obey. That was a very good point for us Niseis and so I would say that we Japanese people were a very good group. We, we were good citizens.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.