<Begin Segment 6>

TI: You know, going back to the plantation life, so when you had free time, what kind of things would you do during your free time?

YI: Well, we were pretty busy, you know, because after so-called "English school" we all went to Japanese school. From three to four, for about two hours we spend in Japanese school (Waipahu Gakuen).

TI: That's a long time. Most people say one hour after their English school.

YI: One was that we had to share classroom, you know, I mean, they built the Japanese school but they didn't build it for twenty-five to one, not that kind of ratio. And one was that depending on after English school we'd go home and have a bite before we go to school. So depending on how the kids assembled for school but it was about, I'd say maybe not two hours but an hour and a half. And that included school on Saturday too, half a day.

TI: So they... so you didn't have much free time, 'cause you had English school then a little break, then Japanese school.

YI: And they had Sunday school, right, Sunday. And then I guess we're all Buddhist, the Japanese, they're all Buddhist so we went to Sunday school and that took almost half a day. Sunday school was interesting, you know, I guess they talk about Buddhism and then we had service and then... but the teachers would tell us stories, Japanese stories, and they were good so we all assembled and then we just... whichever story you wanted to hear, you know, you would crowd into a room and that took about, you know, thirty minutes.

TI: And when they told the stories, would they tell the stories in Japanese?

YI: Yes.

TI: So your Japanese was good enough that you --

YI: The Japanese school teachers, what they call, Kibeis, people that studied in Japan and came home and most of them lost their English. And they are now teaching Japanese school. But surprising thing is the plantation provided housing, you know, for them. They provided housing for the Japanese school teachers and the Buddhist ministers. And the Buddhists, the housing was on campus.

TI: 'Cause it sounds like the plantations were really self-contained, you know, pretty much everything a family needed was pretty much there.

YI: That's right.

TI: And that was probably done again intentionally to keep families there working. So it was probably, you know, a business reason for them to do that.

YI: Yeah, and then wages were lower, I don't know what we're getting paid, little over a dollar, dollar a day.

TI: Now when you think about, you know, the time, you spent a lot of time in Japanese school and English school, which one did you like better, English school or Japanese school?

YI: Funny, I liked Japanese school better because I was able to get help at home, you know, the lessons in Japanese because, you know, our parents didn't speak English.

TI: So when you were taking Japanese, and you like Japanese school, did you think that eventually you would go live in Japan?

YI: Well, I think going back again, you know, when we went back to Japan I was a year old. My aunt said to leave me in Japan and she would raise me, why, naturally that was not agreeable so they brought me home. But as I was growing up, because my sister was already in Japan, they were telling me that, you know, I should go. But I resisted and good thing I did because a classmate of mine who went back in '39 or '40, he was drafted into the Japanese army, he died in the war so I may have been one of those.

TI: So like when you were a teenager there was that opportunity if you wanted to, to go to Japan?

YI: Yeah, they were kind of pushing me to go. Actually, their stressing more my Japanese studies.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.