<Begin Segment 5>

MN: Now going back to your parents' nursery, did you have to help them out as a child?

KI: No, yeah, you hear so many stories about kids helping their families out and either they didn't need my help or I refused or I was too busy with my friends or for whatever reason. I know my mother would help. My mother would help and perhaps business wasn't that busy where they needed somebody other than my mother.

MN: Now how many days a week did your parents work?

KI: I think every day except Sunday. Now you asked how my mother did and I think before the war she was just a mother and a housewife.

MN: She had a lot of kids to look after.

KI: Yeah, we had the four kids 'cause the baby, my younger sister was two when we left for camp. So even before that then there would have been the three of us.

MN: Now, did your parents grow any Japanese vegetables in the yard?

KI: I don't recall. I don't recall any vegetables there.

MN: But you did have this big pond in the backyard. Can you tell us about that?

KI: It was an oval shaped one and it was probably about the length of this room, a big oval one. I and I remember seeing the lily flowers with the, with the big leaves around it. And I think there was probably fish in there and I don't know how long it was there, it was probably there when we got the place. But at some point my father drained it, I don't know if it was mosquitoes or it was too much upkeep or whatever it was, so we no longer used it for, to keep flowers and the fish in it. My sister and I used to play in it.

MN: When you say you played in it, what did you do?

KI: Well, I guess we roller skated and played games.

MN: Now did you attend Japanese language school?

KI: Yes. I cannot remember the name of the place but the sensei used to come and pick us up, and I can't remember if my sister went. I think I was the only one that went, I think I was the only one old enough where they said that I could go. And I can't remember if it was after school or on a Saturday morning but it wasn't, it wasn't every day. But he used to pick us up and I remember the exact location. I can still remember... see the classroom and picture the whole thing. And it was apparently a Japanese center of some kind and the front part could have had some apartments or some offices, but our particular class was downstairs in the front section of this group of buildings, and the back had big stairs that went up into this building that was like an auditorium. And that's where we held our recitals where we read our stories. And then there was a section there where you walk through the arch and place where we used to play Kick the Can and Prisoner's Base and all those fun games.

MN: Now I've heard Kick the Can but what is Prisoner's Base?

KI: Prisoner's Base if I remember correctly is that it's like Hide and Go Seek. You go hide and then if the prisoner... if you find somebody, but if they make it back to the home base they're considered free. So it's a fancy Hide and Go Seek. [Laughs]

MN: Now you have to go to this Japanese school, your hakujin friends didn't have to go to something like this.

KI: No.

MN: So how did you feel about going to Japanese school?

KI: I don't know. I just went because my parents wanted me to go and I don't think my kids, it made any difference with my so-called, playing with my classmates because the days that I didn't go or when I wasn't with them, I don't think it made any difference. But I always went to my friends' houses and I only knew maybe one or two people, kids that came to my house. And I guess it's because I was on the outskirts again because Washington School was further down the... quite a ways down actually. So it was easier like for after school to go to their house rather than for all of them to come to my house, I think. 'Cause I didn't even think of the fact that maybe their parents didn't want them to come to my house or anything like that. I just thought well I live so far out and it's easy just after school to go to these boys and girls houses and play with them there and the parents always accepted us.

MN: And when you're talking about your friends, you're talking about the hakujin friends?

KI: Yeah.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.