<Begin Segment 7>

MN: So what is the first language that you learned?

KI: It had to be Japanese and I don't think I started speaking... well, I went to Sunday school so I might have picked up some English there. And then going to kindergarten and then my playmates that lived around the corner were hakujin so I think it was just a mixture. But I think it had to be Japanese as a real young kid, young toddler type of thing.

MN: So at home it was all Japanese speaking? Now, you had these opportunities to see a lot of these samurai movies, did you go see American movies?

KI: Oh, yes, my sister and I used to just like on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon we used to just walk up there and look at the movies. My parents just gave... I don't know how much the movies were, maybe five cents, ten cents at that time but they didn't have any qualms about us going up. In fact, that's where we were on December 7th, my sister and I were sitting in the movie and all of a sudden these (words) come on the screen you know. So it was really convenient like on Saturday mornings they would have kids programs, Tom Mix and Flash Gordon and all these adventure films and we used to just go there all the time.

MN: You're talking about the (UC) Theater?

KI: Uh-huh.

MN: Now, you had mentioned that your mother was a Buddhist and your father was a Christian. Now, did your father attend church?

KI: Uh-huh, he's very active in church.

MN: And so did he take you along with him?

KI: And that's why he took us to church with him.

MN: Which church did you go to?

KI: The Berkeley United Methodist Church.

MN: And was this a Japanese Christian church?

KI: Yes. We didn't have... at least when I was going, remembering before the war, we didn't have a strictly Japanese speaking... English speaking minister at all, I think it was a Issei. I remember Reverend Fujii and I think he might have been bilingual but he was hired mainly for the Isseis. But then we had a big Sunday school too before the war.

MN: Who was teaching these Sunday School classes? Were they older Niseis?

KI: Uh-huh, and some Isseis.

MN: Who spoke English?

KI: Uh-huh, broken English. My kindergarten teacher Mrs. Yusa, yeah, she always wore a hat, she had glasses and she... I just remember the one thing about her class when she passed around the offering plate, she used to sing this one little song that I still remember. And she used to sing it in both English and Japanese.

MN: What kind of song?

KI: It was called "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, something-something-something." It was really... some of those memories are so vivid.

MN: Now you were going to this Christian church but you also shared about being in this Buddhist parade? Can you share about this experience?

KI: That's because our closest (family) friends lived across the street from us who were Buddhists. And when I was writing one of my papers for my writing class I came across my picture, my sister and my picture of us wearing this kimono with this little head gear on and things like that, so I was trying to find out more about it. Well, apparently what it was it's the tenth year anniversary since the beginning of that Buddhist church. And so from the old church, I think from the old church they say that this group of people paraded down to the Oregon Street church. I don't remember the walk itself but I must have walked it because I have the actual picture of us wearing the costume. And my friends, they have the same exact picture except that they're... my sister and my pictures is really informal 'cause it's in the backyard and we're sort of laughing and standing and facing each other. But my friends, who were the Buddhists, very serious and it's an actual photograph and you could see the little dots on their heads, and on our picture of course it isn't there. But so that's the only thing I could remember is the wearing it but I don't remember walking it or anything or the reason for it until I started inquiring about it this many years later. But I thought it was because it was the opening of the new church and the way it was but they had broken away from this other church and had started this new church or it was the tenth anniversary since this church began in this new location.

MN: On Oregon Street?

KI: On Oregon Street.

MN: Is it still there?

KI: Oh, yeah.

MN: Oh, which Buddhist church is this?

KI: It's the Otani, it's the Otani and the one up on Channing is called Sangha. And I don't know one is called I always get mixed up, one of them they call it the Buddhist temple and... one they call the Buddhist temple, of course they both got the same thing inside but one is called a temple and I forgot what the other one is called. But they call it Nishi Hongwanji, Nishi and what's the other word? The east and the west.

MN: There's the Higashi and Nishi Hongwanji.

KI: Yeah, only it's reversed for some crazy reason. The west one's called the other one. [Laughs] So I always get it mixed, it's easier to just say Otani Church or the Sangha Church. I know Sangha oh, that's the one on Channing and Otani's the one down on Oregon. But I never knew the one up on Channing Way. My father used to also go to the Buddhist church on Oregon Street, was next to a big Japanese nursery, Fujii Nursery, and they had lots of bedding plants and I remember going with my father there to go there and then remember seeing the church next door.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.