<Begin Segment 5>

SY: So you grew up in Covina. Can you talk a little bit more about what you remember from your childhood from before the war? Did you help on the farm?

MK: Yeah, whenever there was a job that I could do. I guess I wasn't too much of farm person. I was always out looking for something else to do, that I remember. But we all had to do our share but I do remember going to Japanese school every Saturday. And that was a good time for us to meet with other Nisei kids in the area.

SY: So Japanese was your first language though?

MK: Well, until we started school of course then after that seems like we completely forgot. I mean my Japanese now is almost nil.

SY: So Japanese school actually helped you with your Japanese then?

MK: Well, at that time yeah, but I think it was more of a social education because I sure don't remember any of the kanji or any Japanese, I have a hard time speaking Japanese now. But I do remember the wonderful bento that my mom made those rice balls and meat. I remember all the kids I went with and I remember the senseis. Mostly I guess they probably spoke English too.

SY: Right.

MK: But I remember Japanese school very well.

SY: And how about your regular school? Do you remember going to elementary school?

MK: Yeah, we went to West Covina grammar school. We walked a mile every day, mile and a half I guess back and forth and then right into Covina Union High School from ninth grade on. Those were good times for me anyway because I was able to participate in all the sports and I just felt I was accepted in some of those clubs.

SY: So it was sort of social clubs and athletic clubs?

MK: Right.

SY: And primarily what was the ethnic makeup of your high school?

MK: Well, I think that it was mostly Caucasian at that time. I know there was just one black girl and I didn't even know what Jewish meant at that time but there were very few, mostly Caucasian and then all of us that were raised on Japanese farms. There must have been ten, fifteen families there.

SY: I see, so those were all the kids from all the farmers went to the same school.

MK: Right.

SY: And did you hang out a lot with them?

MK: As I recall most of my friends were Caucasian when I was going to high school because I think I was the only one that stayed after school for those activities amongst the Nisei kids.

SY: And you had someone that was kind of a mentor to you.

MK: During this time the Nisei, we would get together at Japanese school but then this Caucasian lady, Hazel Roberts, we called her Aunt Hazel, she and her husband owned a dairy farm there and she just took all of us under her wing. She had no children and her mother was like a schoolteacher and she taught English to our mothers, had little classes for them. And Hazel took, I think from 1929 the older girls in our Japanese group and formed the club then, they were called the Cherry Blossom Girl Reserves. And then my sister was in the second group and my other sister was in the third. I was the fourth tier Cherry Blossom but every week we would go to the Roberts' home, she would teach us how to bake, everything American she taught us how to bake, how to (do everything American)... she took us on field trips too. And now I remember going to the Huntington Library at an early age many times and being exposed to Pinky and Blue Boy at a very early age and looking at the wisteria there, those things still come to mind all the time but she was always there for us, remembered everybody's birthday with cards. Amazing lady and I think she has been a role model to me all these years and so I've thought of her so often. I think it kind of molded my life too when I started having children.

SY: That's wonderful. Now did she also befriend the parents? Was she friendly with your --

MK: Well, she gave milk to all... I think I was lactose intolerant but she used to give milk to all the families, free milk. And whenever any holiday or anything came she'd always have some kind of affair for everybody and she was so proud that we were Japanese. I mean, whenever there was a festival at Baldwin Park I remember always dressing up in kimonos and we'd go around that way and she would expose us and let everybody know who we were. Even at church she just made sure that... she said that we're all God's children but there were a lot of prejudiced people I know even in those days. I probably didn't realize at that time but when I think back now.

SY: So the church you went to, was that interracial?

MK: No, well, I went to... in the morning I went to this Caucasian church, United Methodist and they were all Caucasian. But one of the neighbor ladies down the street took my friend and I, Itsuko, every Sunday we would go there and Mrs. Roberts was there too. But she made sure that she wanted us to be known and be accepted. And then in the afternoons this big yellow bus... Mr. Yokoi from El Monte would come pick all the Japanese kids up and we'd go to Sunday school in the afternoon. I think now it's the Sage Methodist Church, a big church now but Reverend Yokoi and his wife are the ones that started it many years.

SY: So you had a very heavy duty Christian education.

MK: Aunt Hazel was such a strong Christian lady and such an influence on I know my mother.

SY: That was, do you think that was part of, kind of her mission?

MK: Well, it very well could be.

SY: But that's interesting because it's so unusual that she would take in a group of young, strictly Japanese American children, right? And all girls?

MK: All girls, always girls.

SY: That's wonderful, gosh it's just a great story. Did you ever find out what happened to her?

MK: Oh, she passed away.

[Interruption]

SY: I'm just curious what happened when you were all were sent to camp. When the Japanese Americans were sent to camps what reaction did you have from the Roberts family?

MK: Oh, they tried very hard but just couldn't fight the government, they and the Lanphears did all they could do but there was such resentment against all of us at that time that there was nothing they could do. Except she did, I understand, go to visit the camps whenever she could but it got to the point where she could not live in that community anymore so she moved to Carlsbad. And we did go to visit her several times after the war.

SY: So there was a lot of discrimination you think in Covina?

MK: There was discrimination even against her for befriending all of us I know. I'm quite sure she must have felt this but she always fought back. And there was discrimination because in the Covina swimming pool, I didn't think anything of it at that time, but we were not allowed to go in there swimming until I think it was the day before they cleaned the pool from what I understand.

SY: But as a child you didn't think about that but you look back on it and you see it. That's amazing.

MK: Talking about discrimination, my older sister, Sachi, was quite active and did very well in high school and she was sent by the DAR, the Daughters of the American Revolution a highly, highly prejudiced organization, she was sent to Sacramento as a representative for Covina High School so that was a precedent and really made the papers at that time. So I think probably that was the first time they ever did anything like that because even we knew that they were an organization that really didn't want to be associated with us.

SY: How was it that Sachi became such a...

MK: Sachi was, she was a straight A student. She was very quite unassuming but she became president of the girls' league and honor society.

SY: She was stellar.

MK: She was another person that really I looked up to because she helped me a lot along the way, always has.

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