<Begin Segment 7>

SY: And so how many, do you remember roughly how many families were in this Dominguez Hills area?

NS: Gosh. The ones that I know would be about ten, ten families that I knew. Moritas and Kurashiges... don't forget, they have brothers and another family together now. They didn't live in the same house, they were all separate houses.

SY: And they all were farmers?

NS: Yes, they were all farmers.

SY: And so where did you go to school?

NS: It was about four miles away from our place, called McKinley grammar school. McKinley and then what was the other one? High school was... I forgot.

SY: It was... four miles is quite a long way to go to school.

NS: Oh, yeah, we had to walk. And then to the bus stop was two miles. And then from there on it was a four mile. The bus took us, so it was about six miles away from our house.

SY: And then as you got older, you had to go further way to go to school?

NS: Yeah, Compton, place called Compton.

SY: So you ended up going to school in Compton. So you went to Compton High School?

NS: Uh-huh, finished there.

SY: And you had a junior high school in between?

NS: Yes. It was in the same area, so we didn't have to walk too far. I mean, we still had to walk, but what I'm saying is around that same area.

SY: Did you go to school with your brothers and sisters?

NS: Yes, oh, yes. I had to take my baby sister because she was in grade school. Junior high school and high school separate, so after that, she was old enough to go on her own.

SY: So how would, how did you like going to school?

NS: Oh, I used to love it. I didn't have to work. [Laughs] And then come home and work. I used to love it. But the only thing was hard because we had to do homework. They didn't give you homework in those days. I mean, I don't remember doing homework; we did it at school.

SY: So at school.

NS: At school, oh, yeah, we had to study real hard. I did pretty good; I had pretty good grades.

SY: And then when you came home, you had to cook.

NS: Oh, yeah.

SY: That was your only job.

NS: But then we had little things. You want to say that... the teacher say, well, you had to make a story with this and this and that, then you had to write your own story at home, like composition.

SY: So you did have a little bit of...

NS: Not too much. Teachers didn't give us that time... I don't remember that much homework that we did, like say that you did a lot of arithmetic or something like that. Of course, after high school I did, but not the grammar school.

SY: And do you remember, were most other kids that you went to school with, were they mostly Japanese?

NS: Yes. I don't remember having hakujin friends. [Laughs]

SY: Even in high school?

NS: Yes, in high school, oh, yes, 'cause they came from all over. Dominguez Hills, the kids all went, was Japanese, so very few. Maybe one, two.

SY: And then this man who owned this area, did you ever meet him?

NS: Hardly. I didn't know 'til after, I mean, just before the war we went to say goodbye to them, and that was the only time. And they never came to see us. The helper used to come to get the money for the lease. You had to pay the lease money once a year, so he's the only one that used to come to get the money from my father.

SY: Just once a year?

NS: Once a year.

SY: Do you have any idea how much he paid?

NS: Sure don't. I sure don't. Not much, not much. Because we all live in the same house. I mean, it was our house, they just leased the land, so it wasn't that much at all.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.