<Begin Segment 9>

TI: How about your grandmother? Did she like having you and your sister living with her?

PF: Yeah. We stayed there nine months. Yeah, she always called me, "Sachi, Sachi," like that. I didn't like that, but I can't help it. And then she'd always get mad because I tell her where the shoe, and go like that on the tatami, the floor, and then I don't want to change the shoe. She said, "No, no, no." [Laughs] I said, "No, I don't want to live like this, no way." And we had a stove in America, and over there, we burned wood. See, three hole, one for the hot water, rice, and the vegetables. And then you had to put wood inside. I didn't want to live like that.

TI: So it was too much work.

PF: Yeah.

TI: So you said you lived with your grandmother for nine months?

PF: Yeah, nine months.

TI: And then where did you go?

PF: And then she passed away, so we went, I went town, Okayama town, stay with my auntie.

TI: Okay, and this is your auntie on your mother's side?

PF: Yeah, my mother's sister. Yeah, those two are this way.

TI: What do you mean "this way"?

PF: My mother and her, two different kinds, just like my sister and I.

TI: So what was your aunt like?

PF: Oh, I used to call her, in Japanese, "kuso baba," because she was, everything she say is opposite. She said I made the foot mark on the wood, and my shoe was size five, and her son was this big. And I said, "That feet don't fit me." But I can't talk back, she gets mad. So she always used to blame me, and I said, "I'm gonna run away one day, and I'm not staying." Then my uncle is a second marriage, and he said he don't have nothing to do with us, because he don't know us. And then he said, "You didn't do it," but he know that son did it. Because I said, "Look at that foot mark. It's not mine." And then my auntie always say it's me. So why should I get the blame? Then I was glad I was sixth grade. My uncle, he treated me better, but I was good friends with a policeman, so I always go to the policeman. In Japan, policeman, it's a little house, and he sit down and he drinks tea, and I go in there and talk to him. I tell him how America is, you know. And then said, "You come and have tea." So I always go there, and English, I teach him.

TI: Oh, interesting. So he wanted to learn about America and English?

PF: Yeah, America, and I talked to him and all that, and he was nice. And I told him, "I can't trust nobody," I just trust him. And then I said, "When I finish school, I'll be happy."

TI: Now after your grandmother died, I'm thinking, why didn't your parents say, "Come home back to San Jose?"

PF: No, no, no. They brought my brother back, right after, my brother back, my oldest brother. He came, and then him and my sister lived in the country.

TI: With whom?

PF: With some kind of, that village no teacher. My father... and they stayed there.

TI: So let me make sure I understand. So after your grandmother died, you brother came...

PF: Yeah, came from Japan.

TI: Your brother came, and your oldest sister and older brother...

PF: Still together.

TI: And now with a family person, but with a teacher.

PF: Yeah, with a teacher.

TI: And so your family paid the teacher?

PF: Yeah, yeah.

TI: And then you stayed with your aunt. Now, why didn't they send you with the teacher, too?

PF: No, no. My father sent my brother. I think my father was, got a land there by the mountain, and he was going to come back. That's what I thought, but the war started. I think that's what his plan was, come back to Japan and build the house, because he had a land there, mountain.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.