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TI: Let's talk a little bit now back to you in terms of just childhood memories growing up. So when you think back to some of your playmates, who did you play with?

SA: Well, I was... in the Blaney Estates, we were pretty remote. And so, and there weren't that many Japanese around, but I do remember a few of the friends that my parents had. In fact, I just met with, I don't know if you know Bob Idemoto.

TI: No.

SA: Well, he and I go back to the early period when he lived in Saratoga and I lived in Saratoga and we saw each other. So we have a... there were some very old friends that I have that we sort of grew up together.

TI: And when you think back to that, what would be some of the things that would bind you? Like what activities can you remember?

SA: Well, there wasn't any activities. Our family just sort of got together every once in a while, and there were so few of us that we remember each other from that period.

TI: So like a typical day on a weekend, what kind of things did you do as a kid, like eight, nine years old.

SA: Well, I think on a... when you're living as a gardener, there's a lot of things to do because it's a big place. You can wander around anyplace you want, to a limit. But I still remember my father had a fertilizer warehouse in Saratoga. So I remember my mom and I would walk from our estate home to the fertilizer warehouse in Saratoga. And then I must have been probably like, I don't know, maybe five years old. So I remember doing all that.

TI: And when you walked with your mom, when you think back...

SA: Well, it was about... it's a mile. It was a mile.

TI: And did the two of talk when you walked? Or what would the kind of relationship between... because your mom was pretty short, and I was just curious...

SA: Yeah, well, we were very young, so I used to speak Japanese in those days because they spoke Japanese at home. So I learned how to speak Japanese. In fact, I had a hard time when I started going to school because I didn't know English well enough.

TI: So let's talk about school now. So you start school, in elementary school, what kind of -- grammar school -- what kind of student were you? If your classmates or teacher were to talk about you, how would you they describe Sam, or Minoru, I guess, back then?

SA: I'm not sure. Probably an average student. And I guess my memory in those days, because Saratoga school, I think I was the only Japanese there because I was in a Caucasian community. And then when we went to the farm, I went to Campbell grammar school and Campbell high school. And I think we were only about, you can count the number of Japanese that were at that school, too. So I grew up with the Caucasian groups.

TI: Were there particular topics that you enjoyed in, like, middle school or high school?

SA: Well, I liked sports at that time. Like I got to playing basketball quite a bit, because I was taller, I was, relatively speaking, I was taller then. So I used to play center. In fact, I played center for a Japanese club called the Santa Clara Bears. And we had the San Jose Zebras and the Santa Clara Bears and we were archrivals because we had the town bunch and the country guys. [Laughs] And we were always competing with each other.

TI: So tell me more about that. So how did you get connected to, like, a Japanese basketball team? Was it part of an organization?

SA: Well, what happened here was before the war, I think as a Japanese, at least in my situation, I was totally integrated. In fact, I knew more Italians than any, because most of the farmers around us were Italians. After the war, I think all of us felt very insecure, because here we're coming back and we were sort of like outsiders. So all the Japanese Americans banded together, not only in our school, but in other schools as well. So we formed our own group.

TI: But this is after the war.

SA: After the war, after the war.

TI: But before the war, you had some of these... oh, that was, okay, that's when you played basketball?

SA: No, basketball was after the war.

TI: After the war, got it, okay.

SA: But before the war, we were totally integrated. Our family was more integrated with the Italians.

TI: So that would be one impact of the war in terms of, in some ways, bringing Japanese Americans sort of more...

SA: Closer together. We bonded because we had to bond together, simply because we needed the kinship to belong to a group, because we all felt like outsiders. Because there was prejudice, although I don't think I felt it as much as some of the others. But nevertheless, we all felt like we were being picked on.

TI: Well, before the war, were there any Japanese community events that you and your family participated in?

SA: Yeah, because my dad was very much involved in kendo. And I remember going to Japanese school, so there were things that we did as part of the Japanese community.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.