<Begin Segment 5>

TI: And so tell me a little bit... because this is where your mother worked.

TT: Uh-huh, my mother was a teacher.

TI: And I'm curious for you, did that put more pressure on you, having your mother as one of the teachers at Japanese language school?

TT: Yes.

TI: How so?

TT: Because when she... because the classes were pretty large, so maybe they'd have one grade into two different classes, but I had to always be in another class, not with her as my teacher. And then one year, it couldn't be helped, they had to stick, put me in there, one of her classes. But she picked on me, on purpose, I think. And I used to get so upset.

TI: And how about the other teachers? Did they expect more from you because they knew that you were the daughter of...

TT: I don't know if they did or not, but I was good at Japanese, a yuutousei, you know what that was?

TI: No.

TT: That was when you get, you were in the higher grade.

TI: Oh, I see.

TT: But I enjoyed Japanese school, and I wish I studied more. I think everybody feels that way. But we'd go there from four to five during the winter hours, but four to five-thirty during the spring and the fall because of the longer days.

TI: And then when you were done with Japanese language school, so it's like five during the winter, five-thirty in the spring, then what would you do?

TT: Then we'd walk home, and we'd go home for dinner. And I don't even know who used to fix the dinner.

TI: Yeah, I was going to ask. Because since your mother was a teacher...

TT: Yah. Then my older sisters, I guess, had to help on that, or my mother used to make something before she went, and we would eat later. But we didn't hardly eat anything, you know, it was rice and wieners, maybe. We were all very poor.

TI: So do you recall, I mean, when you had dinners, was it more just the girls then eating together, or do you remember eating with your parents?

TT: With the parents? Well, once in a while we would eat with our parents, but it's usually the girls. It's not like... see, because we just had a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen, and one bedroom. So we had to all eat at the same time.

TI: And then after dinner, what would usually happen?

TT: Oh, we had to clean up, so we'd have to help, we'd have to take turns helping with the dishes. And then we would either do our homework or we'd listen to the radio. Or else we'd go outside and play, because there were a lot of kids in that neighborhood. And so it was all the jintori and Kick the Can, you know, good old days. [Laughs]

TI: And then how did things change on the weekend? So, say like on a Saturday, what would you do? Because you didn't have regular school.

TT: No.

TI: And did your mom have to teach Japanese school?

TT: Yah, sometimes she used to go to some of the outlying schools to teach. You know, like South Park and I don't know where else she went.

TI: Right, because a lot of the outlying areas, they would have their Japanese language school on the weekends.

TT: Yah, and they'd have to get somebody from the other schools to come down and teach them.

TI: And so what would you do when your mom is teaching?

TT: We'd just sit around and play with the other friends.

TI: And how about your father, was he around?

TT: Well, he had to take her. See, he didn't have to work on Saturdays.

TI: Oh, but he had a car, so he would drive.

TT: Yah, he was able to take her.

TI: And so he would sort of take her and then just stay out there until she was done and then come back?

TT: Yah.

TI: So you were really independent, the kids. You just took care of yourselves.

TT: Yah, I think so. And then, or else with our friends, we might walk downtown. We never took bus, we couldn't afford the nickel to ride a bus, so we would walk from Eighteenth Avenue all the way downtown and we'd go see a movie, and that's what we did on the weekends, maybe see that. Or else we'd go see friends and play around with them.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.