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AI: Well, now when you were born, where were they living?

KM: Where were we living?

AI: Uh-huh.

KM: In Moneta, Moneta, California, which is a little town. And it was, we were raising strawberries, I understand at that time. And a midwife, a friend delivered me.

AI: At the home?

KM: At the home. And I was so tiny that they thought, they said, "Well that baby's gonna die." But here I am. [Laughs]

AI: Oh my, oh my. What a situation. Well, if you were in strawberries then, did you, do you know did you live there in Moneta very long?

KM: Not long. The strawberry land that strawberries grow on, you know it's so many years -- well four years or so at the most, and they change. So I moved around a lot. And so our home was never a permanent home. And like I said, they thought it was work, and make some money and go back to Japan. So from Moneta to Compton, and Compton is where my brother and sister was born. And then we moved to Gardena, and Torrance, and Harbor City and the last one was in Lomita. That's where we evacuated from.

AI: Well, let me go back to your brother and sister, and what are their names and when were they born?

KM: Yeah. My brother is, was, is November 2, 1919, we were all two years apart. And his name is Chiyuki Nakahara. And my sister's name is Sadame Nakahara, Nakamori and she was born in 1921 in January. In fact, she'll be having her birthday pretty soon. [Laughs]

AI: Oh. Well, tell me about when, as you were growing up, did you and your brother and sister ever help in the farming at all?

KM: Oh yes.

AI: What were some of your duties?

KM: Well, as soon as we were able to work or do anything we had to get up early in the morning. What I remember vividly is during the winter, we used to have a lot of fog and frost. And because my parents were poor, they couldn't hire anybody and so we did part of the work at morning. And we would, like picking spinach and tying carrots and things like that. And because of the frost our hands were frostbitten and I used to have cracks, bleeding. And then, but we would put mineral oil on, and get dressed and walk to school which was only three miles one way. And my kids still don't believe me, but we did. And then coming home we would do our homework, [Laughs] walking to go to Japanese school. And so our time really, we didn't have any idle time. And my folks always taught us to make use of your time, 'cause that time lost will never come back. And, 'course we were very competitive with our Caucasian friends. And we didn't want them to beat us in anything, so we really, really studied, and... so, we did a lot of, like when we had a straw -- not strawberry, but boysenberry, and all this stickers, and we didn't have any gloves on, you know -- we just did it. And then we were competitive with each other, and my brother was a real fast picker. [Laughs]

AI: So...

KM: But we just realized that we had to do this, 'cause we realized our folks' position. And we never grudged them or -- some people you know, we hear, "Oh, do we have to do it again?" Or something like... I, we never, we just never thought of those things. We just did it because we wanted to, and to help them. 'Course, we get lot of praise, you know. [Laughs]

AI: Right, right. Well, now when you were first starting grade school, was Japanese your first language? Had you been speaking Japanese in the home?

KM: Yeah. I didn't know a bit of English.

AI: So what happened when you started school?

KM: You know, that's really a kind of a miracle I marvel at. I said, "Gee I wonder," you know. But we never were behind in class, and we were always listening. I always tell my mother, "Why didn't you learn English when we spoke English." But we, that was the primary language was Japanese. And when we went to Japanese school, once we get into the yard of the school playground, no English was spoken because the teacher forced us to learn Japanese. I think that's why we progressed so rapidly...

AI: I see.

KM: ...and also the fact that we talked Japanese at home.

AI: Right. So you always spoke Japanese at home?

KM: Yeah.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.