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PW: Where did you go to elementary school?

RO: In Selma.

PW: And you said it was mostly Caucasian?

RO: Oh, absolutely. In kindergarten I remember, because the school was separate from where the elementary school was. So then at that time, as I remember back, I think there was one other Caucasian person who had then attended school, too. Even though that you are a member of a class and so on, your association with people becomes very small even though you remember other people. So I can't remember if he was Japanese or Chinese, think back, might have been Japanese. But that's the same thing that you go through in school. You connect with these people, but the connection is very, very limited.

PW: Do you remember any family friends that your parents were especially close to?

RO: Oh, absolutely, yeah. And these were people then that had businesses in Selma. My father, if he bought a car, he would go then to the Oldsmobile dealership which is, what's the name? Anyway. Otomo, yeah.

PW: What was Selma like? What was Selma known for?

RO: It was basically just a farming community. It was a very, very small town. It had an elementary school and then it had one high school. You felt very comfortable being able... in fact, my parents, I had to walk then from, as a kindergartener, they wouldn't take me, they were running the restaurant. So they walked us over there first time and so on and said, "Well, this is the path you're following." I remember those times when you had to across the tracks and you're walking to this small little area 'til you'd gotten into this school, but it was something that you just got to know and you felt completely safe, and being able to walk. So I don't know, as a young boy, I'm walking along and so on, sitting on the tracks. Dumb things that you do as a young kid, but you felt very, very safe, very comfortable. I never went to school with my... I didn't have to go with my older brother, you just went by yourself.

PW: Were either of your parents, culturally or artistically, inspired in any way?

RO: Later on I've come to know that my father of all people, for instance, as we moved into another house and so on, that he did, because of his love of gardening and so on, he had a wonderful garden, and then the growing of chrysanthemums. So he did a lot of the flower arranging in the house, which I just accepted that that's what he did. So later on in life, he realized that then mostly done by women and so on, and but it was something that he did.

PW: How about your mother?

RO: And my mother was just, she was involved in cooking and trying to do all the things that mothers do, taking care of the house and laundry and this and that and so on. She had her friends, then she eventually would have, the women's club and so on would get together and they would end up doing everything from baking and preparing for New Year's and whatever. So her life beyond then, the family was very, very limited other than a few Japanese friends that she had, until later.

PW: When you say the women's club, was this through the Buddhist church? Did Selma have a Buddhist church?

RO: Yes, it was a connection, because there was also a Christian church there, and a Buddhist church, held actually in the same building. And so then the connection wasn't that she had then, but with friends that were...

PW: Did Selma celebrate Obon?

RO: No, we didn't. No they didn't. I don't remember that, I don't remember that. I don't think there were enough. I think then that the farming communities like Parlier, Del Rey, Fowler and so on, Sanger, they had a larger community and so on, so then basically then the people that lived in Selma, there were a few people that owned businesses like the Kajitani's and the Tori's grocery store and so on. But there were very, very few, so that our association with, and the farming community was by word of mouth, when they came to have udon and so on. So as a young boy, you just kind of recognized names of people. And yet you never even paid attention to who they were.

PW: Did your family ever come to Fresno, Japantown, or Chinatown?

RO: Oh, yes. Because we didn't own a car, and so we would then go to the Greyhound bus depot and then ride the Greyhound. I remember because my mother and father would say, you need to go ahead and clean up a little bit and dress with a nice ironed shirt and so on, and we'd ride the bus up to Fresno and we would eventually go to, what's it called, Chinatown, when we'd then go to have Chinese food and we would do shopping and so on, and I remember the small Japanese-run, Japanese American-run restaurants were very limited. So yeah, very, very few memories of that, just certain things that we did. It was a big deal, I guess, coming to Fresno.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.