<Begin Segment 10>

DH: Anything else you want to add before we go on to Pearl Harbor and then how things changed after that? Anything else you want to reflect on from that time before the war, life before the war?

KN: I used to go to church all the time, but you know why I liked to go to church?

DH: Why?

KN: Mom gave me five pennies every Sunday so I really looked forward to going to church. Well, that part was okay, but we start out a little early, and then we go down to this grocery store. You know where the Madrona Cafe is now?

DH: Uh-huh.

KN: There was a grocery store down there very close to Eagle Harbor Congregational Church. So I would spend two cents for licorice stick, licorice whip, and the remainder went into the church collection basket. So you know I won't go to heaven. [Laughs] That went on for quite a while.

DH: And they never knew.

KN: Now I make up for it.

DH: Was it a tough decision trying to decide between going to a Buddhist church or a Christian church?

KN: See, we were brought up Buddhist, but I couldn't understand a thing. Mom would take us to the service because no baby-sitters, right, and so we just sit there and listen, and we would just suffer through. But once we started school and we could understand English, then Mom says well, you go to church. So she gives us this money for collection, and then we go to church. So I went until I was about twelve years old.

DH: Anything you remember from those days you want to add?

IN: Well, when I was a kid at Port Blakely whenever they had a function at the Buddhist Church, I'd go there; and whenever that he had function at the Baptist Church, I'd go there, also. [Laughs] So it didn't matter to me. It was just a matter of attending and it didn't make any difference what the denomination of the church or whatever it was.

DH: That was just part of your social life.

IN: Yes, and that was true of all the kids over in Port Blakely.

DH: Just go to wherever there was activities.

IN: And there were a number of people at the Baptist Mission -- there were a number of Caucasians who spoke Japanese, and they would come over from Seattle, and the older people would attend and listen to them. That was part of our -- I think we'd rather have played baseball or something like that rather than going to church about that time.

DH: Did you go to Japanese Language School in addition to American schools?

IN: We lived a short time in Seattle and I went to a Japanese language school for about two years, and that was the extent of my Japanese. That's all I ever -- well, I learned Japanese was by, from my folks or from, because the community being all Japanese, it was spoken mostly Japanese.

DH: So you spoke Japanese at home, but in school you spoke English.

IN: Right.

DH: Did you go to Japanese school here?

KN: Yes, uh-huh. I went eight years and I got my diploma, but that doesn't mean I know a lot.

DH: Because you used English mostly in school.

KN: Yes. However, I used to do lots of interpreting in camp between the Issei and the Nisei doctors when I worked at the hospital.

DH: And I know you did a lot of interpreting, too, for your parents, and we'll get into that in just a minute here. Do you want to take a break?

IN: No.

KN: It doesn't matter.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.