Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: George Fugami Interview
Narrator: George Fugami
Interviewer: Dee Goto
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 15, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-fgeorge-01-0010

<Begin Segment 10>

DG: So then now in Japan when you went to school, were you ridiculed at all?

GF: Well, they thought I was a foreigner, and they would tell me bad words. "You go tell that girl that," and I'd say -- I don't know what it meant -- I'd go say, "Hey," this and that, and she'd come in there and slap me in the face. [Laughs] I still remember that girl. That was... but I don't know how my sisters or brothers felt because they were so small, and I don't think they felt too much that way. But I know I did because I was quite a bit older and these kids used to make -- and then one incident at school, too. They used to have -- our teacher, I remember our teacher, he says, "If you don't know this, you all go in the back there and hold the chair on your head like this." We have a small chair so I was back there with him. I didn't know.

DG: That was your discipline?

GF: That was my discipline, yes. And then they made me clean the floor, and I said, "My God, this is a hell of a place to stay." Excuse my language. [Laughs] And it was kind of interesting, but they were, the teachers were strict, boy, I tell you. You do anything, you put your hand out and bang-o. Here goes a ruler, stick -- not a ruler -- stick hit you. And nowadays it would be child abuse, but those days it's nothing like that. But I think that's good in a way. It wakes you up. You know? It wakes you up. I don't think we have enough of that. [Laughs] But anyway...

DG: Do you remember anything about what you learned?

GF: Learned? Yes, I remember. I didn't know Japanese at all, all right? We had a schoolteacher that lived close to our place, and I think my mother hired him before she left. And he would write Irohanihoheto on a great big paper.

DG: The alphabet.

GF: Alphabets, right on the wall there. He said, "Every morning you read that." And so before breakfast I would read what I knew. I used to read that, and he used to come over every other day to teach me Japanese. I remember that. I don't know about my brother and sister, I don't remember, but I know I was disciplined that way. And I guess they were small enough, I think they caught on faster than I did. I had that resentment. I don't want to go stay here in Japan.

DG: So you were sort of tutored.

GF: Yeah, I was tutored. And I remember my uncle, he was staying with us, every evening he drinks. The mother gives him drinks. That's a custom that they had. So, anyway, I thought maybe I should try that. Oh, Grandma said, "No, no. You don't do that until you get to be like Uncle there, then you can do it." But...

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