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AI: Oh, so what year, well, what year were you born and then what year --

CN: I was born in 1924.

AI: So you went to Japan in 1926, would that have been?

CN: '26, uh-huh.

AI: And then you stayed for several years?

CN: Yeah. I stayed until I was -- well, for four years.

AI: Do you have any memories of that time?

CN: Well, I don't know whether they're really my memories or just what I was told. I have some visual memories of being carried on my mother's back and, because she would go visit her friends. And my sister had a wonderful time because my youngest uncle on my mother's side is nine years -- I mean, months older than me, and my youngest aunt is the same age as my sister, so they all went to school together. And then she came back right after she graduated from high school. So, to answer your question, I think there was some plan to go back because she was sent there to be educated, and I'm sure they were thinking it would be easier on them if she got a head start. So she came back. It was just before -- not in months, but in years -- just before World War II.

AI: So the late '30s, then?

CN: Yeah, it was very hard for her. I remember feeling sorry for her too because we were strangers, and everything was so new. And I remember when she started, it was special education classes at Pacific School at that time, and we still have class pictures from... and it was not just Japanese American, not just Kibei; but, you know, Jewish children (and) young, young people.

AI: Other immigrant children.

CN: Uh-huh.

AI: So she really had, she really had to learn English basically from scratch from the time she came back.

CN: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

AI: Now, do you recall a time when you spoke Japanese before you spoke English?

CN: Yeah, I do. I remember very distinctly just before I started kindergarten, I was given an easel. You know those little... they were green boards, not blackboards, and my father printing my name. And I was, I practiced printing my name, and I was -- he said, "Well, now you have to go to the bathroom," -- this is in Nihongo -- "So this is how you say it in English..." And, "My name is..." and just perfunctory things like that that he taught me.

AI: So his English was good enough that he had everyday English that he was teaching you?

CN: Yeah. It was good enough, not all that good, but he was able to... I guess I should say it was good because he was able to function in making a living and that kind of thing. So... but I do remember that very vividly and being taken by my mother and father to, to school that very first day.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.