<Begin Segment 3>

AI: And, do you remember, when you started school, did you understand English?

KO: Well that was the thing that amazes me even today when I think about it. How did we... how were we able to get along when actually, we'd been around Japanese people for all the years that we were growing up, to the point where we could go to school. And I don't ever remember having a difficulty getting along in school. It amazes me that, that we learned English to the extent that it wasn't a problem.

AI: Well, especially because you were the oldest child, and I would imagine that being the first child, your parents probably spoke a lot of Japanese to you.

KO: That's right. But my father knew quite a bit of English. And it could be that I picked up enough English from him that we were able to get by. But, but...

AI: But was Japanese your main language at home?

KO: I think it was. It must have been. Because my mother didn't know very much English at that time, because she just had come, just come over from Japan. But it is, it just, it is one of the things that amazes me. And I hear talk these days that they want to make English the language of the United States, feeling that the immigrants would, are having difficulty, or would have difficulty learning English. But my feeling is that if we could learn English, anybody could learn English if they put their mind to it.

AI: Well, now then, as you were growing up in Gurrier -- and it sounds like you were part of this, kind of a Japanese camp, that was part of a larger sawmill community -- did you know at that time that, realize the difference between you as a Japanese family, and the Caucasian families?

KO: Well, I'm sure we did, although I don't know when we became aware of it or how it was approached. But we just took it as, that's the way it was, and never thought too much about it.

AI: Right, 'cause as you say, you were, pretty much had a separate life until you had to start school, and then you were face to face with this other group.

KO: That's right.

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