<Begin Segment 10>

DG: And your mother was working at what?

SS: She was doing domestic work, she was doing waitressing at night and she did people's laundry during the weekends.

DG: So what were your responsibilities in the family?

SS: To take care of my younger sisters, I had to have the rice cooked and this started when I was only in the third grade now. And when... now, when you say third grade and I see my grandson and all, I said, "Was I cooking rice when I was only eight?" Yet I did. I guess families depended on the kids.

DG: And you lived right in Honolulu, right? You said near...

SS: Near where Ala Moana Shopping Center is.

DG: And so, where, what did you play? What was your play?

SS: Those days, families were not able to buy too many things for us. Aside from what we got from my aunties, my dad worked for Matson Navigation and during Christmas, they gave us a Christmas present to all the kids of the workers. And they gave us roller skates, so we used to roller skate all over.

DG: Did you go to the beach very much?

SS: Yes, but we walked. We walked from where we lived to Waikiki and walked back. We didn't have the luxury of taking the bus... we walked to the library... everywhere.

DG: And your friends were all Asian friends, at that time?

SS: That's right.

DG: Did you celebrate Fourth of July at all?

SS: Yes, with firecrackers.

DG: Okay, so you knew that that was Independence Day and....

SS: Because when you... the schools, English school that we went to were no different from English school here. Maybe we spoke pidgin English, but once in the classroom, then you forget your pidgin and you're a regular student.

DG: Then you went to Japanese school?

SS: Japanese school, from the time we were in the first grade after English school we went to Japanese school for an hour to two hours... and so, when you consider now, people say, "Oh, day care this and that." I can't see why they can't have a language school or something like that so that the kids can learn something. And I think we were fortunate in the fact that we had the Japanese schools. The Chinese went to Chinese school; Koreans went to Korean schools. So I think people my age were bilingual. And more to our advantage and yet, when you hear about it now that people say, we're having all kind of problems, I think the kids should have something else to structure their lives, don't you think?

DG: Uh-huh.

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