<Begin Segment 7>

BK: Being from Japan, your parents came from Japan, did they stress much of the Japanese language at home?

JT: Well, that was one of the things that was missing. They spoke, they spoke Japanese among themselves, especially when they didn't want us to know something. But then my friend's mother, Mrs. Kaino, she had, she had books, she brought, ordered books, and then she would grab me by the ear and sit me down and say... you know those little books that used to have a nose and it would say hana underneath it and kuchi with the lips and mouth, and that mimi for ears, well, I started on those. I guess I did learn a little bit, but not a great deal. So there was, it wasn't a formal type of thing. But we learned a little bit, what the nose was. [Laughs] And we couldn't speak it, but we certainly understood, because, I guess because they spoke it all the time. My mother was very proficient in both English and Japanese, but of course, as time went on and when we got older and left Petersburg during the war era, things changed and pretty soon she'd forget her English. And so she never knew how to write but she could speak a little bit. And my sister was better, she went to night school after -- my oldest sister after she got, after they brought her here, or she was brought, she came by herself, I guess, actually -- and she went to night school so she was able to pick up the language. And so I tried to help my mother learn the English language and teach her alphabet and one thing or another. But it was a pretty hard job when you get a little bit older. [Laughs] It's difficult with sounds and everything. So she could write her name and things but beyond that she couldn't do too much in the way of reading and writing the English alphabet and language.

BK: And she really didn't, they didn't really stress that you must learn the Japanese language?

JT: No, they didn't, unfortunately. I learned a lot of it only when I got older and I lived with my husband and his family for a while, so they spoke a lot of Japanese and they were surprised how much I actually did learn through that.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.