<Begin Segment 7>

AI: So around the year there were a number of community gatherings and get-togethers. And I was wondering, did you participate in any young people's activities? I guess your dad was active in starting up the Seinenkai, and there was a Japanese school. Were you active in any of these kinds of things?

RT: Well, my dad started that -- well, my dad and mother really -- started the Seinenkai, and we were too young. I mean, he started that when we were, probably before I was ten, so of course we didn't, we weren't involved. This was for the... compared to them, they were the younger Nisei, but right now I would guess you would call them the older Nisei in the community.

AI: Who would have been teenagers at the time.

RT: Yes, exactly. They would have been teenagers at that time and maybe into their early twenties possibly. As far as the Japanese language school, we never went, not one day. I often wondered about that, but because we were in a family where English was the main language, I guess my, my folks thought that it wasn't really vital that we learn the Japanese language. But I remember once that my father said that, "If you really want to learn Japanese, then you should go to Japan." And he said that, "If you really wanted to learn Japanese, then you would have to travel to Japan and live there." He says, "That would be the only way to really learn the language." We went to the Congregational church, and we walked up the hill to the Congregational church. And I do believe we participated in the youth groups there as we got a little bit older, probably when we were maybe upper elementary, middle school, like sixth, seventh, eighth grade. And the other social thing that I remember vividly, from the time we were little, we would go to baseball games. That was the weekend activity during the summer. My dad played and so, of course, we had to go see my dad play ball, and the whole family would go all dressed to the nines. I guess that's just the way it was in those days. That if you went out, that you dressed up. And my mother was very conscious of dressing us up. And we always, I remember she, we always used to have very nice outfits. Some of them she sewed. She sewed a lot. And she was a very good seamstress, so she sewed outfits for us, I think. But here we are, all dressed so nice and clean, and we'd go out to the ballfields, and we would have ice cream and dribble stuff all over, but it was really a great time for the whole community really, that took part.

AI: Really, really community activity.

RT: Yeah. Although I must say that now I think about it, it's more the Nisei. And, I don't recall there're too many Issei that came out for the games. But it was mostly the Niseis, and the women, too, would -- the young Nisei gals -- would come out for some of these games. But we had to go to all of 'em.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.