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JN: Let's start by you, perhaps, introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about your family life and what life was like on Bainbridge in 1942, and how old you were at that time.

YY: My name is Yae Sakai Yoshihara. And life on Bainbridge... the earliest recollection is that we lived in this old wooden house. There were, of course, six children. We were on a strawberry farm. And I was the youngest of one brother and four girls, or, four sisters, five girls. At the time of evacuation I was twelve years old. But prior to that time, life on Bainbridge was pretty simple. And even where our house was located, there was no electricity. So, you know, it was pretty primitive... outdoor plumbing, well water, kerosene lamps, wood stove. So it was very simple. Later on, my dad built the house, which is on Madison, North Madison. Anyway, that was back in 1936 and I was in the second grade. We moved to the location where there was electricity. So that was something new for us. And... radio, refrigerator... so, you can see how different life was. Socially, the Japanese, more or less, kind of stuck to themselves. There was a Japanese community... the Japanese Hall where people assembled. There was Japanese language school. And when the kids were in third grade they would start the Japanese language school as a first grader. That's how I began. In the third grade I started Japanese language school. Then with... we played with our friends. In school we mixed... we were able to, you know, on the playground everybody played together. But when it came to kind of group things, it was always with our Japanese friends, and we generally were not invited to the Caucasian parties or homes.

[Interruption]

YY: In the Japanese community at that time, they had... like they would have annual bazaar. And then from time to time, a person from Seattle would bring Japanese movies, so we would watch that. And then sometimes there would be a talent show or some program and the people participated. For some reason I was always nominated to sing. 'Cause I liked to sing. But, I don't know, I just picked to do that. Then the Japanese school would have a program. We had to sing Japanese songs or whatever we learned. Mrs. Ohtaki was very patient with us because she had unruly students to manage and try to teach. And the younger ones did attend Japanese school on Saturdays. The older ones had to work on Saturdays or help on the farm, but the younger ones... so we spent the day, Saturdays, attending language school. And so that was another way of bonding more. Because the houses were spread apart, and we didn't have what you call a "next door neighbor." I mean, you could yell on top of your lungs but the neighbor may not hear you because of the distance. But, when we had time we would go to their house or they would come over to our place to play. But as a whole, we played with the siblings whenever we weren't helping on the farm, because, for the older ones, like my brother had to do the heavier work, help my dad do the heavier work. The older ones did the more complicated work on the farm, like setting the runners and hoeing, whereas the younger ones, we just had to do the weeding by hand, or spread the... not the fertilizer, but the insecticide because there were insects that would eat the plants. Summertime, it was always helping with the strawberry harvesting. We would pick berries and Dad would have us, have our tickets punched, and at the end of the season he would pay us. So that was one way of earning a little money. And then, you know, the people always had problem with our names, and I remember every beginning of the school year with a new teacher, she would go down the list of students and, of course, mispronounce our names, the Japanese names. Of course there'd be laughter, snickering. And we always wished we had American names. So I remember one day, the sisters anyway, the four younger sisters, decided to choose names. And so they picked American names. I picked Shirley because at that time Shirley Temple was very popular, the idol. So I used the name Shirley. However, when I went back to school and asked the teacher to call me Shirley, she says, "No." Because that wasn't what she wanted to call me. And so as time went on, I just didn't use the name. I mean, maybe for a short time and some people did call me Shirley, but it never really stuck. And... I can't remember what else that you would like to...

JN: That's good, thank you.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.