<Begin Segment 2>

JD: Can you describe a little bit about your family's day-to-day life before the war?

FK: Well I was pretty young, 'cause I was born in '39. But, I... because my father commuted to town most of the time and my mother did most of the farming, I think we probably socialized more with the people in the immediate area and not too much with other farmers. 'Cause I think... I don't remember going to any big, you know, get-togethers... other families and all that kinda stuff. Although there were some families that we did get together with. And I know there's some early pictures of, like the Nakatas and the Haruis and so forth, being in our yard, so I'm sure they did that. I know they dug a lot of clams, picked, picked a lot of seaweed. In a lot of ways it was a staple. And there was a lot of fish around, so they did a lot of fishing, mostly for shiners and rock cod, rock cods. For fun... you don't have much time for fun when you're on a farm. I know even after the war, when I was going to school, I turned out for sports, but I never turned out for baseball 'cause that came during berry season. So I never was able to turn out for baseball. But I did turn out for football and basketball.

JD: You were on the football team?

FK: I was. Yeah.

JD: What position did you play?

FK: Linebacker and halfback. And if they... and if it was really bad I played middle guard on defense. [Laughs]

JD: Were there different groups among the Bainbridge Island Japanese American community? The farmers, the people who worked in town...

FK: You know, there weren't very many people that commuted to town so I think my father was pretty unusual, 'cause he'd go in on the ferry almost every day. I think most everybody else pretty much farmed on the island. Although there, there were like the Nakatas who had the grocery store business or the butcher business. And there were some commercial businesses on the island run by people of Japanese descent, but I'd say mainly most everybody was into farming.

JD: I'm assuming it was a pretty close-knit community, the Japanese Americans. But was there a lot of interaction with the white community also, white farmers or other...

FK: I think kids in school, you know, most of your friends were Caucasian, with the kids growing up and stuff. So I think that kids probably associated a lot with each other, but probably the families themselves probably didn't do a whole lot of things socially as far as the parents or the parents of the kids. I think high school kids really played a lot with each other, with people of other ethnic backgrounds and stuff. But, I, there would be a tendency probably to have most of your close friends being people of Japanese descent. But I know a lotta people who were in high school had a lot of close Caucasian friends, too. Which is interesting 'cause you would socialize, but as far as dating you probably wouldn't. It was probably some kind of an unwritten thing that you didn't date with each other. And if you did it was kind of like doing it on the sly or sneaking.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.