Densho Digital Archive
Friends of Manzanar Collection
Title: Bill Watanabe Interview
Narrator: Bill Watanabe
Interviewer: Sharon Yamato
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: February 8, 2012
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1003-9-23

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SY: And can you describe what regular school was like, I mean, maybe compare and contrast what regular school was like versus Japanese school?

BW: Well, regular school was fine. I enjoyed regular school. I was a very shy kind of kid, so I had a hard time adjusting because I didn't, no one prepared me to know what to expect, so I remember vividly my first day in school. I mean, it was frightening. I didn't know what to do. So my parents didn't tell me, my older brothers didn't tell me, so I was totally lost. But after that initial experience, I didn't experience any animosity or prejudice or negative feelings. Everyone seemed pretty accepting.

SY: Was there a language issue? Because you only spoke Japanese at home, was it uncomfortable? I mean, how, how did you learn English?

BW: I was told, like in kindergarten and first grade, I hadn't developed much of my language skills yet and so apparently my first grade teacher wrote a note to my parents saying I should be tested 'cause I might have, I might be, what do they call it, retarded, that kind of thing. So my uncle Tomio actually went to the school to explain that, "He hasn't grown up in an English-speaking environment, so he's not retarded, but he's got to pick it up yet." So apparently the teachers were quite understanding, and you pick it up fairly quickly, so as far as I can tell, by first, second grade I was fine.

SY: Do you remember it being difficult in your own mind?

BW: No, not language wise. I just remember it being difficult, not knowing what to do. Like recess, everybody ran out the door and I thought, "What's recess?" [Laughs] I didn't know, I didn't know what was going on. And then I remember in kindergarten, playing with the blocks, but I never played with blocks and I never played with any of those toys, so when the teacher said, "It's recess time, you can play," I had no knowledge of how to play with any of those things. So it was that kind of an experience that I remember most. It's just in a foreign world and not knowing what to do.

SY: Growing up on the farm, was that, do you think it was because you were Japanese American or because you were, you grew up on a farm that you didn't have that --

BW: Yeah, growing up on the farm and my parents had no Western knowledge of ways.

SY: So it was a combination. So in some sense, Japanese school should've been more comfortable, but it, but it wasn't, huh?

BW: Well, it wasn't uncomfortable. Yeah.

SY: It just felt like punishment.

BW: [Laughs] Yeah, it was like, "We could be playing somewhere. Instead we're sitting here."

SY: So did you get off the hook as far as working on the farm when you were young?

BW: We did, I admit it. My two older brothers used to say, "You know, you have it so easy 'cause we had to, we had to work," ever since they were young. And I believe it. They probably had to work like adults since they were, like, twelve years old. Me, me and my younger brother, like after school, we didn't have to work, whereas my two older brothers, they had to put in a couple hours of work on the farm. And then on, I think on Saturdays they worked too, whereas I didn't have to work. I went to Japanese school and we just had it easy. And then during the summers, my brothers had to show up at seven a.m., 'cause that's when everybody started work. Me and my brother, we'd show up around nine and no one said anything, and my brothers would go, looking at us with disdain, like, "You guys have it so easy. You should've been here at seven a.m. They made us be here at seven a.m." I go, "Okay." I admit it. [Laughs] So yeah, we had it easy, and I mean, we did have to work, but I know they were much softer on us than with my two older brothers. But when I compare my growing up experience with my daughter, I feel the same way. She's got it so easy. She's never had to put in, like a ten hour day, working under the hot sun. Even though I did it easier than my older brothers, still, growing up on a farm and working on a farm, it does give you, what would you say, a sense of character. It's something to work 'til your bones and fingers and legs ache and, yeah, stuff like that.

SY: And your mother stayed home, primarily?

BW: No, my mother, she would prepare breakfast, clean up, she'd work in the fields maybe from about nine to four. She'd come back early, make lunch, and then, and then the two mothers, my aunt Terry and my mother, she would also make a morning snack and an afternoon snack for the workers, and then come back around four to make dinner. So she did full housekeeping, preparing meals, and put in maybe five hours in the fields. And then when we had flowers to pack and bunch, we might be working 'til seven or eight, nine o'clock at night.

SY: And when you got home from school, was she out in the fields, or was she --

BW: Most of the time she'd be out in the fields. So my brothers, my brother and I, as kids we would watch TV and make ourselves sandwiches and play games and stuff.

SY: You were pretty much on your own, in some ways.

BW: We were, yeah. Latchkey, I suppose, to some extent. [Laughs] But we knew they were on the farm. It's not like they were, we didn't know where they were, so it wasn't like we were alone, but we were alone in the house.

SY: So how, so at a young age, your parents, were they strict with you? Were they, just left you alone? Did they, how would you characterize, what...

BW: Yeah, it's kind of an odd sense of discipline 'cause I don't remember them being, like, really strict. But at the same time, I know they inculcated in us a sense of respecting what they said. I never got spanked, although my father kicked me once. [Laughs] 'Cause I came home late and I must've been kind of sassy, but -- and actually, he was a short man, and I could've run away, but I didn't. I let him kick me. [Laughs] And he had heavy farm boots on. And then I remember one time my mother punched me. She would make these knuckles and she, pow pow, she hit me in the chest several times, but that happened only once in my life that I can remember. But we were basically obedient. Maybe my two older brothers might've kind of put that into us, that, that's how they were. They were very obedient, and whatever my father said, that's the way it was.

SY: And you, and even though you were younger, you weren't, you weren't different in the sense that you were...

BW: We weren't rebellious or anything. We were lazy, but we weren't rebellious. [Laughs] And then Kinjiro, my second oldest brother, he, he wanted to get away, so as soon as he graduated high school he joined the Air Force and left, left home. But the rest of us, we were quite happy at home, I think. My parents were not overbearing, they were not strict, but we knew, we would toe the line. We never did anything rebellious as far as I knew.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.