Densho Digital Archive
Preserving California's Japantowns Collection
Title: Sachi Hiromoto Interview
Narrator: Sachi Hiromoto
Interviewers: Donna Graves (primary); Jill Shiraki (secondary)
Location: Clarksburg, California
Date: October 1, 2012
Densho ID: denshovh-hsachi-01-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

DG: So Sachi, how old were you when you started going to the language school?

SH: Maybe around six. When I started public school, I think I started Japanese school same time.

DG: And what public school did you go to?

SH: I went to Clarksburg Elementary.

DG: And that was an Oriental school?

SH: No.

DG: That was integrated.

SH: Uh-huh.

DG: But, so Wayne Osaki's...

JS: He was at Courtland.

DG: Okay.

SH: I went with him.

DG: So you started --

SH: We were in the same class.

DG: So you started out at Clarksburg.

SH: Uh-huh, and then when I was ten I moved to Courtland, we moved to Courtland, and then I went to school over there. And so Wayne and his sister and his older brother, we were all in, going to Courtland. And that was Oriental school, so we were, let's see, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino...

DG: I heard there were a few Mexican kids.

SH: Gee, the -- no, some of the Mexicans went to white school. Our neighbors over here, they're Mexicans, but they went to white school, so I don't know what the difference was. Of course, their complexion's a little whiter than the regular Mexicans, but I don't know why.

DG: So what was it like to go from the Clarksburg school to the Courtland school?

SH: Oh my gosh. [Laughs] What a difference.

GH: What was that? What was the question?

DG: How it was to go from the Clarksburg school to the Courtland.

SH: Different.

GH: Oh, the district.

SH: No.

DG: What was the experience like, Sachi?

SH: Well, when you go to Oriental school, everybody has their own niche, right, and they speak their own language. And so it's only in class that you're speaking English. [Laughs]

DG: So the Filipinos are speaking Tagalog?

SH: Yeah, their own, yeah, they have their own group, so, you know. And that's how it was.

DG: And how was it in Clarksburg?

SH: Clarksburg? It was, they all mingled.

GH: They're integrated. Clarksburg's integrated.

JS: So why did you have to switch schools, because you moved?

SH: Yeah. My father went to another place to farm, so we moved to Courtland. And that's why I went to Courtland.

DG: So that would've been about 1935, so right in the middle of the Depression.

SH: Yeah, something like that, probably.

DG: Why did he have to move farms?

SH: Well, I think he got a better offer, this new place.

DG: Was he leasing land?

SH: Oh yes. Those days, Isseis couldn't own land or anything, so...

DG: But he wasn't sharecropping. He leased.

SH: No, he leased.

DG: And did he hire help?

SH: Oh, yes. My dad used to hire Japanese Niseis to help him out, yeah.

DG: And did you and your siblings help on the farm?

SH: As I got older, yeah.

DG: What would you do?

SH: What was I doing? I was planting tomatoes out in the field and picking. [Laughs]

DG: Not driving a tractor, though.

SH: Oh no, no, not me. [Laughs]

GH: She doesn't even get on a tractor. [Laughs]

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.