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-01-0008

<Begin Segment 8>

DG: So what year did you guys get married?

SH: '49.

DG: So you did that for a few years.

SH: Oh yes, I did.

DG: And all the workers were Japanese.

SH: Yes.

DG: All men.

SH: All men.

DG: And were they --

SH: No, no, no. We had some, see, there were two houses that housed families. We had two families there, and the husbands would go out to work. Yeah, help my dad.

DG: And were most of those workers people who had farmed before the war?

SH: No. [Laughs] They were, they're, just came out of camp, no jobs, so everybody's working, trying to make something before they start their own job. So that's what they were; they were all looking for jobs. Yeah.

JS: So tell us about how you and George, when you started dating. Do you remember?

GH: Our folks are old friends.

SH: Yeah, we were, they'd been friends since we're in the same area. They'd always meet, and they used to go drinking, go fishing.

GH: I don't drink. I go fishing, but I don't drink.

DG: So when did, how old were you guys when you started dating?

SH: Gee, I think I got married when I was twenty-four. You were twenty-eight, huh? Yeah, I think so. We were four years' difference.

DG: So after the war.

SH: Yes, it was after the war. We met at a club. There was a club, and we used to meet at the community church over there in Clarksburg, because Mrs. Herringer was our... what would you call her? No, no, no. She organized this club for us.

DG: For Nisei?

SH: Yes, for the Nisei. And so that's where we met. We used to have meetings every so often.

DG: It was a social club for young people?

SH: Yes. It was a young people's social club, yeah.

DG: And was it called, what was it called?

SH: What was it called?

GH: YPA. Young People's Association.

DG: And it met at the Clarksburg Church.

SH: Uh-huh.

GH: Yeah. It's a Christian church.

SH: We never used this Gakuen that time. It was always at the church.

DG: How long did that club continue to meet?

SH: Oh my goodness. One after another, the members started to get married. [Laughs]

DG: It served its purpose.

SH: Yes, it did. [Laughs] Yeah. A lot of 'em, they got together.

GH: Well, I was actually, at Clarksburg, you know, among all the farmers, that's, I was a member of the library. I served in the library and, library, and I always served in the recreation unit, take care of the water.

SH: Reclamation.

GH: Reclamation, I was in there for twenty years.

DG: So was there a JACL here before the war?

SH: Yes. In Sacramento.

DG: So people from here would be members of the Sacramento JACL?

SH: I think some people were.

GH: Just a few.

SH: Just a few, not many.

DG: What about a Japanese association? Were your parents...

GH: Yeah, parents were in, in Courtland.

SH: But that was Courtland, though. But after we came back, I don't think there was.

GH: I don't think there were too many.

DG: No, not after the war. Before the war.

SH: Before the war, uh-huh.

JS: Where else would people go to hang out? You would go to this community church for social activities, but where else would you meet with other Nisei?

SH: Ball games.

JS: Ball games.

DG: So the team started back up after the war?

SH: Yeah, there was a team.

JS: What about the, wasn't there a place called Tom's Soda Fountain?

SH: Uh-huh, right here. Yeah, Tom's Corner.

GH: Oh yeah, Tom's Corner, that's a store there.

DG: In Clarksburg or Courtland?

GH: Clarkburg.

SH: Right there, right there by that --

GH: You know the school there, that corner?

SH: Yeah, that corner.

GH: There's a home there now, but it used to be a store, and farmers --

SH: Yeah, it's a home now. That used to be a fountain.

GH: They used to have a fountain there, and so that's where, farmers used to gather there. Not me because I don't drink.

DG: So it was a bar.

GH: I'm an antisocial --

SH: No, it wasn't a bar. Beer, hamburger and beer.

GH: Beer, and I don't drink beer.

DG: And this was after the war?

SH: Yes, after the war.

Off camera: It sounded like, though, there were forty families here before the war, then only five or so after, sounded like a lot of your friends must've moved away.

GH: Yeah.

SH: Yes, oh yes.

Off camera: What was, what was that like, having a lot of your friends... did you have a bigger social life -- talk about that. What happened? Did, you had a group of friends and your group of friends shrunk once you came back, right?

GH: Yeah.

Off camera: Yeah, so describe, describe that.

SH: Okay, now, so we have new friends.

Off camera: Okay, which one of your friends left? Which were some of your better friends that didn't come back?

SH: Well, I think most of 'em that went to school, over there, over here at the Gakuen, most of them, they went, they left.

GH: They left. They went north, southeast.

SH: Every which way.

GH: Every which way.

Off camera: That must've been sad for you guys.

SH: Well yeah, when we come back, and we often wonder, "Gee, I wonder how they're doing and I wonder where they are?" You know, you kind of wonder 'cause you've known them while you were growing up, and then --

Off camera: Some of 'em were in the Bay Area. No letters?

DG: Or visits back?

Off camera: Visits back?

SH: At first we used to write Christmas card, exchange cards. But as the stamps get... [laughs] you kind of cut off, and later on it just, you either, if you're close you either call by phone or something like that, and then you kind of miss contact with them.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.