<Begin Segment 4>
DG: So the, so you said you did not go to Japanese school?
HS: I did not in Clarksburg, but --
DG: Did you go --
HS: -- but when, in West Sacramento, went a few years in the Sacramento Japanese school. That was just one day a week.
DG: On Saturdays?
HS: I think it was on Saturday.
DG: And where was it?
HS: I'm not sure of the address, but it was just out of Sacramento.
DG: In the teacher's home?
HS: No, there was a regular school there.
DG: And was it...
HS: It was a one room school.
DG: And it was, would it have been known as the West Sacramento...
HS: Japanese school.
DG: Japanese school?
HS: I'm not certain of that.
DG: How old were you when you went?
HS: I probably was in the first, second grade, so six or seven.
DG: And did your siblings go too?
HS: Yeah, we all went there.
DG: Just on Saturday.
HS: One day a week.
DG: What do you remember about that school?
HS: All I remember was that it was really cold. They didn't have any heating system, but they did have a wood-burning stove. And then I guess the teacher felt sorry for me, so he moved me right next to the stove, and I felt so isolated I started crying, so he moved me back to the regular seats. [Laughs]
DG: How many kids would you say were at that school?
HS: How many children were at that school?
DG: Uh-huh.
HS: I'd say between twenty and thirty.
DG: All the way through high school?
HS: Well, as I mentioned, I didn't go there for more than a year or two.
DG: But were there, like --
HS: Well, one teacher taught the whole, from first to eighth grade, I guess.
DG: I see. Were there other activities at that school? Picnics? Any other kind of community gatherings?
HS: I don't recall that there were.
DG: You were so young.
HS: If there were, we didn't go to them.
DG: And so you only went for a couple years in early grade school?
HS: Uh-huh.
DG: Did you stop because, why did you stop?
HS: Probably because we moved and it was too far to go.
DG: Where did you move then?
HS: In West Sacramento, but you know, seven, eight, about, a few miles away from there.
DG: So to another farm.
HS: Yes.
DG: And your parents continued to do the seed farming?
HS: Yes, they continued to do the seed crops.
DG: And, okay, and so you went to school in West Sacramento, then you said you went back to Clarksburg for high school?
HS: One year. I think it was one year.
DG: Your family moved back to Clarksburg in '40 or '41?
HS: Well, before camp we were in West Sacramento. And then we moved back there, right. We moved back to Clarksburg. [Laughs] It was such a short time.
DG: But you started high school there.
HS: Yeah, just one year.
DG: Any other questions about childhood occurring to either of you?
JS: So did you spend a lot of time in Sacramento's Japantown?
HS: Did I spend a lot of time in Japantown? Only to go shopping with my father, that's all.
DG: Did you --
HS: They had Japanese movies, so the parents used to take us. And I hated it because they, we sat upstairs and everybody smoked. It just made me sick.
DG: So that was a theater in Japantown?
HS: Yes.
DG: Did you go to a church?
HS: I didn't go at the time.
DG: Your family didn't, wasn't...
HS: Well, I guess they were too busy to go to church. They worked almost 24/7.
DG: Yeah. So any other...
JS: Not for Sacramento. When you moved back to Clarksburg, do you remember that? Can you talk about that, moving back, right before the war?
HS: Right before the war?
JS: Yeah, what grade were you in?
HS: I was a freshman.
JS: Were you glad to be back? Did you see old friends from before? It had been a, kind of a long time, right?
HS: You mean, come back to Clarksburg?
JS: Yes.
HS: After camp?
JS: No, before. When you were a freshman.
HS: Well, I mean, it didn't mean one thing or another to me. Too dumb to know. [Laughs]
DG: No, it's just, when you're a kid you pay attention to different things.
JS: Yeah.
<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.