Densho Digital Archive - Kay Shimada Interview (denshovh-skay

<Begin Segment 1>

DG: So here's an easy one. Can you tell us your full name?

KS: My name is Kiyoshi Shimada. They call me Kay for short.

DG: And where and when were you born?

KS: I was born in Clarksburg, 1924, May 1, 1924.

DG: Were you born at home?

KS: I believe so. Yeah, well that, yeah, I think so, I think so. There's quite a few -- she was a midwife. My mother was a midwife. But I don't know whether she...

DG: Delivered her own baby.

KS: Birthed herself, or some neighbor came in and helped her. I don't know. That's what they used to do before, was help each other, the neighbors. Horse and buggy days, 1924. So yeah, you know. [Laughs]

DG: Can you tell us a little bit about your parents, what their names were, where they came from?

KS: My father's name is Kenichi Shimada. He was born in Hawaii, southern tip of island of Hawaii. Waipahu, I think, is the name. And that was in 1994, I think it was, 1994.

DG: Eighteen.

KS: Date is January... [laughs] I'm doing good if I can remember the date. It was January, I think. My mother was born in Japan, in 1900. Yeah, January of 1900 she was born, in Japan. Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi prefecture.

DG: And her name?

KS: That was... yeah, like I say, 1900, I think it was. In 1900, yeah. That made it kind of easy to remember her... yeah, 1900.

DG: And what was her name?

KS: Her name was Asako, A-S-A-K-O. Asako... what was her maiden name? I can't remember the maiden name now. Iwamoto or something like that.

[Interruption]

DG: How did she and your father...

KS: Meet?

DG: Yeah, get married.

KS: Well, those days were all picture, what you call a picture marriage or whatever, introduction. And he was in America then. He was born in Hawaii, raised in Japan, then came to California to farm. And I think she was only seventeen or eighteen when she got married. Yeah, because my oldest sister born 1919. Yeah, so she must've been about seventeen or eighteen, something like, 'cause 1900 is when she was born.

JS: Can we back up a little bit?

KS: Okay, sure.

JS: So your grandfather went to Hawaii?

KS: Grandfather must've been in Hawaii, yes. My father was born in Hawaii, so... uh-huh, southern, real southern tip of island of Hawaii, Waipahu was the name. I even visited that place. Yeah, when I was in Hawaii I took a special visit.

JS: So your father was born in Hawaii, but then --

KS: No, I don't think so. I don't think he was born there. I think -- no, I take it back, he was. He was a Nisei. He wasn't a first generation. Second generation because he was born in Hawaii, although at that time it wasn't a state but a territory of America or whatever. Yeah, so he was a natural-born citizen, but educated in Japan. Then he moved to California when he was, I think, about twenty years old, I guess, maybe less than that. I don't, I don't know when he came to America. I don't know. But then he started to farm with a bunch of other bachelors, I guess you would say. [Laughs]

DG: In this area? Or in the Delta?

KS: In Clarksburg, right down the river here. Yeah, across in Yolo County side. They developed from all wild forest and stuff; they cleared it all out and made the farms and dairies and stuff like that. Yeah, they did, they pioneered quite a bit over here in the West Sacramento, Clarksburg area.

DG: So did he talk to you about that time when he was here as a bachelor?

KS: He was a quiet man, never hardly talked. He answered you, but that's it. [Laughs] Yeah, he didn't say anything to me about his bringing up or whatever. No, he didn't, so I'm just surmising all these things. But a lot of 'em are factual, yeah.

DG: Well, so once he married your mother, they settled...

KS: They settled in, I guess it would be Freeport area, I suppose. Yeah, and had my oldest sister, second one was a sister too, then my brother, then I came along.

JS: Can you name all your siblings?

KS: Name 'em?

JS: Yeah.

KS: Okay, my oldest sister is Yoshie. She was born... when was that now?

DG: You said 1919.

KS: 1919, yeah. 1919. And Kinuko was my second one; she was born 1920. And then my brother, Takeo, T-A-K-E-O, 1922. Then my name, Kiyoshi, I came along in '24. And then my next brother, Minoru, M-I-N-O-R-U, was born in 1926. Then came Ben, Ben Tsutomu, and he was born 1931. Then my youngest one, youngest brother, was Tom, 1936, so five years apart.

DG: Wow.

KS: [Laughs] I could remember those kind of things.