Densho Digital Archive - Kay Shimada Interview (denshovh-skay

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DG: So let's talk a little bit about the language school.

KS: Oh, yeah.

DG: So how old were you when you started going there?

KS: Well, I started with first grade, which was maybe when I was seven or eight, I suppose. Little different from American school. We went on Saturdays only, during the school year, on Saturdays, and then during the summer we went every day. We went six days a week to make up for the rest of the year, until... that was all of July, June, yeah... no, June, July, and part of August, we went six days a week. That was pretty rough. But you know, we had no bus service. We had to drive. My mother, she didn't have a license, but she used to drive the old Model T and take us all the way to the school.

DG: How long of a drive was that? How far away is Freeport?

KS: From where we lived, we were living around Freeport and I would say twelve, fifteen miles, I suppose. I never did measure, so I don't know, but about that, I guess. The roads are still there.

DG: And she would have a carful of children.

KS: Yeah, we used to pick up some other kids for, along the way we picked them up and took 'em home. Then we when we got old enough where we could drive ourself, yeah, my brother started, he did a couple of years and says no, he doesn't want to go to school, so he stayed on the farm and he worked on the farm. Then it was my turn to drive. So I loved that, going, driving, every Saturday, driving the car. I was only sixteen, at the time. And every Saturday we had to go to school, Japanese school, learn the language.

DG: What do you remember about the teacher's lessons and what you were learning?

KS: Boy, it was pretty hard to learn because you went to American school five days a week and on Saturdays you try to learn the Japanese language. It's not that easy. Although we spoke Japanese in, at home -- my mother, she could not talk or converse in English, so we were always talking in Japanese -- so I knew Japanese alright, but as far as writing the stuff, no, I couldn't write. But I learned that in Japanese school. Ten years I went there. [Laughs]

DG: We've heard that the teachers were pretty good at the Clarksburg school.

KS: Yeah. This, they had a family, the father taught the higher grade, then the mother, she taught all the rest of the grades, which wasn't too many. I mean, the classes were small, maybe six, seven at the most, some of 'em only a four-person. Yeah, so it was just a two room affair. Then they hired another person and then they had another anteroom, small room that they, she taught one class over there. But I don't know, then when American schools were on vacation, in June, then we went through all the June, all of June, July, then all we had was about three weeks of vacation time in August. [Laughs] That's all. Rest of the time, we went to school, yeah, Japanese school. But I think that was good. I learned quite a bit about our own history and culture.

DG: So you had seven kids and, and it cost to send your kids to Japanese school.

KS: Yeah, they, they had a tuition fee, which wasn't too much, I don't think. It was seven, no, not all seven of us went at one time because the younger ones were too young, anyway. But one, two, three, there were five of us used to go, my two sisters and three of us boys. We went. Only reason my older brother went was because he could drive the car. Otherwise he had no chance of driving. [Laughs] Yeah, same thing with me. When he quit, he said he had enough of Japanese school, so he quit and then I get to drive, so every Saturday I used to drive. Take the kids out to -- well, we picked up a few other neighbors' kids too, along the way.

DG: So some families couldn't afford it.