<Begin Segment 1>

[Standing outside the Clarksburg Holland Gakuen building.]

SH: Good afternoon. My name is Steven Hiromoto, and we're here in Clarksburg, California. Clarksburg is located approximately twenty miles south of the capital city of California, Sacramento, California. We're right down the river in the Sacramento River Delta area. Before me is the Holland Gakuen Japanese school, and during the early 1900s, there were quite a few Japanese immigrants here as farm labor, and quite a few -- or I should say some of the early families had arrived earlier and became very successful in their own right, becoming farmers themselves. And so once they became established, started growing their own crops, and became short of labor, they would call back to Japan, and from certain areas of Japan, Yamaguchi-ken, for instance, they would be able to have relatives or friends come over and become part of the labor force here. So there was quite a large Japanese community here, and as the Issei first generation married, began having families, the families started propagating and the community saw a need for a social area community service building, you might say, and also a place that they could propagate their Japanese culture.

I understand the building was put together in approximately 1926. We had several carpenters that were very... I guess ahead of their time, actually, and were able to design this building, and it's still very structurally sound. They used redwoods on the foundation area, the concrete that they used is still intact, and as far as I know, from looking at the building, it's still very sound. Some of the additions such as the stairways have gone through years of weathering and such, and are in pretty dire need of repair. The roof was put on approximately two years ago, yes, uh-huh. It was a community effort spearheaded by Jim Burchell, who was able to get a couple groups together and they were able to put a pretty nice roof on there. So as far as the roofing area, we're pretty sound. It's made the building pretty well waterproof inside, and as we go in and take a look, you're probably gonna just feel like you're walking right into the past. Everything was pretty much left as is.

I think I would say the last occupants to use the building was the Holland Doshi Kai, and that was a fraternal organization that was kind of... oh, I'd say probably children of the early Issei that were here in the area that were still remaining in the Clarksburg area and wanted to create a fraternal organization who came together on various holidays and had special events here. Probably around the mid-'90s would be about the last time the club had used this building actively. So today, if you'd like to go inside.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

[Walking towards building]

SH: I'm a fourth generation member of this community. My great grandfather came in, began farming in this area, and my grandfather and father continued that and I did as well. I farmed with our organization for about thirty-three years before we finally retired the operation. But I still live in the Clarksburg area, I still have farmland here, so my ties are still pretty strong here. When I grew up I was actually right across the street, and so I pretty much knew what was going on here at the building most of the time, and also my folks and grandparents were very active with the community events that went on here as well. As far as myself, in probably the mid-'50s, 1956 or so, some of the community members decided that the kids need to learn Japanese language, and so they were able to get a teacher, and there was probably about twenty-five, thirty students here ranging from, oh, maybe kindergarten, first grade up to high school level that met here every Saturday morning. Not that we wanted to, but we were forced to meet here. And some of it stuck, so I guess, for myself, it was a great introduction to Japanese language. I wish I could utilize it more and keep it up, but I'm still able to read some of it and understand some of it. So I really thank them for that effort.

DG: So where did the twenty-five or so kids who studied here, where did they come from?

SH: Okay. Some lived here --

Off camera: Start with "the students who came here."

SH: Okay. The students that attended the school probably with myself, probably came from about a... I'd say twenty-five mile radius of here. Some came from Sacramento, actually, West Sacramento, there were a few families here in Clarksburg, Courtland had a few. There may have been one or two families from Walnut Grove that came in as well, Merritt Island had several families, and they would come in there as well. And so we can go on inside, watch your step.

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

<Begin Segment 3>

[Inside building]

SH: As we come inside, you can take a look. I can point out that the stage area was not part of the original building. It was probably put together some years later, I would say, maybe in the early '30s. They began having entertainment, and they kind of needed a stage to use as a performance area. And so they kind of created this out of, probably had some of the leftover materials because it blends in very well, and it doesn't really... actually, it just looks like it was part of the building from the original. As you kind of look around the entire building here, you can see all the wood lathing, everything's still in pretty good shape. The oil on the floor has since probably worn away, but that can easily be polished and brought back to life, and I think it'd still be good for quite some time again. Again, the building was probably in the beginning all one room, and as the need arose for separating maybe classes or age groups or whatever, then these accordion style doors were placed here. When we'd have dinners and whatnot, sometimes we'd close it off, the kids would stay on one side and the adults would stay on the other side. Kids would have their games going, the adults would be playing bingo or whatever. So it became very multi-purpose. Fluorescent lights were probably added much later. I recall the old globe type bulbs were in the ceiling, and so I would say the neons were probably brought in in probably the '90s sometime.

You can kind of still see our New Year's song sheet. It's tradition that we sing the New Year's song, and so as we celebrated New Year's here throughout the years, then we just sing along with the words. The chalkboard here was an original, it was probably here since the early days. What you see on the writing there is probably from the Doshi Kai club, probably names for some reason, probably a bus trip to Reno or something, and it was just kind of left there. I would say it's probably written in around the mid-'90s, because I recognize a lot of the names, and probably three-quarters of them have since passed.

The piano, as Donna was asking, probably has its own history and I'm not quite sure of that history. But like you said, Tom was talking about that, so you'll have to reference him. [Laughs] But as far as myself, I remember our sensei was a pianist, and she was able to play a lot of tunes and do our sing-alongs with her accompanying us on the piano.

We had a question about these large picnic-type tables. These actually came out of my father-in-law's labor camp. He had dismantled his camp as far as the labor eating portion of it probably in the early '90s, we needed a place to get rid of these great tables, and the club kind of saw a need for large tables for these, so they kind of ended up here. Lot of these other circular tables and whatnot were the creation of our neighbor and caretaker Harry Makino. Harry was a relative of Tom Sakata, actually, he was uncle to Tom Sakata and the Sakata family. And Harry was pretty much a jack of all trades. He was able to fix anything, put anything together, for instance, our heater here was actually made from two oil drums, fifty-five gallon drums. And he and I got the idea to kind of do that, put that together, probably in the early '90s, and it ended up working out very well. They put out quite a bit of heat for us.

[Interruption]

SH: Because we're kind of blessed with a pretty good sized lot here, we were able to do, as far as from a kid's perspective, a lot of games outside. And I remember when I was going to Japanese school here, we'd always have recess, and we'd play baseball. And we had a large enough area here that we can pretty much have a good time doing that. I recall in the past, when they used to have sumo wrestling, that was a really big deal here. And actually, at that time, they had enough canvas to pretty much cover the entire lot, because sumo was always done on a clean cloth surface. And the prizes during that time was probably rice, sacks of rice, and bottles of sake. And so everybody that was a sumo or had somebody in their family who was capable of being a participant, just was really pushed into that, because all the family wanted rice and all the family wanted sake. [Laughs]

Here's an interesting relic here. Baseball catcher's shins, shin guards. Actually, we had several teams that were sponsored by the school here. And they probably practiced here, although it was very difficult for a full sized baseball game, but other than that, they still were sponsored by the community based out of here, and they did very well. Some of the trophies are still around someplace here.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

SH: We've now entered the stage area, or the riser area. Again, this was built later, it wasn't part of the original plans of the building, but a need arose where they needed to kind of have a stage. And so in the years following that, probably in the '80s, the Doshi Kai organization, the fellows used to like to get together and play poker. So our handyman, Harry Makino, built a poker table, and there was usually about eight fellows that came in every other week and got together and played some poker. At the same time, you play cards here, you get hungry, so Harry kind of created a mini kitchen up here. We had a stove, we had the running sink and everything, and he put it all together and it was a very nice, very comfortable getaway spot for a lot of the guys.

DG: So do you think this was always sort of backstage, or was it also used as a classroom?

SH: I can't recall. As far as myself, I know the stage was here during the '80s, '70s, and probably even back in the late '50s, early '60s, when I was attending here. So they may have had this area as another classroom, maybe for, to separate, possibly, the older kids. I know they had a small group, maybe, of about six or eight older students, they were probably high school, that practiced kanji, the brush painting, Japanese calligraphy, and so they may have been the ones that meet up here. I'm just guessing at that.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

[Outside the teachers' residence building.]

SH: You're now looking at the original teachers' residence home. This was probably built several years after the school was erected, and once they found probably a teacher willing to come and work in this area, they needed housing, so I'm sure the community got together and went ahead and built this residence for the teacher and his family. Again, this is well before my time, so through the years, after the Japanese school had disbanded and probably postwar, after everybody returned from the war, then I think the residence was occupied by Tom and Stan Sakata's family. In fact, I remember the boys growing up here, and probably catching the bus up on the levee here and going to school in Courtland. And so they lived here probably for, oh, I'd say at least twenty years, possibly more, until the boys finally moved away. Tom had lost his father early on, Mom had remarried, and so she had moved, and so left the house vacant. Probably in the later '80s, I needed... I was farming again, right across the street, mostly, and in this general area, and I needed housing for my laborers so I basically rented the property. And I kept it up probably for about ten, fifteen years, I used it as labor housing for my farm labor. And so with that, I'm pretty familiar with the area. We redid a lot of the plumbing, did some remodeling inside, and whatnot.

DG: How many rooms in there?

SH: Pardon me?

DG: How many rooms in that?

SH: Two, I believe. With a bathroom way in the back. It was kind of an add-on.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.