<Begin Segment 4>

JS: So can you describe the school that you went to?

BK: Well, like the school, too, you know, because it was migrant workers' kids, or, and then the Chinese. And so when we went to school, only time we spoke English was when we have to talk to the teacher or to the other nationality kids. But like, come recess, all the Japanese got together and spoke Japanese.

JS: So you went to the Isleton Union grammar school?

BK: Union elementary school, yeah.

JS: And it was a segregated school. And what grade was it? From kindergarten?

BK: They didn't have kindergarten. From first grade.

JS: From first grade until you were fourteen, until about seventh grade.

BK: Uh-huh.

JS: And what else do you remember about the school?

BK: School was fine, 'cause there was a teacher named Mrs. Clendenning that kind of favored the Japanese. And, you know, it was like when we went to Walerga, our first camp, she would come and visit us every Saturday. But it was a good school as schools go, I guess. Because we had to go to Japanese school after that one hour. And I hated my Japanese teacher. [Laughs]

JS: Why was that?

BK: It was, well, Mr. Yoshida taught the older class, and then Mrs. Yoshida taught the lower class, and we just didn't get along.

JS: So you would go directly from grammar school to the Japanese school after school?

BK: Uh-huh.

JS: Every day.

BK: Every day, or five days a week.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.