<Begin Segment 5>

JS: You have some wonderful memories. What other memories do you have growing up at Canal Ranch?

KM: Well, I guess I was pretty bad. [Laughs] At the time, I was pretty bad. I ran around there, I remember I ran from somebody and cut my leg, cut my foot with a glass.

JS: So did you have to go to visit the doctor at that time?

KM: No, I just, we just bandaged it up.

JS: Who were some of the people that you played with? Were there other children there?

KM: No.

JS: No?

KM: There were none. Oh, yeah, there was a Filipino girl.

JS: Filipino girl.

KM: I remember her. Her name was... I don't know, Meilian or something.

JS: I see.

KM: Yeah, her name. I played with her. She was pretty bad, so we were pretty bad, I know. I was bad.

JS: So can you describe a little bit about Canal Ranch? So you were at Canal Ranch Number 8, so there were all these different, sort of, camps...

KM: I never visited those people.

JS: It was pretty far apart.

KM: Uh-huh, pretty far apart. But I remember we had a bridge in front of our house, and the river, there was a river in front. I always meant to go back, but I never did. But you don't have to put it in, but I was pretty bad then, with that girl. The girl was, the Filipino girl was much older than me, but she was bad.

JS: So, what would you do?

KM: What was bad? Well, don't quote me, but I don't know how old I was, but then we would run across, we see a car, we would just run across in front of them. That was bad, isn't it? But she did that. She said, "Let's go run," and that's what I remember. That was pretty bad danger for them.

JS: How much older was she than you?

KM: Maybe about two or three.

JS: So she was pretty bold and you followed her.

KM: Yeah.

JS: So is that why --

KM: But that's what I remember about --

JS: That's what you remember?

KM: -- at Canal Ranch that I did.

JS: Oh. Maybe that's why you had to go sit on the porch. [Laughs] And so your father was the foreman out there, and that was the farm, they were growing asparagus?

KM: Yes, they were cutting, they had a shed. And then we moved when I was six to Madera. So since I was first grade at six, they didn't have a grade for me, 'cause I was in between, I guess. So I had to go, skip to second grade, six years old.

JS: And where did you go to school?

KM: Madera, I mean, Ripperdan in Madera, that was the grammar school, Ripperdan.

JS: So that was the first school you went to, or did you go to --

KM: No, Ripperdan.

JS: Ripperdan? Okay.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.