<Begin Segment 7>

JS: So when you went to town, everyone was speaking Japanese.

KM: Uh-huh. We all spoke in Japanese.

JS: But when you were out at the ranch, you spoke English or Japanese?

KM: Japanese.

JS: Japanese at home?

KM: Uh-huh. Because my mother didn't speak English at all. My father did.

JS: So your father did, but when did you learn English?

KM: Went to Thorton grammar school.

JS: When you went to Thorton grammar school?

KM: Just one year there.

JS: Uh-huh. One year before you moved to Madera, went to Madera school?

KM: Uh-huh. And one thing I remember when I went to grammar school there is I traded sandwich with a Caucasian girl. [Laughs] She wanted my sandwich real bad. I don't know what it was, but hers, hers was, I remember, was sort of fried. I was thinking, after I talked to you, it must have been... what is that sandwich that...

JS: Oh, like a cheese...

KM: No.

JS: Grilled cheese? No?

KM: No, what do you call, you fry with egg and milk?

JS: Oh, like a French toast?

KM: Yeah, that's what it... she brought French toast, and so that's what I ate. I remember that.

JS: And what was the trade? What did she get from you?

KM: I think sometime it was potted meat. Ham, potted ham.

JS: I see.

KM: She wanted mine.

JS: Yours looked more hearty, huh? So at Thorton, it was a mixed school. So there were white, Japanese...

KM: Filipino.

JS: Filipino, and anyone else, do you remember?

KM: No, I don't remember.

JS: And they were mostly the people from Canal Ranch?

KM: Yes.

JS: That went to this school.

KM: And Thorton must have been a town, too, with all those.

JS: Okay, so, and then, the people from Thorton.

KM: Must be, but I don't know anybody in Thorton.

JS: Uh-huh. So how many Japanese were in your class for example, and how big was your class?

KM: I just remember one, Eddie Inaba, that's all.

JS: Eddie Inaba.

KM: I just remember him.

JS: Uh-huh, so you were the only two Japanese?

KM: No, there must have been some others...

JS: But you don't remember.

KM: I don't remember them.

JS: Do you remember your teacher at all?

KM: My teacher... no.

JS: No? You were young. You were only...

KM: Yeah, six years old.

JS: ...six years old.

KM: Six years old. Went to Madera. Madera was different, you know. It's still Libby, McNeill & Libby. We had a big farm, had turkeys and pigs, cows. It was a big, big place.

JS: And so it was still Libby, your farm?

KM: Libby, McNeill, uh-huh.

JS: McNeill, that was who your father was working for.

KM: Yeah, he was the superintendent, they had a big farm. And they had bookkeeper, and then they had separate, maybe half a block like, where the men came, men went to work on that seven hundred acre. And so my father had to hire a cook, and they all worked there. And every, we used to, they used to kill the cows, I mean, kill the pigs, I remember them killing the pig, hog.

JS: So your father was supervising that work as well as the farm laborers?

KM: The whole thing, yeah. Seven hundred acre. He was the superintendent for the Libby, because he knew English, so they transferred him, how to speak.

JS: And who were the workers that your father hired?

KM: They were all Japanese.

JS: All Japanese.

KM: Japanese men came from all over.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.