<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Going back, earlier you mentioned growing up, like, in places like Spanish Fork, you were the only Japanese family.

JK: Well, we were the only Japanese family in Richfield, and the only Japanese family in Delta, and the only Japanese in Spanish Fork. But then after we left Spanish Fork, we came to Roy where we lived with, with my mother's sister, my aunt, the Satos, and they were on a big farm that was owned by Fred M. Nye of the, who was a very, very wealthy man in Ogden, and he owned the, he owned the farm, and he had an arrangement with my uncle so that my uncle operated the farm on a contingency basis of sorts. And until, until their, until they had their children, we lived with them from, I think it must have been about 1920 to about 1924, and then we moved, from there, we moved to Ogden.

TI: And about how many Japanese families were in this area of Roy?

JK: At Roy?

TI: Yeah, Roy.

JK: Oh, there were very few.

TI: Still very few.

JK: Yeah.

TI: So I'm trying to get a sense of when you first came in contact with a more substantial or larger Japanese community.

JK: Well, that was in Ogden, yeah. There was a, quite a, quite a few Japanese right in the city of Ogden, they were operating businesses right in downtown Ogden.

TI: And about how old were you when you were, lived in Ogden, do you recall?

JK: Oh, I was about, it was when I was about twelve years old, twelve to fifteen years old then, see.

TI: Okay. So when you think of the Japanese community in Ogden, what would be some examples or what kind of activities would the Japanese community have?

JK: Oh, I don't really recall, other than the fact that they'd have their annual church, church activities.

TI: And what would that be? What would that annual church activity be?

JK: Well, it was the... well, I don't know what they, they called them the shibais, that was the Japanese theater production of shows like the Kabuki shows that they would have. They'd have that say about once a year, and then have banners strewn all over with the names of contributors. And they'd, they would conduct that in the, in the Japanese church. There was an old Japanese church that, on, I think it was on Twenty-third and Jefferson in Ogden, and they still owned that. They still owned that property there. But until the Buddhist group came into view, why, the Japanese church was, it was a small group of about forty or fifty Japanese there. And then when the Buddhist church came, then the younger generation took up the religion of Buddhism, and they built a bigger church. And they have a much bigger congregation than the Christian church. And even in Salt Lake, the Buddhist contingency is much larger than the, than is the Christian.

TI: Okay. And growing up, did your family attend church?

JK: My family, my father and mother were very religious, and they insisted that we all go to church every Sunday.

TI: And what church did...

JK: We'd go to the Japanese Christian Church.

TI: And do you know what, was there a denomination? When you say Japanese Christian, was it like...

JK: It was the Presbyterian.

TI: Presbyterian. Okay, good. So again, we're in Ogden, how about things like Japanese language school?

JK: Well, we had a Japanese language school in Ogden, and I remember a Mrs. Kaneko that was a teacher there, and we had, oh, I'd say just about all the young kids in Ogden were students there at that, that school. There might have been, oh, there might have been twenty, twenty or thirty kids going to this Japanese language school, and they'd have, the books, I think from one to eight or one to ten, and as you progressed from one grade to the next, there was a progression of being able to read and write from one book to the next book. And I forgot, I think I went up to about the fourth or the fifth book, and I was able to read katakana and hiragana and a few of the symbols of, the characters that were just ordinary, but I've forgotten all of that.

TI: And when did you, when did the Japanese kids attend Japanese language school?

JK: After school

TI: So every day after school?

JK: No, I think it was about twice a week after, after school.

TI: And so they'd go to regular school all day, and then after school they would then go to Japanese twice a week.

TI: Any other activities like picnics, kenjinkai?

JK: Yeah. We had church picnics several times during the year. We'd have church picnics whereby we'd have races and all kinds of, well, I think most of us kids went to see how much we could eat, see how much... the older folks would prepare all the food and everything.

TI: So describe that. The food, where did it come from? Who prepared?

JK: All the mothers, all the mothers of all the families would prepare the food, and they'd have it at a regular picnic area. And they'd usually select an area big enough for, oh, just little races, running, three-legged races and some various types of wrestling. I forget, not too much of it.

TI: And about how many people would attend these picnics?

JK: Oh, I'd say about forty or fifty people would be attending. It'd be... I think it'd be an annual event.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.