<Begin Segment 4>

TI: So tell me about that in terms of, like, Japanese community events. Were there picnics for the Japanese community?

YM: Oh, yes. Well, you know, the Japanese, they have associations called kenjinkai, you've probably heard of those. And Hiroshima-ken, Wakayama-ken and all these different kens would have social events. They'd go out on picnics together. So we had those and we'd be invited to other kens besides our own because we had friends in other kens. So that was mainly our social events, main social events.

TI: So in San Diego, do you recall where those events happened, these picnics?

YM: Well, usually out at the beach, and Coronado, or could be out at the country somewhere.

TI: And try to describe to me some of these events. What were they like? Like about how many people, what would happen?

YM: Well, they'd always have events for the children, you know, running events. And a lot of different games and so forth, a lot of food, Japanese food. Well, they were pretty fun events. [Laughs]

TI: And about how many people would you say were there?

YM: Well, it'd be thirty or forty people, I suppose, including the kids.

TI: And then you mentioned the church, too. So the church you went to was mostly Japanese?

YM: Yes. We belonged to the First Japanese Congregational Church. The other church in San Diego was the Buddhist church. And so we attended Sunday school on Sundays, and my folks would attend this regular church service on Sundays.

TI: And how about Japanese language school?

YM: Yes, we had a Japanese language school at church taught by the minister. And they would pick us up at our regular, after our regular school, the bus would come around, the church bus would pick us up and take us to church, and there we'd spend an hour or two learning Japanese. I didn't stay with that very long for some reason, I don't know whether it was because I wasn't a good student or my parents didn't want to pay the tuition or whatever. But I ended up getting my Japanese from my mother at home. And it would usually be on a Saturday morning, and Saturday's a bad time for us kids because we always liked to go out and play. So we weren't very good students -- I wasn't a very good student. I didn't learn Japanese very well.

TI: So even though you were the eldest son, you...

YM: Yeah.

TI: So that's interesting. Your mother taught you Japanese. So it was kind of like, did she have almost like a formal class where she had chairs for each of you and she would...

YM: No, we just sat around the dining room table and they'd have books. There were different grades of books, and we'd read those and try to learn how to write Japanese. Not kanji so much, but mainly katakana or hiragana. Anyway, I regret that I didn't apply myself a little bit more diligently.

TI: And so describe your mother. What kind of personality...

YM: Well, my mother was a strong person. I think she pretty much held the family together. My dad was busy at work all the time, and he was a very gentle person, never scolded me or anything like that. And my mother was more the disciplinarian in the family. Anyway, she kept after us to do the chores around the house or whatever.

TI: And when the Isseis were able to socialize, I know they worked hard, but what would your mother and father do for social things?

YM: They visited other friends a lot, and we'd go along with them. They'd come to our house or we'd go to their house. And I think that was mainly what we did.

TI: So describe one of those outings where you would go to one of their friends' house. I mean, what would the kids do, what would the parents do?

YM: Well, the parents, of course, would be talking. The kids would usually play with each others' toys. I remember one friend had a good electric train set, so we'd always play with that. We were young kids, so we didn't get to the point where we were playing more grownup things. We did, as we got older, then we would play baseball, sandlot baseball, softball, football, and that sort of thing.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.