<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So I was reading in your notes, and not only, you named the place not only the Methodist Church, the Methodist Church and Institute.

JU: Right.

TI: And I wanted to understand what the institute part was.

JU: Well, Mother was going to teach English to Japanese people come hell or high water. [Laughs] Because that's what they needed to adjust to America. And so she, of course, enlisted the other members of the church, and they had Japanese classes, and they had fude classes to write Japanese characters. Also to teach Japan, Japanese and Japanese culture, she also taught dance classes and she also taught origami classes, just the usual things, cooking classes and things like that.

TI: So she taught lots of different things. Not only did she teach English, but she taught Japanese also? Was this Japanese to the Niseis?

JU: Japanese to the Niseis, and Japanese, and actually, during the summers, she would go with Dad to the Pueblo, Rocky Ford, the Arkansas Valley, at the end of which is Amache. Anyway, she would go to the communities where a good number of the Japanese had settled. And she wouldn't care if there were six people, she would just go ahead.

TI: So your parents made a pretty potent team. I mean, you had your father the minister and your mother the teacher.

JU: The teacher, right.

TI: And they would visit all these small communities surrounding Denver.

JU: Uh-huh. And see, when George came, he's, being technically a Kibei, well, he was born here...

TI: So let's explain George because we did this off camera. So George was your cousin, the son of your father's brother.

JU: Right, exactly.

TI: So he was about, what, seven, eight years older than you?

JU: He's nine years older than I.

TI: Nine years older.

JU: He was as old as my oldest sister, almost. One year short.

TI: And so he came to live with you in Denver.

JU: Yes.

TI: And lived in the parsonage or in the terrace?

JU: He lived in the terraces.

TI: Okay, so he lived in the terrace.

JU: Along with seminary students. That's what happened to the terraces.

TI: And so George is living, your cousin, but he's part of the family.

JU: He eats every meal with us.

TI: Okay. And so is he helping to take care of the family while your parents are gone? I mean, when your parents are traveling, who takes care of the family?

JU: Well, whoever's around among the elders. The elders took care, that's true. And we, of course, gave everybody we could a hard time as kids will do. But yeah, and, but I was going to say, George took over the Japanese language schools. And there was one in Brighton, and then there was one in Littleton. And so George got very much acquainted with those communities. Even though he wasn't connected with the church necessarily, but it was part of the concept of being an institute in addition to being a church. And so Japanese culture, Japanese cooking and so forth could survive otherwise for the Nisei kids.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.