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MA: In Redwood City, was there a large Japanese population?
IO: There was a fair amount, not real large. I can't remember, maybe a hundred, maybe, I don't know whether there was that many or not.
MA: But in your school there were other Nisei students?
IO: Yeah. There was a few, like in high school, there were a few Niseis, maybe, in the whole school of about, I don't know, maybe a thousand kids. There must have been maybe twenty-five, thirty Niseis.
MA: And you said that in high school you were interested in athletics and sports?
IO: Yeah, basketball, track.
MA: Did you ever attend Japanese language school?
IO: My father mentioned it, but he said, "If you're interested, I'm gonna teach you. I don't want to send you to school." [Laughs] And I said, "No thank you either way." So I didn't get involved. And I had problems communicating with my parents because of that.
MA: Because they spoke Japanese?
IO: They spoke primarily Japanese. My father could read English but couldn't speak it as well as he could read it.
MA: And your mother also spoke just Japanese?
IO: Oh, my mother couldn't read or write anything, you know. Just totally lost as far as English.
MA: So you said that you... okay, so the Depression happened in the late 1930s, the Great Depression.
IO: Yeah, uh-huh.
MA: And how did that, what are your memories of the Depression and how that affected people and your family?
IO: Well, I don't remember too much about it. I remember that I used to go, after I quit the job, I used to go down, Oakland down there, Union Hall, and try to get a job. But I didn't realize it at that time, that was a strong Communist Party, that Union Hall was, the Longshoreman area, you know. And I couldn't believe it. After, years later, I got to thinking, "Gee, I would have been a Communist if I'd have stuck around there." [Laughs] Anyway, I didn't do it, so I ended up with that electric company. In fact, when the war came along, we had some damaged parts from the, transformers from some destroyers that were damaged in Pearl Harbor, and we were repairing 'em there. And they asked, when the evacuation, saying, "Do you think you can stay?" And I said, "As far as I know, there's no exception." Otherwise I could have stayed there and worked, as far as working there.
<End Segment 4> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.