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MA: And what about your grade school or grammar school? Which grammar schools did you attend?

NI: Well, seeing we were sharecroppers so we had to move, so I guess I went to one, two, three country schools. I went to three country schools, and then finally high school, which was in town, and the bus transported us. And I think I was fortunate to be able to graduate from high school.

MA: What year did you graduate?

NI: 1933.

MA: So a little bit more about the country schools you talked about, what were they like? What did they look like?

NI: Well, there were just, the first country school I attended had only two rooms and two teachers. One teacher would teach one to four, and the next one would teach four to... what is it? Five to eight or something like that. That's the way it was, that was Carlton school, I think, and then, on San Juan Road. And then we moved over to Riverside Road, and that was called Railroad School, and it was the same way, two rooms. And we had to... uh-huh. Originally, when I was in the first grade, we lived so far away from town, I had to walk clear up to town, Watsonville, to go into first grade, (and) walk. And so my dad said, "Well, six, I feel sorry for you, so I'll start you from seven." So I'm one year behind in school. He thought I'd be a better walker at seven than six, I guess, because it was a long walk, maybe five miles.

MA: And that's there, and then back in the end of the day.

NI: And we walked, yes.

MA: Wow.

NI: We used to see wagons on the road then, yet.

MA: So were there other, in your, especially in these country schools, how many other Japanese students were there?

NI: Depend on the area where there were Japanese sharecroppers, lots of Japanese. And then when they moved, then, you know, it got much less.

MA: So were the other students mostly Caucasians then?

NI: Yes. Caucasians, and there were, well, I would call, like, the Slavonians, and there were some Italians, too. But we got along real good, yes.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.