Densho Digital Archive - Nancy Iwami Interview (denshovh-inancy-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

MA: So what religion did your family practice?

NI: Pardon?

MA: What religion?

NI: Buddhist. We, well, my father was a Buddhist, but it's called Nichiren (sect). We call that name Nichiren. My husband's family was Shin sect.

MA: And did you attend Sunday school?

NI: We tried to, and then because Sundays, sometimes we were busy out in the fields in the summer, and so we couldn't, but we tried. And then after we got a little older and I could drive, then we were able to come out more. And then he would, he thought we should learn Japanese, too, so he sent us to Japanese school. I wish I could remember all... it's been so long ago.

MA: Where was the school located?

NI: We went, there was one on Riverside Road, and it was on Mr. Kizuka's ranch. Oh, no, yes, right there, I think it was. Once a week (a teacher) would come out there.

MA: How did you like Japanese language school? Did you enjoy it?

NI: I enjoyed it. I could recall, you know, like katakana and hiragana, but I did not go, where, what do you call those words, kanji or whatever. I could kind of remember a few words here and there, but no, it was too, too much, I think, for my dad to transport us, too. But he's the one that started us, he went through Japanese school and picked up all the Japanese books, the old ones, and he brought it home.

MA: Which language did you speak with your parents? Was it mostly Japanese?

NI: Mostly Japanese, yes. And it was so funny because my mom would say, "When the butcher comes to the..." there used to be peddlers, what we'd call peddler, and they'd come into camps. Butcher, tofu, and I don't know what else, fish man, I guess. And my mother, I recall, definitely she said, "Kyoko, get 'hamboko.'" I didn't know what "hamboko" meant. [Laughs] And then, and so I, that's what I told the butcher who was Caucasian, and he knew what it was. "Oh, you mean hamburger?" "Oh." [Laughs]

MA: Oh, that's really funny.

NI: It's funny. There's many occasions like that, my husband used to talk about, and he'd tell me and we'd laugh about it.

MA: Well, it's interesting to me because it shows that there was a lot of interaction, you know, between the Caucasians and the Japanese, and they worked together, they had to.

NI: Yeah, there was another one where (...) somebody wanted matches. And "machi, machi," uh-uh. They couldn't understand it, and then finally he walked around and, "There, that's it." "Oh, matches." You know, it's interesting, even now, these Latino markets, I went there once and asked them, "I would like some book matches, matches." They didn't know what I was talking about. I guess the clerks just had arrived from Mexico or somewhere.