Densho Digital Archive - Emi Yamamoto Interview (denshovh-yemi-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

MA: So after you moved to Watsonville, what school did you attend?

EY: The Larkin Valley School. It was one room, classroom, it had, one teacher taught us all eight grades. And she was very nice teacher, and she was the daughter of Judge Smith from Santa Cruz. There was only four of us in our class, and other classes, there was only two in eighth grade.

MA: And were these all children of the sharecroppers around the area, all the students?

EY: Yes.

MA: And their families mostly were farming.

EY: And then there was a lot of old-timer, the property owners around La Selva Beach and all that. The whole school was all, only about thirty people, students. There was four in our class. We got, when we went to high school, we had enough education to go right along with the rest of 'em.

MA: So you got a good education at the, at the school.

EY: Uh-huh, one teacher taught all eight classes. But we kind of helped the teacher with the younger, it was nice.

MA: And did you also go to Japanese language school when you were living in Watsonville, that area?

EY: No. we didn't have no Japanese school. I went in San Juan 'til I was fifth grade.

MA: But after you moved to Watsonville, you stopped going.

EY: Well, I kept up but then my mother got us the magazine from Japan. And I'd been reading that, and I liked it, so I just, just learned it by looking at the newspaper and all that. Because in those days, they had the honji and then they had the kana, the primary, on the side, see. I liked it, so I studied myself after leaving San Juan. And in those days, they had the children's magazine from Japan, and it was for every grade, so it worked. I studied myself. [Laughs]

MA: How did your mother get these magazines? Was there a Japanese store that she would go to?

EY: No, she ordered in to Japan. And there was a magazine company that had all the magazine, like Shifu no Tomo and primary was Yonen Kurabu, and gradually raising. So I kept it up because I liked it.

MA: Yeah, and that's difficult to read in Japanese, I know.

EY: Uh-huh. But I went up to sixth grade in San Juan.

MA: Right, right.

EY: From there on, there was no Japanese school in Watsonville, where we had farming and everything, so my mother got us magazine.

MA: Yeah, you were able to learn on your own. That's great.

EY: Uh-huh, and dictionary, Japanese, Japanese-English, Japanese dictionary and all that. I liked it. [Laughs] But when I went high school, I had to give up my high school education. I just went two years, but I had to, the family needed me.

MA: To work, to run the farm, right?

EY: Uh-huh.