<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So going outside of school, what was the Japanese community like in Salinas? Were there, like, community events?

SK: Oh, yeah. That's the only place it was at the church. Because that time, Salinas, I guess because it covered a big area, Castroville, all the way on, Monterey and everything, that head one, Tokuno Sensei, and then Fujimura and Fujikado Sensei came in. Then they started the Japanese school there. So my father said, "You gotta go to Japanese school." And those days, I guess our tuition was three dollars fifty cents a month per child. So we used to hate going to Japanese school every Saturday, but we had to go. Maybe that saved my life, because after I took the basic, that's when they put me into Snelling because I could speak a little Japanese. And they said, "Okay, you go Snelling, you don't have to go to France."

TI: Well, how many years of Japanese school did you go?

SK: I went to sixth grade. I don't know how many year it was, but about five, six years.

TI: And how many other students were in Japanese school? How large a school was this?

SK: Well, we had it in this, at the church, so we had little rooms in the side. And Fujikado Sensei and Fujimura Sensei, they were young. I guess reverend, they came from Japan, twenty-something year old, I guess. So they were the teachers.

TI: So these were the Buddhists?

SK: Yes. They became, they were reverends, but they were under, top sensei was Tokuno Sensei. And then Fujikado and Fujimura.

TI: Oh, so this is, so the Buddhist reverends were also the Japanese teachers, language teachers. About how many students were there? How large a school would you say?

SK: I had, they had it in different classes, so I don't think there was more than about twenty. You know, it's not a big school. Just on Saturday only.

TI: And in the overall community, Salinas, how many Japanese families were there?

SK: Well, there was quite a few. Because, like I say, it covered from Chualar, Monterey, Castroville.

TI: So maybe about, what, fifty families, or more than that?

SK: Well, there was quite a few in the stores. There was a lot of stores, drug stores. 'Cause that street called Lake Avenue is the, mostly Japanese store. And there was the other one, Market Street, there were Japanese store there, too.

TI: When you say Japanese stores, what would be some of the stores?

SK: Grocery stores.

TI: Yeah, grocery, what else?

SK: Dry good, shoe store, Togo shoe store. There were a couple of drug stores. One family was, they had a car dealership, barbers. Right next to the, one side of the street going the other way was all Chinese.

TI: Now, was Salinas, the community there, larger than Watsonville?

SK: I think so, toward the end. There were more people coming, moving in because of the area. It's a bigger area. And the strawberries before, after three years, they have to, can't plant in the same place so they had to move to virgin ground. And that's where more...

TI: Oh, so more were moving to Salinas because it was...

SK: Yeah, bigger area.

TI: So in addition to Japanese school, what about, like, picnics or other community events? Like Obon, did they have Obon?

SK: Oh, yeah, we had it.

TI: So talk about some of those things. What were some of the events that you remember?

SK: Well, those days, I guess you don't have lot of things. Only thing you go is, go fishing or family get-together and go fishing or something, and they had Obon odoris. I don't know. They don't have, like, JACL, that kind of thing yet. Not too much. They had Nihonjinkai, they were the biggest organization. They used to be the people that bring the Japanese movie, they used to show it in the hall. But I didn't like to go to Japanese movie, because it's always sad. So I had to tell my father, "How come Japanese movies, everything is sad, tragedy?" He says, "That's psychology." Says, "If you see how everybody is not that well-off and happy, you could think to yourself, 'See, I'm not that bad off. There's a lot of tragedy going on this world, mother dying or somebody getting hurt.'" Japanese movie, the old days were always that way. So I said, "I don't like to go through that." He said, "They're using psychology to teach you that you ought to be thankful that your life is not that bad. There's a lot of other people that's, have all kinds of tragedy."

<End Segment 7> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.