<Begin Segment 6>

TI: So you, you mentioned leaving Burbank. About how old were you when you left Burbank?

LH: Let's see, I was in the first, second, I think I was in the fourth grade, and...

TI: And then where did you go after that?

LH: We moved to Alviso. Well, it's San Jose, but we went to Alviso School, so --

TI: And first tell me, why did you move from Burbank to Alviso?

LH: I think they were gonna build a school, Lincoln High School, and so that was why we moved. On, they built Lincoln High, but they built a bicycle track there, too, where our driveway was, on Wabash. They called it a velodrome, I think, and for a while that was there, but then it didn't last long. And also in Burbank there was M.R. Trace School was there, too. That was, that school is old. It was there before Hoover, anyway. But then in Alviso it was about two miles we had to walk every day and cross 237, which was a country road then, and then the thing about that time, there were Japanese on this side of the street and the other side. There was a lot of Japanese from where we lived all the way into the town of Alviso. It's amazing, they're not there anymore, but some of 'em owned pear ranches, like the Takedas and the Ezakis and the Mizotas, Sakamotos, the Uemuras, and then on the corner where 237 and First Street met there was a camp of Japanese and they're all gone now. There's a few that's my age that, the children left, but very few.

TI: And in places like Alviso at this point, was the land pretty much all leased or did some of them start owning land?

LH: I know the Takedas owned theirs and they, after the war they had the nursery on, off Alum Rock Avenue. The Mizotas, I don't, they may have, Mizotas and Ezakis, they might, I think they may have, because they went back there after the war.

TI: And how about your family, in Alviso?

LH: No, because, like I said, we were poor and we had that old Model T Ford that we had in Burbank, didn't even have, didn't even have a top. And the thing, you know, the funny thing was it used to get very foggy and Japantown was a hub for all the Japanese, and there's always the church and they always had the movies. Well, before the movies there were plays because there were Kibei people here, so they used to wear their Japanese outfit and they'd have a play. And then the movies came and then the plays disappeared, and so when they had the movies they had these samurai movies, and, oh, that Okita Hall was just jam packed, and I remember the projection room was up there [points up], but I used to climb up there and, with the young people, and watch from up there, or sometimes it's so full that we watched from back of the stage 'cause you can see from the back of the screen, too. You're just looking at it in reverse. But that was a popular place, and like I said, Japantown was the hub. On the weekends everybody came to shop and, you know, with friends and to see friends and meet with friends.

TI: How about things like, for Japanese school? Did you go to Japanese language school?

LH: Yes, and I, the first time I went was in Alviso and it was, the Japanese school was right across the street from the grammar school, so after grammar school we'd go to Japanese school. And the teacher, Mrs. Sato was the teacher and she taught for I don't know how long, but, 'cause we moved, but I still remember those desks, about five feet and then they had a drawer and a bench seat and it held two people, but do you know what? When I went to Japan, and I don't know what town, they had those same desks and it reminded me of that Alviso school. But, and that's where they had the Sunday school classes, too, on Sundays, so we'd walk over there and the, the minister, the, we used to call him Bonsan, Buddhist minister, would come and we'd have to listen to that -- we didn't understand, well, I didn't understand a thing. I don't think most of us understood a thing he said, and that's why I became a Christian, because I wanted my children to know what was being said, and my mother agreed that it was okay as long as they went to church, so...

TI: And so when did you become a Christian? Was this later on?

LH: After I had my first child. She became three, and they all started at three.

TI: I see, okay.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.