<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Alviso, going back to your, like, grammar school back then, what percentage were Japanese? I'm just trying to get a sense of the community, what that was like.

LH: You know, I got a hunch most of us were Japanese. (Narr. note: There had to have been a lot of Caucasians and we Japanese were a minority group but for a small school, it was a lot. The people were of mixed European descent.)

TI: So in your grammar school, you'd look around your class and most were Japanese?

LH: They were. They were, and there was a first, second and part of third grade was in the one building over here, was a separate building. Then they had a cement courtyard with a flag where we all stood and pledged our allegiance, and then the main building and that had fourth, fifth, up to the eighth grade. I think they might've been combined because I think there were four teachers, the principal, Mrs. Hughes, Miss Owens... yeah, I think there were four altogether. That includes the principal. Anyway, and most of us are Japanese because on the other side of 237 was the Ikedas and the Nitaharas and the Hirais, and they owned that one corner, the Ikedas did, and then they had land on the other side, too. And they used to have a fruit stand there, on that, it was a curve and they had a fruit stand there and then they had one maybe two or three blocks up the road on the other side, and then the Hirais had one just beyond that, but there's a ditch on... in those days, and maybe, no, they don't anymore, but they used to have a ditch on both sides of First Street going into Alviso. And I could tell you a story about that ditch, too, but anyway, in the summer, because my mother used to pick blackberries for the Ikedas, they hired me to work in the summer to sell berries, so I got to sell on the other, other stand 'cause the sun was on this side. And the people that came to buy those berries were from San Francisco. They used to come for an outing just to buy berries, strawberries or, well in those days it was blackberries, and, and then later on when the apples came I remember selling. They had apples there, too. But that was really an experience 'cause I learned how to manage money a little bit and meet all these different people. It was amazing.

TI: And so, going back to school, so mostly Japanese, if they weren't Japanese what other, like, nationalities?

LH: Well, the Silvas, Silvas were Portuguese, Zankers might've been German, and oh gosh, who... I used to remember. Can't. Nicholsons... I think it was mixed.

TI: Interesting, but it was mostly, interesting, that community was mostly Japanese back then.

LH: Yeah. There was a lot of Japanese.

TI: And besides the Japanese language school, were there Japanese community events in Alviso during the year, like picnics or anything like that, that you can remember?

LH: Not in Alviso. I don't remember anything like that.

TI: So for those things you would come into Japantown?

LH: Japantown, uh-huh.

SF: In terms of the kids in the, your school, the Portuguese and the Japanese and the Germans, how did they get along, and did you go to, like, to their birthday parties? Or was it mostly Japanese stuck together?

LH: There was no such thing as a birthday party. I don't, I don't remember anything like a birthday, but I remember Bill Zanker 'cause we were in the same class, but the Silvas, and I can't remember his name, but they lived where Sutter's Corner was, and it's not there anymore, but that was kind of a bar like thing, but it was really popular. And the Zankers lived going towards Milpitas more and they had a ranch. Where the Japanese lived in a community, like on 237 and First Street, I don't know who the owners were, but there was maybe five or six Japanese families there and they, the fathers worked in the orchards and the mothers, well I don't know what their mothers did, but my mother worked, like, for the Ikedas in the berries and my father worked in the orchards, different orchards around where we lived in Alviso, wherever they needed people to pick and prune. They were good at pruning the trees. And we went to school, so I don't remember the parents. But anyway, there were a lot of Japanese and they did work in these orchards. They lived, because they had housing for them, and some of 'em raised berries, I think on, on this side of 237 and First Street there was the Uemuras and the Sakamotos and it seemed like they had something else other than fruit but I can't remember.

TI: Interesting.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.