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TI: Okay, so let's talk about the Japanese picnics. So what were some of the activities at the Japanese picnics?

RT: Well, my father was from Aichi-ken, so is my grandfather, so in the Salinas area there were very few Aichi-ken people. They were mostly in the Stockton area, so when all these different kenjinkais, like the Hiroshima kenjinkai and the other, Kumamoto's or Shizuoka or there was quite a few Wakayama's, when they had the picnic, we got invited to all of 'em, so it was nice. We didn't have an Aichi-ken picnic, but we were invited to all the other picnics. And it was mostly footraces and you would get a pencil, so we ended up with a lot of pencils. [Laughs]

TI: That's, that's an interesting prize, a pencil, because then you could use it in school or... [Laughs] Okay. So there was advantages of being from a ken where there weren't too many people. Then you could, you were invited to all the other ones.

RT: Uh-huh. And I think my grandmother and mother, they, and the other Issei ladies, they made, well, in those days it was very simple Japanese food, and a lot of musubis and rice balls and whatever food that was, they grew in the garden. But, and I don't think the men drank that much. I don't remember much about sake or anything like that. All I know is that the kids, we had a lot of footraces and things like that. And if the hakujins came around, then we would all hide our food. We were ashamed to be eating with chopsticks. That I remember very vividly, we would always hide our food.

TI: And so how would you, but everything is out on tables, so --

RT: It was laid out on a blanket type, on the ground. I don't think, I don't remember any, with any tables or anything like that.

TI: Now, when you say hide the food, was that more, was that a feeling amongst the Issei also, to hide the food or was it more...

RT: I think all, all of us.

TI: Okay. Interesting.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.