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RP: So you grew up during the Depression years and it sounds like you weren't for want of food.

DT: No, and then my mother would drive. She wasn't the best driver and they didn't have license or anything, but she would drive to a certain place and then she would take the bus and go into town and get material and we always had nice clothes. She would sew coats and dresses for us.

RP: Now was there any type of a downtown Florin area with stores and a community?

DT: Yeah, they had a grocery store and it was a one horse town and if you blinked you might miss it. But we had five, ten, fifteen cent store and I think we had three grocery stores and then a shoemaker and then a tofu factory and a basket factory for strawberries. And we had a gas station and let's see, and a mechanic, garage.

RP: And that was all in Florin?

DT: Just, you know, two or three blocks. And then we had two churches, Buddhist church and a Christian church and also a Caucasian church across the street, Methodist Caucasian church. But the whole community was centered on Buddhist church or Christian church.

RP: You said those two churches sort of had a competition with each other.

DT: Yes, basketball and things like that was, you know. But I was... I guess I played one or two years but that was... the older played and then our church was... our minister's wife was a very educated lady I guess because they all kind of this Japanese opera, well not a Japanese opera but stage show and they put wigs and dresses and every year she had that.

RP: So where in Florin did your... where was your farm located in Florin?

DT: It was on Florin Perkins Road and let's see, it was northeast of the town. But Florin is a very big area.

RP: It's primarily a grape and strawberry growing community and predominantly Japanese American families.

DT: Yes.

RP: Who were some of your neighbors do you recall?

DT: Well, my neighbors, one side was Okamoto and then next was Tsukamoto and then next one was Nishimura and next one was -- I forgot that one. But then on the other side was Hirabara and then back of that was Yasui and oh, they were all Japanese but I can't recall all of them but I have a map with all the names on there.

RP: Was your father part of a cooperative? Some of the farmers got together and formed co-ops.

DT: Well, I really don't know if... well, I really don't know because I know he borrowed money from them to have grapes and then he paid back. But I don't know if it was a co-op or if it was... what they called it association, so I don't know.

RP: Doris, you were talking about the kind of social life of the Florin community revolved around the churches, particularly in your case the Methodist church, Japanese Methodist Church. Tell us some of the activities, how involved were you in the church, how much did that mean to you at an early age?

DT: Well, everything for us is either before the war and after the war, everything. So before the war, well, I went to a segregated grammar school until... let's see now... and then we went to an integrated school, seventh and eighth grade. And everything was geared at church and we had picnics and then Easter we had Easter egg hunt and Easter sunrise service and movies, we had Japanese movies. And even the Buddhist church had it but we had it and we used to have it inside the church, I mean, inside the social hall because we had a big social hall. And I don't know afterwards we had it outside but at church my mother and father would go along all around the area and try to sell tickets and everybody who bought tickets or... I don't know how the amount went but my father would write all this on the butcher paper 'cause he had nice handwriting. He would put all their names and how much, just you know, that was one thing about Japanese. Well, you see somebody giving so much, well, you don't want to be less than that so then you give more and that's how they ran the church. That was one of their fundraisers. And then we were a school so we would take blanket and we would save, right after school we would save all the... and people used to be really upset about us but that's what we did, we saved for our parents 'cause they had to come, they had to go home after work and then they would have to take bath and eat and come. And by that time somebody else might beat us to it so bunch of us all put blankets so we could save places for them. [Laughs]

RP: At the church?

DT: Well, Buddhist people did the same thing. But then our picnic was a big deal too, you know.

RP: Where was that held?

DT: Sometimes at William Ladd Park, it was usually at a park but, oh my mother would go to one neighbor, close neighbor, now what are you going to bring. And then they'd go the next neighbor and say, what are you going to bring. they all would get together but it was such a big deal that she had to go to all of her neighbors to plan. And she wasn't supposed to be driving but you know, no license and no traffic and she could've been driving right in the middle of the road or going around and no traffic so it didn't matter. [Laughs]

RP: So what do you remember kids doing at the picnic?

DT: Well, playing games, they always made sure that there were plenty of games, plenty of prizes and things. But that was really a big deal. Or races and things like that.

RP: Both of your parents came from Hiroshima, was there any type of a prefectural association in the area?

DT: No, just the church. Because there were people from Hiroshima in all these different places, but after the war now there were but not that I remember. My dad was very active in church and he would go to all these conferences and everything. If they have it in Florin he would make speeches, he or Mom, well they made speeches with such fancy language we didn't even know what they were talking about. It was really high class but when they talked to us they talked to us in Hiroshima voice and Hiroshima is different, I mean Tokyo is different and you know, Tokyo is very fancy but Hiroshima is kind of a common. But we had to speak Japanese at home. So when we went to school we'd go hide in the corner they told us we couldn't speak Japanese, well, we'd just go hide in the corner and speak Japanese. But even in grammar school a lot of my friends got held back just like Bill on first grade they had got held back. But he wasn't dumb but he was just slow in learning English I guess. But luckily, even if my sister, she was held back but she never spoke English at home so I don't know how I was lucky to have not held back.

RP: We should mention your siblings. You had two sisters? And Miyoko?

DT: Miyoko. It was Connie Miyoko Nitta and she was --

RP: How old... how much older?

DT: She's seven years older that I am. And then Grace Nobuko was three years older than I am. She got held back just like Bill, so Bill and Grace were, we call them, crib mates because his mother used to come pick strawberries and they would put both Bill and my sister in different cribs but they never ended up together. [Laughs]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.