<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Let's shift over to... well, before we do, before the war, did you, did you have any idea that a war was coming?

MN: No, no idea, absolutely. I know that my, Sumi had a hard time getting, I mean, she was on the last boat, but being, we never really realized what was gonna happen. And we went to school, to the language school down here, Middlebury. No, we had no idea.

RP: What was language school like for you?

MN: It was Japanese. It was not that easy, but we had, like, not just one class. He had several layers of, like two or three layers of the beginners and up to more, a little bit more advanced students. And it didn't matter how old you were; if you didn't know anything, you're down in the beginners group. [Laughs] So we had some high school people, older people in there. But it was, we learned. It was very strict, and we weren't allowed to speak English at all. We had to be... but, and then we'd have to do speech sessions in Japanese. Just like regular school. But that's how I learned how to write and speak it, and they teach the, they call it universal Japanese. The people that speak it, they speak it, like, in Tokyo, but if you go north or south of Japan, I wouldn't even know what they were saying. It's different. It's very different.

[Interruption]

RP: This is tape two of a continuing interview with Miyo Nagai. And Miyo, we were just discussing your experiences at Japanese language school, and you say the programs were held there. What kind of programs?

MN: Like we would have to either have speech programs or like an acting program in Japanese, regular stage and everything. [Laughs] Yeah. And it was a, not a very big building, but they would have these partitions, so when the public, we had parents and everybody opened up, had to bring in the folding chairs.

RP: Did you have other events associated with the language school, picnics or...

MN: There was Sunday school. We had, I went to the Buddhist church there. They had a church service there.

RP: At the language school?

MN: At the language school, on Sundays. Different minister and everything, but rather than all the way to Mott Street, 'cause none of us drove.

RP: So it sounds like you were, you took Japanese language school pretty seriously.

MN: Well, you know, we'd, it wasn't easy. [Laughs] But we were, it was enough that we could read and communicate with other, like Grandma and Grandpa. My grandfather spoke English, so I didn't have, but my grandma...

RP: And how, and your mom also?

MN: She spoke English and Japanese. She had to learn English.

RP: Bilingual.

MN: So she was... but she insisted I go. I think my sisters used to go to school, maybe when I was real young, Japanese language school, when they, we were living out in the valley. 'Cause we moved out from San Diego and I, maybe after my dad passed away when I was four months old, we moved up into the, on the ranch in Sunland, and then that's probably when my sisters went to Japanese language school, 'cause they didn't go to language school out here. I was already, what, in, I don't know, fourth, third grade, fourth grade.

RP: And you went to high school, you said at John Marshall?

MN: John Marshall High School. They're still there, the old school.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.