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RP: What do you remember about growing up in that area?

SK: Pacific Beach? Well, across, on the same block but across the way, which I just found out later, that was a place where they had a bird sanctuary, that's what it was. Here, I didn't know. It used to have little turtles like that, and birds, and all kinds of stuff on that, it was the block next to us. All that, it was kind of a sandy pile there. Course, this is the bay over here, the Mission Bay. And I used to go out there and play, this and that, and one time there was this, just piles of these, they were nuts. I thought, "Gee, that's strange. A pile of nuts around here?" They were, there was no nut trees around here. So I picked one and two, I cracked it -- had to get a rock to crack it -- and it tasted like walnuts, only those little, they, I don't know what you call those little nuts like that. I thought, "Gee, that's nice." But I couldn't figure out where the nuts came from. But then later on, see little turtles about yea big, here and there, just... so I guess they were meant for that. Now, I didn't know that was a bird sanctuary. To me it was a mystery. I was still going through, I don't know, first grade, second grade, just a little kid. We used to have a dog, collie. His name was, and we used, he used to always come with me. And there was a, there's a sand pile, I mean when there's... this place, there's a place where you take the boat down, I guess. What do you call those long strips there? You can walk down and go onto your boat. He was swinging and wiggling, and all of a sudden I kind of fell into the water there, so I didn't know how to swim, so I was paddling along, paddling along. I thought, "Oh my gosh." And the dog, he's the one that pulled me out, though, 'Cause it was very shallow but here you're struggling. [Laughs] I said, and I was afraid to go home 'cause I was all wet, but I was just afraid to go home. Then I snuck in the house. [Laughs] And my mother says, "What happened?" So I had to tell her. She scolded me, alright. Yeah, she says I could've died, she says. 'Cause I didn't know how to swim. But the dog, he's the one that kind of pulled me out.

RP: You were kind of a tomboy growing up.

SK: I was, I was, when I was in San Diego. We also lived in San Diego. It was called the Mission Hills. One day my father bought us a little pony-like. I used to ride the pony just bareback when, all over the hills, just hanging onto the mane there. [Laughs] I had fun when I was small. And you know, the funny thing, up in the hill there, there were these quartz there, and I couldn't remember why these quartz were up there. I still have one somewhere there. I bought three, but I got, so I have one there somewhere. But I couldn't figure out -- you know when you're kids, I said, "Where do these quartz come from?" There's a pile of quartz here and there.

RP: And after, from San Diego, did the family move to Rossville?

SK: From San Diego, yes. From there, he was working for somebody there, I've forgotten who. But in those days I think he worked for one family or one place to another, different places.

RP: Moved around a lot.

SK: Yeah, you did. He did. And then from there, I don't know. And then finally, when we went to San Diego -- well, this was in San Diego. Yeah, he finally... what was it now? See, I'm getting things all kind of mixed up. This is San Diego, so he finally found this place for, this house was for sale, so he bought the house from another Japanese family. In the meantime, this other family bought a house further down. He had a nice little, what they call chicken ranch, and he showed my father how to raise chickens, and yeah, he raised chickens. Matter of fact, in those days we had an incubator, and then eggs, there's trays there, I've forgotten how many trays, but I used to help him. We'd put all the eggs in there and they laid on one side, and then the next day or so we'd put the other... and then when there're so many weeks or, I don't know, there's a little thing that you look to see if the little eggs are alive or not. If it's not, we put new ones in a little container. And that's what he used to hatch little baby chicks for. That was one of the things I learned that he taught me. And in those days it was, there was a company called the Swifton Company, and they used to come and buy those eggs that wasn't hatched. So I used to say, "What are they gonna do with that?" And I said, he said, "They're gonna use it for a bakery." I said, "Oh my goodness.

RP: Bakery?

SK: That's what they, that's what they told him. Yeah. He had the crates there, those eggs are okay. There must've been one, two, three, yeah, three chicken houses, very nice big ones. I used to get the fresh, fresh hay for the, to put into the thing, so it was nice and clean all the time. I think he had two Mexican fellows, boys, and they used to keep the place clean.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.