Densho Digital Archive - Shiuko Sakai Interview (denshovh-sshiuko-01-0004)

<Begin Segment 4>

KL: Were there other hotels around, or what was the street like?

SS: Oh yes, three hotels lined up.

KL: Who operated those, do you remember the families?

SS: They're friends, I can't remember their names, but they were friends.

KL: Did they have children?

SS: Yeah, they all had children, so we all mingled together. We played in the streets, baseball. It's not like it is now where we have so many cars. In fact, my father was the first one who got a car among his peers, you know.

KL: Do you remember when the car came home?

SS: Well, I don't remember when the car came home, but I remember the car, yes.

KL: What was it?

SS: I guess it was a Ford. It was one of those you can, you know, there's a little step, you stepped on it, and then go into there. So we used to go on picnics. When my father would go (...) mushroom picking, a bunch of the men, and my mother always made sandwiches which he would take, and he always brought (back some), I always looked forward to him bringing his lunch back. [Laughs]

KL: Where did they go mushroom hunting?

SS: I don't know the exact places, but I know people got lost. They would go out looking for them.

KL: Were they part of any organizations, your parents?

SS: No, it's just a group of their friends.

KL: Were they part of any groups of other people who were from Hiroshima? Were your neighbors and other Japanese people in the neighborhood, were they mostly from Hiroshima or were they from all over?

SS: I think they were from all over, but there was a group from Hiroshima, and some people from his, where he came from.

KL: Did they go picnicking together or try to keep in touch --

SS: We all, yes. When they had picnics, you know, like I think they have here, too, we'd get together. That was a fun time.

KL: What else was in the neighborhood besides those three hotels?

SS: There were grocery stores and butcher shops all run by Japanese.

KL: Were there any other ethnic groups there, any other recent immigrants?

SS: I think there was... I remember a Russian girl, a Filipino.

KL: They were friends of yours? There was one girl in my elementary school whose grandmother was German, and I remember she spoke a little German. And I remember her because she was kind of exotic, nobody else had a different language like that.

SS: I remember the Filipino girl, we were friends. We used to walk to school, well, Bailey Gatzert was close by, so we all used to walk to school. And also Broadway High School was quite a ways away, but we walked. And then at times we took the streetcar to school.