Densho Digital Archive - Akiko Okuno Interview (denshovh-oakiko-01-0010)

<Begin Segment 10>

KL: Did you learn English in school or at home?

AO: Both.

KL: Did you grow up, what language did you speak with your family at home?

AO: With our mother we spoke Japanese, mother and father. Sometimes it was pidgin Japanese, because they understood English. So if we wanted my mother not to know what we were saying, we'd use Pig Latin. But she was getting wise. [Laughs]

KL: Probably after a while, yeah.

AO: And yeah, so...

KL: Did the Smiths have any other friends besides your family once that pregnancy happened?

AO: Yes, because the Contival were friends with them, and they lived the next farm over. And I think the Whites were... but Vernie didn't socialize a lot.

KL: So it affected her much more than your father.

AO: Oh, yes.

KL: Her father was still okay?

AO: Grandpa would go into Hollister and did things, and he would go to the, sometimes they'd have meetings, and use the school for community meetings and Grandpa would go.

KL: How did you get to Hollister when you would travel around?

AO: By car.

KL: Did your family own one?

AO: Yeah, my father had a Model A first, and that's what my sister learned to drive. And then he bought a 1934 Pontiac, and we also had a pickup truck. But it was the Pontiac... before that it was a Buick, but I remember the Pontiac because that's the one that she and then I learned to drive. I learned to drive when I was twelve.

KL: So the people who just, who were working the lettuce crop was your dad and sometimes one or two other people you hired?

AO: Yeah, and my mother was out there helping, too. And sometimes there would be, he'd hire a couple more people, but it was usually just Sison and Placido.

KL: So you got his name without saying it, because I didn't ask.

AO: Yeah.

KL: His name was Sison?

AO: Sison. Must have been S-I-S-O-N, Sison.

KL: And they would come back season after season?

AO: Yes. And so I'm not sure if they were there all year round or what, but they were like friends to us kids.

KL: They didn't have any families?

AO: No. They were just the nicest guys, caring.

KL: When did you see your dad? I know my dad grew up on a farm, too, and he says his dad would come in at the end of the day, and he would eat dinner, and then he would just lie down on the floor and he would be asleep. What was your dad's schedule like?

AO: Well, he'd go out early in the morning, he'd eat breakfast and go out, and then he'd come in to eat lunch, my mother would feed them. And then sometimes... no, in Cienega, it was always... it was when we moved to Gilroy that sometimes he would, after lunch, just lie down on the floor. Lie down on the floor with a couple of books piled up for a pillow, and take a nap.