Densho Digital Archive - Rose Tanaka Interview (denshovh-trose

<Begin Segment 7>

AL: You said that in Cayucos that you were the only Japanese American family. Was there a Japanese American community in the larger area?

RT: It was quite spread out because... now, San Luis Obispo had quite a few Japanese people, but it was all pretty agrarian area. And so they, not too many of them lived in town, so there weren't clusters of people, but they maintained a community by having, for instance, a Buddhist temple. And the Buddhist temple would have movies that they would show, and so my mother and father were, I call them "wedding and funeral Buddhists" because that's all they went to, when they went. But once in a while there was a movie, I got to see a movie, but I didn't go to any of the services. They didn't go to regular services as much as the Christian and Catholic churches do.

AL: And was that based on work schedule or philosophy?

RT: Yes, it was just too far to have to go in twenty miles, or fifteen or twenty miles to go to church. So it was only for special occasions, so they would have, they would celebrate holidays and that kind of thing.

AL: Would you say that your upbringing, even though you weren't going to services regularly, was reflective of a Buddhist upbringing, though, as far as the traditions in your family?

RT: Well, of course, our big holidays were like New Year's, Oshogatsu. But that's more of a national holiday type of thing. And I remember my mother buying me all these little dolls, it was fun to have all these dolls, but you show the court of the emperor, and it was just kind of cute to have all these dolls. But you don't play with them, they were just display only. So that was the only dolls that I remember having, and I couldn't handle them, they were just for display, and you brought them out in certain times of the year. And they celebrated Girl's Day and Boy's Day, that kind of thing. But I think they were more cultural than they were religious.

AL: How would they celebrate Girl's Day? Because I know for boys they put out the koi fish to show how many sons.

RT: That's right.

AL: How did they celebrate Girl's Day?

RT: Maybe these dolls were displayed for Girl's Day. I don't know because they showed the queen, the empress and her court, and they were all dressed up and everything. But I don't remember that we paid much attention to the girls. [Laughs] Girls kind of got short shrift all along, as you know.

AL: Would you give us some examples of "short shrift" in your family? Because there's two girls, you and your sister, right?

RT: Yeah. Well, I don't think we suffered from it much. I think the boys had to work much harder, but we were, we had to play our female roles, that is, do housework and that kind of thing. But I kind of liked doing whatever I wanted. And being the youngest in the family, my mother had her hands full, so she didn't really check on me that much. Me and Maxine, Mackey I called her, Mackey and I would go off and go fishing and do all these things. It wasn't... she didn't have a lot of control over me. [Laughs]

AL: Did you spend a lot of time with your... well, your sister, it looks like she's about three years older than you. Did you play together a lot?

RT: Yeah, she was big sister to me, and I think part of the responsibility fell on her being the older child. And since I was the younger one, I got to do, I had a little more freedom, and she was the one that had to help Mama out a lot more. And my mother also worked out in the fields, she was very helpful to my father. And so my sister was in charge of the house more, and did more of the cooking and that kind of thing.