<Begin Segment 24>

KL: I have one other Manzanar question, too. Your family roots are in Wakayama, right? And I know you had those cousins who settled in Terminal Island and were in Manzanar before you. Sometimes we hear that the Terminal Island was kind of a strong group, and people have opinions about Terminal Island and really saw kind of a Terminal Island community in Manzanar. And I wondered what your take on that was, if there really was sort of a noticeable group from Terminal Island?

GO: That's something like the Huskies. Terminal Island's got a group that's called the Yogores. So they do their things and we do our things, so it's a group thing. Different cities have different ways of doing things, so we got along.

KL: It seems like sometimes people say that the language was kind of different, the type of Japanese and the slang and the words and stuff.

GO: Yeah, the people from Terminal Island, they were brought up more to speak Japanese, the younger generation. And we didn't know how to speak Japanese, so we went to, just kept on speaking English.

KL: Oh, so even though your grandparents and parents had the Wakayama connection, it didn't really pass to you because you didn't speak Japanese really, you didn't have that.

GO: Actually, when I was small, I went to Japanese school every Saturday. I forgot. [Laughs]

RM: What was Japanese school like, do you remember it?

GO: It's just like a regular school. You got a book, you got to learn how to read and write. So I did all that, but I know a little bit. I know a few Japanese, but... yeah, them days are gone.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.