Densho Digital Archive - Miyoko Uzaki Interview (denshovh-umiyoko-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

KL: Where did you go to school after Alvina Elementary?

MU: Went to high school in Caruthers.

KL: Was it just Caruthers High School?

MU: Uh-huh.

KL: What do you recall about Caruthers High School?

MU: It was, wasn't very big. We had multi-racial background. We enjoyed the sports. Of course, I worked hard, so I was on the honor roll.

KL: Being a multi-racial school, how did people relate to each other?

MU: By high school most of 'em spoke English, and we were friendly. We were friends. I don't recall any racial prejudice. There might've been, but I wasn't aware.

KL: Did you, how did you choose your friends?

MU: We had good times. They were friends, didn't think about the racial background.

KL: Who were your close friends?

MU: One was a Japanese that lived, whose farm was behind ours, Hoshiko, Noriko Hoshiko. She's ninety-two. She's still well, living up in state of Washington. What was the question?

KL: I asked who were your closest friends. Noriko was one.

MU: Yeah, Noriko was one. We had another one, Fumi Yamamoto, Mildred Sorenson, Anna Leoni, she's, background is Italian. I think those were the closest ones.

KL: What did you do for fun?

MU: Well, our contact was mostly during school hours, and at home, being the oldest of, with six siblings, I didn't have much time for fun. Had to take care of them and work.

KL: You mentioned that Tokio couldn't move around and you cared for him a lot.

MU: He had cerebral palsy.

KL: Would you tell me just a little bit about each of your siblings, sort of what was important to them, what you remember about them as kids?

MU: The brother next to me, he had to sacrifice part of his schooling because Father had become ill, couldn't work.

KL: When did that happen? How old were you?

MU: I was probably, just graduated high school, so seventeen. I was about seventeen. And I took both commercial courses and college preparatory courses, but wasn't able to go to college then, so I worked in the field. That's the only work that was available to help support the family.

KL: Did you work on your property?

MU: Hmm?

KL: You worked on your own, your rental property?

MU: No, we worked out. We didn't have our own ranch. We lived on the ranch, but it, he didn't own it, so we worked out.

KL: On that ranch, the forty acres.

MU: Yeah, that ranch and some of the other places. And then when I became of age where we could buy our ranch, we bought twenty acres in my name. We had seedless Thompsons and open land.

KL: Where was the ranch that you bought?

MU: On Caruthers Avenue. It was twenty acres. And then when our, the work on the ranch was done, we would work for other people and get some, earn some cash.

KL: How, when you, when your family bought the ranch on Caruthers Avenue, how involved were you in that decision and in choosing the parcel and stuff?

MU: My brother and I did most of the... my father had a stroke, and so -- no, he didn't have a stroke yet, because... no, he did have stroke, slight stroke, so he wasn't able to work, so the kids did most of the work.

KL: And you and Toshihiro were kind of leaders in that?

MU: Uh-huh.

KL: So he was partway through high school when that happened, Toshihiro.

MU: Yeah. He had to sacrifice.

KL: How did he feel about that? How did that affect him?

MU: He couldn't help it. The family, it depended on our working for survival, so... he gladly sacrificed it.

KL: How did your, how did your father's stroke affect him and affect your mother?

MU: Well, it was hard. It was hard on the family.

KL: How did they cope with it, how did things change?

MU: Well, we were getting older. And then my mother had, my youngest brother was a cerebral palsy, and so she had her hands full, and with other siblings, younger ones, so she had her hands full. And so my brother and I had to do most of the work to bring money in. We didn't mind. We enjoyed it.