Densho Digital Archive - June T. Watanabe Interview (denshovh-wjune-01-0003)

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KL: What about school? Where did you go to school?

JW: Well, we went to this little school, a couple miles away from us, it was called Chapman Avenue School. That's where we went until... I don't know what made them decide we were not in that district or something, but then we started, when I was in the sixth grade, we all moved and went to... not moved, the family, but our school was changed and we went to Lawndale Central. That was a little closer, I think, and that was Lawndale. So that was nice. When we were going to Chapman Avenue School, after school a lot of us Japanese kids went to Moneta Gakuen, that was the Japanese school.

KL: How do you spell Moneta?

JW: M-O-N-E-T-A, Moneta. And that was quite a trek, quite a walk to that school, but we'd go there and then we'd go, walk home, and that was a long ways, too.

KL: How did the two schools compare, the Japanese language school and the public school?

JW: Entirely different. You know, I don't know, they were all Japanese kids in Moneta Japanese school. I don't remember much of that, but I remember having to go walk through a grove of walnut trees, you know, when we'd go to the Japanese school. That's all I remember, I don't know that I remember the Japanese school per se. But it was, I had a nice... I enjoyed going to school. Then after we moved to Lawndale, then it was another story. We would not go to Moneta Japanese school anymore, but we went to this school called Lawndale Japanese school. That was from about four to six o'clock, and then we'd walk home, it wasn't that far, we'd walk home from there.

KL: It was different than Moneta, you said it was a different story?

JW: No, American and Japanese schools were two different... no, they were kind of the same. I laugh when I think about those days. We had a nice teacher, Mr.... I forgot his name. Kawaichi was his name. Those were nice days because we had picnics, every summer we'd have a picnic out at White Point or Balboa or somewhere out that way. And very interesting, I enjoyed those days.

KL: Was the community in Lawndale Central School or even in Chapman Avenue School, were there people other than Japanese Americans that were your classmates?

JW: At Chapman? Oh gosh, yes.

KL: What were other people's backgrounds?

JW: Well, there were Caucasians, all kinds of Caucasians. I mean, they probably were from Ireland or Norway, wherever. No, we were a mixed group at Chapman Avenue School and Lawndale Central. But when we went to Japanese school, they're all Japanese.

KL: How did you choose your friends in the public school? Was it based on each other's personalities or did people kind of stick to the... did the Japanese American kids hang together, and the Caucasian kids...

JW: I think we mixed. No, we did have a little club when we were in Lawndale. There used to be a Dutch cleanser, I don't know if they have it now, but there was a cleanser, and they had a, they sponsored a nurse's club, kind of, corresponding. So every, after school, not every after school, but once a week, we'd go to Susie Joe, was her name, Susie Joe, we'd go to her house and have these little meetings, and they were all Japanese. Yeah, but we did have American friends, Caucasian friends in our schools. Got very close. But mostly it seemed like because we lived together, walked to school, came home from school together, we kind of bunched up.