<Begin Segment 5>

KL: Okay, so we're back after just a quick break. And you mentioned that your parents couldn't buy any property. Who owned the ranch that you were on, do you know?

SK: Oh, Mrs. Fountain did, she lived in Sacramento. So we went to school in Auburn, and one of the things I vividly remembered --

KL: That other water is for you, too.

SK: Thank you. We were lined up after recess, this was after the war had broken out, or the bombing, and an airplane happened to fly over the schoolyard. And some child made some comment about it, and Mr. Welty was a huge man, and he just went out and picked that kid up like a football and just took him off to his office. But I remember that very vividly, and I was about eight years old at the time.

KL: What did the kid say?

SK: I don't remember. But I do remember the principal doing that. Then shortly after that, we left, in fact, I left school in March.

KL: What was the name of the school?

SK: Auburn elementary school.

KL: And you said Mr. Wealthy was the principal?

SK: Welty, I think it was.

KL: Welty.

SK: He was a huge man. He would have been a football player, you know, that kind of deal.

KL: What was Auburn elementary like? Did you like school or was it difficult?

SK: I guess we were one of a few Asians in the school. I know the Masaki family, probably the only Asian, other Asians in there. Oh, and the Morimoto family in Auburn. So very few Asians. Oh, the Yamasakis who were nursery people. The Yamasaki family, the nursery people, and they were lucky because one of the lawyers in town kept their property for them during the war. And so when they came back, they had a place to return. So as I say, we...

KL: Do you know the lawyer's name by chance?

SK: My best friend's sister married him.

KL: If you think of it later, just say it, or later you can just send me a note and we can include it. And that was the Yamasaki family with the nursery?

SK: Uh-huh.

KL: So what was your treatment like in school from the other students or from the principal or the teachers? I assume the teachers and staff were all white.

SK: Uh-huh, they were, they were. I guess we kind of, you know, birds of a feather flocked together kind of thing, so we weren't much aware of what was going on. You know, when to school, got back on the bus, and went home, and we didn't cause any problems. In those days, no one spoke Japanese or spoke English, you know.

KL: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about language. Did your parents learn English or any other languages, Portuguese?

SK: My father did, and he knew... but my mother never learned. I mean, she understood more than she... so then Japanese, of course, was spoken in the home, but my sister, the one who died --

KL: Hisa?

SK -- Hisa, was very strict about us learning correct English. She'd correct our English, we remembered to pronounce our Rs and our Ss, putting Ss on words. And so the rest of us had it easier because we had that modeling. But for the older ones, they're speaking in Japanese primarily. But having heard the Japanese, when I speak Japanese, it sounds, I mean, pretty good, you know, compared to someone who didn't speak it at all. But having heard it, it really makes a difference. And I made a point after the war to learn it.

KL: You were kind of unusual in that.

SK: Yeah, well, see, Father's child or something like that, he said, "Japan has lost the war, but," he says, "it's going to be important for you to know the language. So then I got married to Hiroshi and, of course, his background is Asian languages, or in those days, Oriental languages. So that I made a point of learning the language, so my Japanese is pretty good, if I say so myself. [Laughs] I can read very minimally and write it minimally, but my speaking it, you know, spoken language is pretty good.

KL: Yeah, that's a real gift to have that.

SK: It's really hard. It's really funny because I go to the senior center, and there's this cute little Chinese woman, and she'd trying to learn Japanese. So she came up to me one time when we were talking and she says to me, "Jama da." And I said, "Jama da," and I says, "You're telling me I'm in your way." And she said, "Oh." And then I pronounced it, "You should say, 'Ja mata,'" meaning, "Okay, we'll meet again," kind of thing. It's so important. [Laughs]

KL: Oh, wow, that's neat.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.