Densho Digital Archive - Bob Fuchigami Interview (denshovh-fbob-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Where, where did you attend grammar school, Bob?

BF: Well, there was a school about... well, in Marysville, there was a school right, right in that, in that town. In Yuba City, the school was about a mile, mile and a quarter from our home. So this neighbor's boy and I would walk to school. I mean, that's just the way it was in those days. Later on I got a bike and so I was able to bike to school. But it was a... it's a little school. Probably had less than eighty kids, and so the school was, the classes were combined. First/second, third/fourth, fifth/sixth, seven/eight, and later on we got a, a larger number of kids who transferred in then we had almost, what, almost a hundred kids in that school, I guess. Again, it was multi-grade, first/second, third/fourth, fifth/sixth, seventh/eighth.

RP: In the Marysville/Yuba City area, were there other ethnic groups that were also farming with the Japanese and Caucasians?

BF: There were... the one ethnic group that, that sort of stood out a little bit was the Sikh population.

RP: Sikh.

BF: Yeah, from India. S-I-K-H. They, they sort of stood out because they had, wore the turban thing that covers your, their heads. They all seemed to be named Singh, S-I-N-G-H. I think they were the largest Sikh population in California, perhaps the U.S., I don't know. They, they just happened to be living in that Yuba City area. And before we moved from California to Colorado (in 2004), maybe ten, fifteen years before coming here, I took a trip out there to sort of see some old friends, and part of the trip involved a drive by the old home that we had. And there was a Sikh temple they had built right near it, right near our old home. I was surprised, but they... it's the only Sikh temple I've ever seen. But there it was in Yuba City. So they're still there. And they're doing well. They're... I don't know whether they're all farmers but they were, at that time they were, they were farming.

RP: A significant part of the farming community?

BF: Oh yeah. We had a couple of 'em attending school.

RP: So would you say that your school, your school was pretty racially diverse?

BF: Yeah. We did have a lot of minority. There's, say, sixty kids, maybe ten are, are so-called minorities. Yeah, I guess that's sort of diverse, compared to some others.

RP: What was the racial atmosphere like before the war in those two small communities where you grew up?

BF: I... people were pretty accepting in those days, at least in, in Yuba City. I didn't, I didn't really experience any, any problems racially. My... while I walked to school with a Japanese American neighbor kid, at school my playmates were primarily Caucasian. I don't, I don't think there were any, any big problems there. There was a, there was a reunion put together by a, a kid. This is, this is when, you know, I was about, I must have been in the fifties or so, fifty years old or so, I didn't know the kid at all but he evidently remembered his days at Lincoln school and he was now a fairly successful owner of a carpet shop up by Sacramento. So he calls this reunion of former third, fourth, and fifth graders. We thought, what a strange thing to do, but my, my sister and I went to it and there were about fifteen or so from different parts of the country and also from that Yuba City area who showed up. Yeah, they were, we all had a pretty good time together at, at that reunion. I found out that there were some people who lived near us in Sebastopol. Got, got to know this, this man who put that thing together. He was from one of those migrant families that, that had, had come to California from Oklahoma. You know, the so-called Okies type of thing. He, he had become quite successful. Had his boat on the harbor.