<Begin Segment 15>

RP: What was there in Rocky Ford in terms of Japanese community, in terms of typical institutions like a language school or a Buddhist church, did any of those...

YW: They didn't have a church.

[Interruption]

RP: So there was no Buddhist church?

YW: No, there were no Buddhist church but they had...

RP: How did you carry on your religious activities? Did you go to a Methodist church?

YW: Oh, my mother and father would just send me to any church that our friends would take us to. And so we had neighbors, Caucasian friends in our neighborhood, and she would ask 'em if they would take us to the church. And so I went to Christian church, Methodist church, Presbyterian, or wherever our friends would take us, 'cause, because our parents thought it was important for us to get that education.

RP: And you were, so you were exposed to different religious traditions.

YW: Uh-huh. But I was not exposed to the Buddhist until we got married. We got married in the Buddhist temple. And it would have been, and we, I guess we started going to the Buddhist church in College Park, way, way later in my life. But, they used to have a building in Rocky Ford where the Japanese people got together and they showed Japanese films and our parents --

RP: The samurai movies?

YW: Yes. Ones that people cried a lot in, I can remember. None of the movies were happy movies, they were all tear-jerkers.

RP: And you didn't care for those?

YW: I didn't care for it. I didn't understand it. I just knew that it was a sad movie. But they'd go maybe once a week or something like that.

RP: And what other activities do you remember taking place in that building? Whether it was Obon... I don't know if there were Obon...

YW: I don't remember. I just remember the Japanese films. And my sister told me that they had, they used to get together, I don't know where, for mochitsuki, pounding rice on New Year's. But I don't remember that.

RP: In that, in that context of holidays, do you remember celebrating Christmas?

YW: We always had Christmas. Yeah. We always had Christmas. And I'd got to Christian church to celebrate Christmas. We'd go to Christmas Eve and I even, even would be in the plays that the church would have. And I'd play my violin and so...

RP: Oh, you played violin.

YW: I don't remember my parents ever going to these parties, but I think our neighbors just took us, my sisters and my...

RP: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.