<Begin Segment 10>

RP: Were there, were there other ethnic groups who farmed in the Florin area, Caucasians, Hispanics, Filipinos, or were there primarily Japanese?

LU: All I can remember is Caucasian farmers. But as far as, I mean, the blacks, all I remember was one black student in elementary school, that's it. And as far as the Mexicans, I remember maybe two Mexican students in grammar school, that's about it. But, see, as far as education goes, in elementary school, around Florin there was, there was about, I don't know, three or four elementary schools, and then they all went to this one high school in Elk Grove. And I spent one year in high school before the evacuation. When I went to... so, and then, and then not only that, I don't know what happened, but the grammar school we went to, there was, in town of Florin, there was two grammar schools. One was called the East Grammar School and one was the West. The railroad divided that. And the East was all Japanese, segregated. And then the West was all the other ethnic. And so I went... oh, in my eighth year, the last year in the elementary school, somehow it was brought together. And I think the first, up to fifth grade was the West, and then from the sixth through the eighth grade was the East Grammar School. That happened the year before the evacuation. And so I spent seven years in segregation school. Then when the war broke out, then in high school, then I was in a segregated school again. So out of the, I mean, in the twelve years of schooling, eleven years was segregated. And just one year was the...

RP: Integrated.

LU: Integrated school.

RP: Did you have any feelings about that?

LU: No. All I know is that the one year in high school when it was integrated, it seemed a lot easier. [Laughs] Maybe the segregated school was, scholastically it was a little harder.

RP: So you, most of the kids you played with were Japanese? Most of the kids you played with, you know, neighboring kids, were Japanese?

LU: Yeah. Especially before high school, anyway. 'Cause elementary was all Japanese, and then most of the neighbors were Japanese farmers. Most of the friends were all, we played with mostly Japanese.

RP: Were there any, towards the later years of the '30s and early '40s, were you aware of any signs of anti-Japanese feeling or attitude in the Florin area, places where, that were off-limits to you?

LU: You're talking about before Pearl Harbor?

RP: Before the war happened.

LU: No. Because like I say, when we lived on the farm, my dad was always busy working, so we'd hardly go anywhere. The only time... well, I know he likes to fish, so he used to go fishing quite often. And he used to take us sometimes. And to me, if I remember, the only time I would get in contact with a lot of other people was if I go shopping with my mom to Sacramento or go to the doctor. That's about it.

RP: The farm life was very isolating.

LU: Yeah, I would say. Because he raised both strawberries and grapes, there was work all year round. If you weren't working in the strawberry, then you're working in the grapes.

RP: Pruning grapes.

LU: Yeah. Some type of farming, you have some lull in between. But when you raise both strawberries and grapes, it was a year-round job. That's why most of the time, the family used to work on Sundays, too.

RP: Would your father have somebody pick up his fruits and produce and ship them out? Was he responsible for hauling?

LU: Okay, this was before my time, but if I recall, he used to have several buildings on the farm. And there was one, it was kind of like a residential type of building, it's old. But I heard that there were some workers who used to live over there. And this was, when you first start to farm in Florin, like I said, the land was pretty rich, so he had a good strawberry -- I mean, grapes crop. So he was, we were lucrative. And then little by little, as the years go on, the land started to go down. And so, by the time I realized that, he didn't have any workers living on the farm anymore. So by then, I guess the brothers and sisters all grew up, so they did the, whole family did the picking, the strawberries and grapes.

RP: Is that what you did?

LU: Yeah, I was just about getting into that stage, getting older, still have to start working. But when I was younger, we...

RP: You just went to school.

LU: Yeah, went to school and that's about it.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.