Densho Digital Archive - George Uchida - Leo Uchida Interview (denshovh-ugeorge

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RP: I wanted to go back a little bit and talk about your father. In particular, he was able to actually own the land on this farm. Did he start really small and then build up, or did he...

LU: No, he didn't own the land because at that time, aliens couldn't own the land. So he got the farm through my oldest brother's name.

RP: Right, that's what I meant. He had, what, 40 acres?

LU: 50-acre farm. Raised mostly grapes and maybe about 2 acres of strawberry, and he had a, maybe about an acre of persimmon orchard that he was able to pack it and ship it to make it profitable. And I don't know, sounded like he got all different kind of fruits that was growing in the ranch here and there, prunes and... so I guess, I guess were exposed to all different kind of fruits.

GU: Pears, peach, walnut, persimmon.

LU: Pomegranate.

GU: Figs, apricot.

RP: But primarily grapes and strawberries?

GU: Right. Grape was primary, and strawberry next.

RP: Can you give us a little bit of a picture of what the Florin area looked like at the time you were growing up?

LU: Well, there was, you know, there was quite a few Japanese farmers that lived in the Florin area, and I guess the main center of entertainment was Florin Japanese church, and then the Buddhist church. And I remember throughout the year, each church would take turns putting on Japanese movies for fundraising. And that was, I guess, one of the, kind of a big event for me. I know we used to, I used to go to go see those Japanese movies at the, both the churches had a big hall, so they would show the movie in the hall.

RP: What kind of movies were they?

LU: Oh, well, they usually have one samurai and one modern drama picture. And that was a big thing, those days.

RP: Were these silent movies?

LU: No. They were talkies.

GU: Talkies with no subtitles. [Laughs]

LU: Yeah, that's right.

GU: And in the wintertime, they would show it inside the building. But during the summertime, they had it on the outside. They had a, we had a big blank wall, blank wall at the end of the church hall, and they would put a big screen on the outside, on the wall. I remember that.

RP: Now, did you attend the Methodist church?

GU: Yes, we were Methodist.

LU: And then in the Methodist church, it was a minister and his wife. I would say they were both Isseis. And they also used to teach Japanese language. And the minister would, in one room, teach the boys. And the minister's wife would teach the girls Japanese. And this was on Saturdays, so we used to go to regular school weekdays. On Saturday we used to go to Japanese school. And I guess I wasn't too good of a student, but at least it kept me from working on the farm on Saturdays.

RP: Did you go all day Saturday?

LU: Yes. And the people who went to Buddhist church, they had Japanese school every day after the regular school for about, I don't know, one or two hours. So, but we, ours was on Saturdays.

RP: We heard many Nisei kids complain about losing their play time, they had to go to Japanese school after...

LU: Yeah.

RP: That's an interesting perspective, you know, it keeps you up and working. Now, how far did you get in your language studies?

LU: Well, you go by Book 1, 2, 3. And maybe I went to about Book 10, and I don't know how far...

GU: I remember, like, 7. So I learned the least Japanese when I was growing up.

RP: But enough to converse with your parents?

GU: Some. It had to be the most easy, children's language rather than the adult's language.

RP: Most importantly, were you able to understand the movies?

LU: Some.

GU: No, I didn't understand the movie because of the language, but like samurai movie, you don't have to really know the language to understand what the story was about. It was mostly, you know, swordfighting and all that.

LU: And then, once a year, the whole town would have a picnic. And usually it used to be at a, someplace right next to the river. I guess the Sacramento River or someplace, one location, it was sandy and we were able to swim. So both the Buddhist church and the Methodist church, the whole town gets together and they have this big old picnic. And that was one of the big annual events for the town of Florin.