Densho Digital Archive - Susumu Iwasaki Interview (denshovh-isusumu

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Tell us about where you went to school in Terminal Island. Grammar school?

SI: Yeah.

RP: Where?

SI: It was right on the island there. In fact it was, it was only a block away from where I lived, so...

RP: Was that the Mildred...

SI: Obar Elementary all right.

RP: What was school like for you?

SI: It was good. I mean, you know, we had no problem. It was just all... and one good thing about it was all Japanese, you know. And we have a few Caucasian kids. But mostly... and then of course we all spoke Japanese then. Oh, you don't let any teacher catching you speaking Japanese in our school ground. That was the thing about it. But, that's all we used was to do was speak Japanese at home and school. And frankly, I'll tell you, when I went in the army, I had a hell of a time speaking English because... and in camp, too. We were all in one area so naturally we all spoke Japanese, right? So anyway, well... in a way it was good for me, in a way not so good. Because being an interpreter when I was in the army, you had to know how to speak pretty well English. I know a lot of Japanese but... but anyway, that worked out pretty good.

RP: So what would happen if the teacher caught you speaking Japanese at school?

SI: Well, in one case I... I saw this guy got a spanking. And one time I saw this guy was, "I will not speak Japanese," and you gotta write it on the blackboard. And that was the two incident, thing that I experienced on the, while going to school. Otherwise...

RP: Were there, were there any teachers that you had that you remember fondly?

SI: Well, the only teacher's name... there's a couple of 'em. There's a lady named Reagan. I think she was in the fourth grade. And there was another lady named Burbank. It was the two ladies that I can remember. These teachers were pretty good. I mean, they were pretty, like in the old days, not the schoolteacher like you see now, but they were pretty strict.

RP: Were they always Caucasian teachers?

SI: Oh, yeah. All of 'em was.

RP: Now, you picked up Japanese from, from your parents?

SI: Oh, yeah. We used to go to Japanese school, too.

RP: And that was on the island?

SI: Yeah.

RP: And where was it located?

SI: Well, there was two church. There was one Japanese church. In fact, well, no, there was... yeah, I guess it was two Japanese. One is a Christian church and one was a Buddhist church, I mean, a Buddhist school and then the church is over there, too. We went to the Christian school for... but most of the, like I said before, we had, we go to school and then come back and then after school we went to a Japanese school for a couple of hours.

RP: What was Japanese school like for you?

SI: Kinda like fun, you know. [Laughs]

RP: How?

SI: Well, anyway we, we got to the point where we learned a lot of... it just kind of come natural because we were all speaking Japanese. So...