<Begin Segment 10>

RP: Tell us about the farm, growing up on the farm.

AS: I know when we came to the farm my father was not a farmer, and so his neighbor, his good friend, a farmer, came and cut the line. I remember the first time, my father, that was like that, instead of straight. And my mom never... well, we used to kind of feel, 'cause my sister was in college, I was in high school, gee, we kind of feel sorry. My mom wasn't... but she'd help. And we'd help summertime, too.

RP: What would you do?

AS: We'd pick beans, and when they plant celery we kind of laid it out and they'd plant it, but I remember picking beans. They always planted beans and got... and my mother said, "Now, don't pick the young ones." And it's funny how, you know... and we were city girls, so when our boyfriends come we said, "We can't go to the beach, we got to pick the beans." So we'd go out there -- it was so funny -- so they would, they were city boys... but when the farmer boys, farmhand boys, they come visit us, they like, 'cause they know how to pick 'em. [Laughs] 'Cause we were all in school already. My sister was in college. But we made it. I can't believe it because my mom... I guess you can do anything when you have to.

RP: So celery was a big crop in this area.

AS: Uh-huh. Yeah. And at the end when I wasn't here, when they came back from camp they had a place to go. The farm was there and the equipment was there because they were able to save it, and they grew strawberries. Yeah, it was... I remember we were back East, and it was Easter vacation and we had a big snowstorm, and my mom called and says, "I'm gonna send you a tray of strawberry." We lived near the airport at the, in Ohio. And so she says, "I'm gonna send you a tray," and so we went to the airport and my neighbors couldn't believe it, 'cause we had the big snowstorm then, in Easter vacation, I still remember. And so I said, "Gee, strawberries." I give to my neighbors and they couldn't believe it. It was very good... my mom, they got to be, she got to be a pretty good farmer. You could do anything, huh? If you have a background. Isn't that true?

RP: And a little experience, yeah.

AS: Yeah, that's what my mom always said. If you, you know, could read. That's the thing. She was that way. She liked music and all, so she's... and my mom and dad, they like, they were real good readers. They used to buy books, American, I mean... whatever... and translate it into Japan. She'd buy, so they spent quite a lot on all that kind of stuff. But they, our house was kind of like a little library, in the neighborhood, too, when we lived in the city, 'cause my father could afford encyclopedia and all that, and so the kids, most of our friends, they were immigrants, too, so they'd come to our house to... and my father and mother, I don't know, I think they took... we lived near the Times building, and so we'd get the Times in the morning and the Herald in the evening and I don't know, Japanese papers in between. But they really stressed education.

RP: And reading.

AS: Well, everybody did. See that's, one thing Japanese people, huh? They...

RP: What type of music did your mom appreciate? Did she, was it traditional Japanese music, or what did you play?

AS: American music. 'Course, we went to Japanese school and all. She wanted us to speak Japanese in the home, and she spoke really nice Japanese because she was a teacher. Because in those days people from all different, they had the different dialects and stuff and all, but my mom at least, she spoke the nice dialect because she was born, she went to school in Tokyo.

RP: Right. Was there a Fukushima dialect?

AS: Oh, yeah, there's a really Fukushima dialect, I'm telling ya. [Laughs] If you go over there, if you hear them, I mean, it's kind of hard to understand, but it's a different dialects... my mom spoke the nice one from Tokyo. She always -- and she wanted us to, so we went to Japanese school. And we were busy, I'm telling... American school, Japanese school and music school. The lady, music teacher lived on the corner. So we were kept busy and all that. But that, my folks, I guess they really appreciate all that. That's where their money went to, bringing us up right.

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