<Begin Segment 6>

RP: What did you, what did you do for fun while you were growing up on the farm?

NM: Well, one of the fun things was we had some large fig trees, black ones, and then the green ones. One of the fun things was going up and climbing those trees and eating figs. And we had a couple of pecan trees. And I was always climbing those in the fall and getting the nuts. So that kind of fun I had. And then with my friends, we had a large yard, and so the friends would come over and we would would play different kinds of games, you know, the usual kids games like Run Sheep Run... Run Sheep Run or May I? and things like that, Red Rover or whatever.

RP: And these friends, were these friends from some of the other Japanese American farms?

NM: Yes, the other farming families that lived around there. They were sort of around the same age as we were growing up.

RP: Do you remember the names of those families?

NM: The names?

RP: Yeah.

NM: Well, one of the families was Ishikawa, I-S-H-I-K-A-W-A. And, Horiba, H-O-R-I-B-A. And Sekiya, S-E-K-I-Y-A. Matsuyoshi, M-A-T-S-U-Y-O, no, S-H-I.

Off Camera: Yeah. Y-O...

NM: Oh, yes, S-H-I, yeah. those were the main families I can recall now.

RP: Were they all truck farmers?

NM: They were all farmers, yes. I think the whole community, Japanese community, were farmers except there was a couple that had an ice cream parlor or something like that. And then another family had a grocery store.

RP: In Mesa?

NM: In Mesa yes, that was just in Mesa.

RP: So they handled Japanese items there?

NM: Yes, we could just get at the grocery store, yes.

RP: Get your rice there?

NM: Yes, we probably did.

RP: Did you ever have peddlers who would come out and sell things to you?

NM: Yeah. Uh-huh. We had a fish man who came up every week and so we got our fresh fish and tofu, essential things like that, yes.

RP: So you, did you, did you have animals on the, the ranch, too?

NM: Oh, well, besides the horses? We had, we didn't have any cows. But, we had a dog, a big police dog. And, was it called police dog?

Off Camera: Yeah, German Shepherd.

NM: And, German Shepherd dog I guess it was. And then we had one of those, chickens, no ducks. I guess that was about all of the live animals on the farm. We didn't have too much.

RP: Something else you mentioned the other day that you remember, were the Japanese community picnics.

NM: Yes. Oh, yeah, the community, they would be mostly, in the beginning, community picnics with the entire community involved. But eventually the community became split into two groups. And so we did have our own group picnic, yes. And, we would usually go to Granite Reef Dam and enjoy the dam there. And we made our rice balls, onigiri, made some teriyaki chicken and stuff like that.

RP: Would there be games for the kids, too?

NM: Yes, we, I guess the adults didn't get involved but we organized ourselves, yes, played different games.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.