<Begin Segment 4>

RP: Did you go, were you sent to Japanese language school as a kid?

AT: Yes I did. I... gee I don't know how, I think from the time we started grammar school I think we were going or... it was only about an hour and a half but was right after... and my father was very strict about our coming home right after school. We used to spend time fooling around, and one time he locked all three of us out and we would, we were old enough to find the, that it was such a funny... and we would step on the, somewhere near the window and look in and see him eating alone. We thought that was so funny. [Laughs]

RP: How far did you go in Japanese school?

AT: Oh, I don't know what they call it. I mean, I knew they call it Koto Gakuen but I don't, it might be up to... it can't be a high school. I know my second older sister was very good in Japanese. Oh and the prince of Japan used to come, come to the school and only the best students -- of course I wasn't. I was not a good... but the good students were able to talk to them and get to meet them.

RP: That'd be your final exam, huh?

AT: Yeah.

RP: Talk to the prince?

AT: Yeah.

RP: So did your sister get that opportunity?

AT: No, when she got out she was already, I mean the prince, they didn't come to the school. This was much later during my age.

RP: So, was language school a chance to sort of be with your friends and things or did you take it seriously?

AT: Yes, we acted just like we would in the American school. But we learned a lot. We've forgotten, forgotten a lot too because most of the Isseis are gone and I don't have the opportunity to use my Japanese. But it comes back in certain words, although I have to look in the dictionary to make sure I'm using it in the right way.

RP: So did you speak Japanese at home?

AT: Well, that's, that was my father's... he wanted us to speak in Japanese. He was very strict in that way. Like when we had our meals we weren't supposed to talk and we'd have to put our hands on the table like this and then he'd... he was very strict in his Japanese way. And yet I think he wrote English and he could read English, not well, but he was able to. Oh, and he made us clean the house even when we were young and we all had certain duties we had to do like dusting and... he was a very, very strict person.

RP: How about your mom? What do you remember about your mom?

AT: Oh, she was really... well, in the Japanese way he, I don't say he beat her but he was very strict with her. And as I told my other sisters, he never spanked me so also my younger sister said her, father spanked her when she says, "So's your old man." She says she got a spanking at that time. But I don't ever remember being spanked.

RP: Where did you go to school, grammar school in San Francisco?

AT: It's called Redding grammar school. It was quite a ways to walk. I imagine about six, seven blocks, which we did it every day. But the Japanese school was very close. It's sort of half a block away, half a block or one block away.

RP: How about... was religion a part of your upbringing?

AT: Yes. Most Japanese are Buddhist but my mother took Christianity so we went to the Methodist Japanese church and we were all christened at the same time as my mother.

RP: Uh-huh. Did your mother or father encourage you to take up any arts or crafts, music? Was that a part of your life early?

AT: Well, he brought the piano for us. Piano, and then I took lessons for a short time. But I think I was the only one that took the lessons. Well, there's too many of us. They couldn't afford those extras. And then we helped with... my father passed away early so we all had to go to work right after high school, worked right away, so there weren't many chances for other, you know...

RP: Hobbies and...

AT: Hobbies, yeah.

RP: How old were you when your father passed away?

AT: I think I was a junior in high school so, yeah, so I was seventeen I think. But my oldest two sisters were already married. So...

RP: And where did you graduate high school?

AT: In Galileo High School, that's in the Italian district.

RP: Uh-huh. So you went to school with a lot of different other, different ethnic groups?

AT: Yes, but we'd sort of stuck with the Japanese. Mostly because we lived in the same neighborhood.

RP: So you didn't have very many Caucasian friends?

AT: Well, I had little boys that used to chase me. [Laughs] When they were (five, six years old) I remember one boy gave me a little celluloid kewpie doll. So, so I guess we could say we had, because in the neighborhood there was some Caucasians and so...

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.