Densho Digital Archive - Shigeki Sugiyama Interview (denshovh-sshigeki-01-0003)

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RP: Tell us a little bit about growing up in Alameda, what do you remember most about your early years?

SS: Well, let's see, I went to... first of all, I didn't speak English until I was four years old because it was all Japanese in the family. So my mother was concerned about my learning and being able to speak English so she tried to get me into kindergarten when I was... I think it was about (four). I was born in the tail end in December and I think the cutoff was September or something. So I went to Haight School kindergarten for about two weeks until they found out my birthdate and so I was a kindergarten dropout at four and half. And then I went to... most of the Japanese in Alameda went to Everett School, which is no longer operated as a school. And (I) then for a couple weeks after... I went through kindergarten, first grade at Everett School and then I started the second grade at another school until I finally wound up at Porter School, which I learned burnt down sometime in the 1960s I guess. But it's right near Alameda High School. So I graduated from (Porter) School in January of 1942 and so I entered Alameda High School in February. But in February, Alameda was one of those areas like Bainbridge and Terminal Island that were declared restricted areas, and my parents had to move out so my whole family moved. Anyway, I attended school in Alameda, started Alameda High School, didn't finish. In the meantime I guess (when) I was about five or six, after our regular school, public school, we attended Japanese language school. And I guess I attended that school for about, well, until 1941. It was interesting because it just dawned on me that when today, when you speak of Japanese language school, you learn Japanese through English. In the Japanese school back at that time it was all in Japanese -- there (was) not a word of English spoken so you learned Japanese as the Japanese learned it. We never learned translating or interpreting, and so it was a means of learning the Japanese language mainly to be able to speak to our parents.

RP: Where was the language school located?

SS: At the (time), right next to the Alameda Buddhist temple in Alameda. So going back to the community, what is now the Buddhist Temple of Alameda, was formally established in 1916. The first fellowship was gathered in 1912 at my grandfather's home. So the Buddhist temple is at 2325 Pacific Avenue, which was just a half a block from Park Street which is then the main, shall we say the business district of Alameda. And the Japanese language school, I haven't been able to pin down the exact date, but sometime in the, probably latter half of the 1920s, originally, the Japanese language school was established on Pacific Avenue about a block from where the temple is, and it would have been after (it was located in) the temple. And then they built the Japanese language school on Buena Vista which is on the block, you can say, behind of the temple and across the street from (...) the Methodist church, the Japanese Methodist church. They also had a Japanese language school. So the two... the church and the temple became the center of the Japanese community, community centers, because on Park Street, which is -- well, Pacific, is you might think is one, (long) Avenue (...) in Alameda and Park Street was the cross street. And the Japanese commercial, where you might call Japantown, middle of Japantown was on Park Street between a two block area. It had grocery store, candy shop, laundry, a barber shop with a pool hall and even had, what they call, Nihon ryokan, Japanese hotel, sort of resident hotel there, and the shoe shop or shoe repair shop and so forth. And most of the Japanese lived within, I would say, a four block radius of the two churches. I was born just a block, next block over on Pacific Avenue but so, of course, Alameda you could walk almost anywhere. And we lived within a two block walking distance of either the church or the temple. So I was born on Pacific Avenue then when I was about two years old, my family moved to Lincoln Avenue which is another block over. And so when I went to kindergarten I used to walk, gee, I don't know, I can't imagine a five year old walking to kindergarten the route that I used to take, it would be unheard of today.

So we would attend the Japanese language school after our regular public school so about three thirty. So every day from the time I can remember, I'd go to school and then go to Japanese language school and then on Sunday we'd go to the Buddhist temple. That was our community. You might think of Alameda having one Japanese or Japanese American community but in effect you have one community with two parts to it, one centered on the Buddhist temple and one on the Methodist church. I don't recall it being impressed that way at that time but in hindsight the Buddhist temple was, I would say, the quote, the Japanese cultural center, and many of the people that attended the Buddhist temple did so to maintain their Japanese identity. And the Japanese language school was not directly affiliated with the temple but the members that attended that school were mostly members of the Buddhist temple. And we had a few students that were members of the Methodist church too, but then on the other hand, the Methodist church had their own Japanese language school too.

In translating a short memoir of my... one of my brother-in-law's grandmother, who became a Christian missionary in 1912, and in her memoir there's a statement she (states) that because of the anti-Japanese attitude -- this is back in the 1912, thereabouts -- she thought that if more Japanese became Christians, they would become more acceptable to the American public. And since then, and I'm thinking that many of the Christian Japanese that I knew rejected anything Japanese. They wouldn't even use chopsticks, you know, things like that. There's a community, I don't know if you know, of Livingston, California, a farming community, there was a Japanese community established there as a Christian community. And right next to it is... let's see, I'm just trying to think of the name now, I think my mind is part Turlock, Merced county, but more or less the Japanese Buddhist community and so they have to, later you have a Buddhist community, Japanese Buddhist community and Japanese Christian community.

RP: Two different groups with two different outlooks and perspectives.

SS: Yes, I mean, you know, there's in those days, Chinese would not... I'm not sure how (to) express it... Japanese were not supposed to marry Chinese or outside of the Japanese community. And within the Japanese community, Buddhists were not supposed to marry Christians and so forth. [Laughs] But for our generation, you know, there's no distinction, but as far as our parents, the first generation, that was the mentality.