Densho Digital Archive - Laurie Sasaki Interview (denshovh-slaurie-01-0019)

<Begin Segment 19>

RP: Can, so you moved into this, called Rosie the Riveter housing.

LS: Yes.

RP: And what was that like? What was the housing like? Were they small apartments?

LS: You know, again, it depended on the number in your family. When we first moved here there were four of us, my sister, and my mother and father. So there were four. So we had a one bedroom apartment. One bedroom, bath, kitchen, and a living room. And then when the others joined us we... the largest one was a three bedroom apartment so we got a three bedroom. And they were fine and that lasted us through a period of years.

RP: You were there for a number of years.

LS: Yes. Right, four or five years I'm sure.

RP: And, other, the other units and housing was also rented by Japanese Americans? Were there other people living in that housing area?

LS: Yes, there were many people living there. As I said, there were three blocks of Japanese. And I know there were a lot of black people living there. And I think that the people who didn't go home again after the shipyards closed, I think that they probably stayed there until they decided what they were going to do with their lives. But it was a lifesaver for us that this housing was available.

RP: Did you have contact with these black families at all? You personally or your family?

LS: No. I didn't. We used to sort of run through there to get to the store or something. But, yeah, I didn't have any contact with them.

RP: So they were, they were their own separate area?

LS: Yeah. They had us all sort of segregated I think, you know, again. The Japanese here and... excuse me.

RP: Again that was, that was the tenor of the times.

LS: That's true. I have to tell you one sort of interesting thing when I was growing up though, in Imperial Valley. They had schools segregated where they had a school for blacks and a school for whites and a school for Mexicans. But we were considered white. So we went to school with the white people.

RP: Caucasian?

LS: Yes.

RP: Interesting.

LS: Yeah, so it was... yeah, so there's a lot of prejudice in the valley already. I mean, I grew up with that, you know. But it was just normal for me then.

RP: So, three separate schools.

LS: Uh-huh. You know, they still might have that. I've never gone back to the valley.

RP: Found out. Again, yeah, that was tolerated and accepted as...

LS: Right, you know, that was dust bowl down there. Everybody coming through from Oklahoma and things like that settled there and that was, that was the life.

RP: How was that, the school situation in Richmond when you went back to school after returning here? Were the schools integrated?

LS: Yes. Yes, it was, it was, it was integrated. It was just that I had a difficult time because, as I told you, I couldn't remember anything in Poston so naturally I... so it took a little bit of time to get used to getting back into school and trying to learn again. But it was integrated.

RP: So, right, school in Poston was just...

LS: I'm sure that some people got an education there. I can't... I can't remember learning anything there except tap dancing. [Laughs] Which was a big waste of time, right. Oh, I guess I could have ended up in some Broadway musical or something like that. Oh my goodness.

RP: So that was, that was a difficult adjustment. One of the difficult adjustments in resettling was getting your head wrapped around school again.

LS: Yes, yes.

RP: And what were your, you know, those first two or three years, what were your, did you have any personal goals or interests? What were you focused on?

LS: Trying to do well in school, I guess. Trying to just... just trying to get through school I guess.

RP: Did your parents place a pretty high value on, on education like most Isseis?

LS: Yes, yes, yes. You know, you had to be number one in everything and if they didn't say your name at first, "Oh god, what happened to my kid?" Things like that, yeah. No, no... yeah, it was very important.