<Begin Segment 15>

MK: Did your children grow up in Milwaukie?

CE: Yes.

MK: Did they go to school there?

CE: Yes.

MK: Did they go to the Japanese school?

CE: I think only two of them, Akiko and another one, went to the Japanese school.

MK: What did they do on weekends? Did they join the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts?

CE: I think Kei joined the Boy Scouts. I don't remember very well. A lot of girls joined the Girl Scouts. Masako went to this place while she was working as a teacher. Where was it? A school over the river.

MK: Willamette River?

CE: Yes. She always went to the place in the mountain for a couple of weeks when she was working as a teacher. She was teaching there.

MK: Was she teaching P.E.?

CE: Yes. She was also supervising.

MK: I'm glad that you didn't experience any discrimination or hardship.

CE: We didn't. Our children worked hard during the summer break though.

MK: What did they do?

CE: They picked beans, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. They didn't take a single day off. They had to save to go to school.

MK: They did well.

CE: Yes. Ben worked very hard too. We worked hard to make money to send them to school. All of them received some scholarship like Masako. That's how they went to school.

MK: They worked hard.

CE: They all worked very hard.

MK: How impressive.

CE: Now I think about it, Nisei children were all hard workers.

MK: Because the Issei generation was very hard working. The Nisei generation grew up with hard working parents and inherited the work ethics.

CE: The Sansei generation is very laid back. [Laughs]

MK: How about the Yonsei generation? All of your grandchildren are working hard.

CE: Sort of. They are doing well, and I'm happy about it.

MK: Do you sometimes go back to Japan? Have you been back nine times so far?

CE: Yes.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.