Densho Digital Archive - George Nakata Interview (denshovh-ngeorge

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GN: So I must say that Nihonmachi played quite a role in our early years, and I guess I'd like to make mention of Saint Paul Miki School. A lot of people in Southwest Portland went to Shattuck School, Faling School. Those in Northwest went to Atkinsons School or Couch School. But in the early 1930s, a lot of the people had an idea that maybe there ought to be a school that some of the Japanese children can go to, and so somehow, they got in contact with Marylhurst College, now Marylhurst University out toward Lake Oswego, and there were some young nuns most willing to teach Japanese children. And so our first school Saint Paul Miki started in a store front on Second and Ankeny Street or Pine Street, so about ten or fifteen or twenty of us gathered there, and two nuns became our teacher. Later on, we moved to a little house on Seventeenth and Northwest Couch. But I still remember fondly Sister Mary Madaliva, Sister Dana, Sister Marilyn, Father Thelin. We had plays. I got to put on a crown one time to be a king of a certain play. We'd bring our own lunches there, sometimes something called sandwich spread, kind of like mayonnaise with relish. That became our sandwich or peanut butter sandwich. And each day, the nuns would give us soup, vegetable soup, chicken noodle, great. But split pea, none of us really cared for, but we toughed it out. Yes, we did learn about Catholicism and about Jesus and about the thirteen steps. We learned about Joseph and Mary. We learned about Nazareth. We learned about Bethlehem. We learned about the crucifixion and the resurrection. And fast forwarding to days later when I traveled to Tel Aviv and to Israel and to see the Sea of Galilee and to see Bethlehem and to be taken into this place that was the very spot where the manger once stood, was indeed a moving moment for me personally because I harken back to the days when I was six or seven years old being taught by nuns at Saint Paul Miki. They had these picture charts, and they told us about Joseph the carpenter and about the other man to the left of Jesus and to the right of Jesus during crucifixion. And all of those things suddenly really came home when I personally was able to go to Nazareth, Bethlehem, and walk the streets where the Christ child really was there. So I really think back to the nuns, and one of the fortunate things as we went to Portland Assembly Center as we went to Minidoka and returned, led by Jean Matsumoto and others, Yoji Matsushima, Dick Uyetsugi, Betty Ishida, Ruth Yamamoto, Alice Ondo now, my sister Mary, Joseph Suzuki, we had a reunion, and we went out to Marylhurst College, and there we met Sister Mary Madaliva and Sister Marilyn, and I was surprised that Sister Mary Madaliva is not that tall. I used to think she was a giant. And the little cross that nuns in their black robe had in front of her, I thought was a huge piece, but it wasn't that huge after all. I used to ask the nuns as a five-year old or a four-year old, I said, "What's inside that cross?" And one nun said, "There's a small piece of wood, and it signifies part of the cross," and that kind of stayed with me. My sister Mary learned every prayer on the rosary. I learned some of it. But that discipline, that learning, that introduction to Christianity if you will, to Jesus, to religion, has stayed I think with every one of us that went to Saint Paul Miki. Yeah, I was young and went there before I was supposed to, and I guess that's why I kind of graduated early from high school, but that's not here nor there. It was an experience of going there at first having nap time, religion time, but learning the three r's. That's where many of us learned reading, writing, and arithmetic was at Saint Paul Miki School. And to come back and again meet and here in the year 2004, two months ago, ninety years plus going out to Marylhurst, having lunch with Sister Mary Madaliva. And because the Catholic changes of twenty-five years ago, they all changed to their original names. So now we call her Sister Gertrude. But to me, she'll always be Sister Mary Madaliva.

So Saint Paul Miki was also a part of Nihonmachi. It was part of our childhood. It was a part of our education. It was part of our growing up, and I think there was a comfort level with the parents. Someone asked me one time, "Why did you go to Catholic school with nuns?" I said, "You know, for the Issei, the parents, there we could learn English. There we could be with other Japanese children. There was safety there, and they provided transportation." There was a little panel bus that used to come around to the hotels and the stores, restaurants, and pick us up and just bring us to 17th and Couch, bring us home again. I'll never forget my Mary, my sister, Mary, one time falling out of the van, didn't get hurt, but she fell out. And later we can laugh about it, but at the time, it seemed like quite an accident, but there was just simply falling out as we came to a sudden stop and the door wasn't quite shut. So we have funny little things. I remember Albert Nakagawa not liking his pea soups, split pea soup, and pouring it into his little lunch box. I remember things that we hated to eat, and other things that we loved to eat. They would provide us little, Nabisco wafers for snacks sometimes, not good for our teeth, but we loved it. We'd sometimes just wait for recess and snack time, so we learned a lot from a nun teachers. I ended up after the war going to Couch School and other schools, mixed schools, diversity schools, but I'll be very and forever thankful of my days really spent with fellow students there at Saint Paul Miki School. So my early years in the Pomona Hotel, Nihonmachi, and Saint Paul Miki were really enjoyable.