Densho Digital Archive - Henry Sakamoto Interview (denshovh-shenry

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JC: I want to ask a couple of questions, kind of somewhat going back. Did the Japanese American kids who were south of Burnside have contact with the Japanese American kids that were north of Burnside? That's one question. And the other was sort of what was the racial ethnic makeup of both Shattuck and Lincoln in those days?

HS: Well, Shattuck School had a what I call a diversity. It had a diverse student body there, Japanese, children of Japanese ancestry, children of Chinese ancestry. There were children of, in the Jewish faith, and so it was pretty much majority of Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish, and then the Caucasian kids were the minority kind of like. And the, and Lincoln High School also was pretty much the same pattern, so we had developed a lot of good friends in the Chinese neighborhoods. And the, I think the diversity in North Portland, Northwest Portland, was, I hear stories about the old Atkinson grade school in Northwest Portland that was probably ninety percent Chinese and Japanese, so I'm not too positive but the diversity wasn't as diverse as it was in Southwest Portland. And we had Japantown Southwest and Japantown Northwest, and it was very rare that the twain would meet because we stayed in our own neighborhoods. We played, in Southwest Portland, for example, as well as in Northwest Portland. There were probably three or four Japanese families per block, so we had a lot of friends growing up in the neighborhood, so your playmates were there, and so there was no need to really go discover new playmates in North Portland. However, in Southwest Portland, we had the Japanese school in South Portland. And in Northwest Portland, there's a Japanese school in Northwest Portland, so the Nisei kids went to the separate Japanese schools. We had to go to these Japanese schools after regular school during the day. Let's see, I think school let out about 3:30, and then we'd go to Japanese school at 4 o'clock. Classes would start during the weekday for an hour, and on Saturdays we had to go two hours. And we did meet with the North Portland Japanese school once a year at the community picnics, undoukai, where we would have athletic races, run races, and South Portland would wear these little beanie caps. And there were two colors, white on one side and red on the other, and we'd wear the beanie caps with the red exposed and the North Portland Japanese school would wear the caps with the white exposed, and we would compete in running races and win prizes. It's about the only time that there would be big social occasions between North and South Portland; otherwise, it was just a family thing.

But we would play with our, in South Portland for sure, we would take over a street. Most of the Japanese ran hotels, and my folks ran hotels. It was a good way to, I would guess, raise your family because you'd be all be there together and, like we would, we set aside one room for the bedroom, and there'd be one living room and then there's the kitchen, so the whole family would be utilizing that space all the time so we, we were under parental control for a good part of the time. And we would play in the neighborhood, like our hotel was on Southwest First Avenue between Salmon and Main. Well, down a block away between Salmon and Taylor, George Hara's family ran the Australia Hotel. Well, after dinner, we would get together and play out in the street until pretty much it was getting dark, but they were on Taylor Street. We could virtually take over the street and play our games, Kick the Can or even ride our bicycles, play hide and go seek. One of the reasons for that is because in those days, pre-World War II, and particularly in the late '30s as we were growing up, there was very, very little automotive traffic. And so when an automobile comes down the street, we would clear the streets, get out of the way, and probably would be another half hour before another car would come around as opposed to these days.

So I did get to know the Northwest Portland territory quite well because before World War II for a year or two I delivered the Japanese newspaper. Mr. Oyama was the publisher and I took over the Northwest route, and it was a fairly easy route because all the Japanese places -- hotels, grocery stores and bath houses and whatever -- were very, very close to each other, so I delivered probably a hundred papers in that area in less than an hour, so it was a good job. Paid $8 a month and did that in the late afternoon, early evening because, and it was a daily, and it would take that long to print the paper. And the tough part of that job was when you had to go around and collect the subscription because that would, have go out and make that route another time, you know. So on the days that we collected money, we had to go the route two times. But anyway, Mr. Oyama was a very, very nice gentleman, good boss. One day, when the printing press had difficulty and the paper didn't come out on time, but us delivery guys, there were one for Northwest Portland, one for Southwest Portland, and I think one for East Portland, but we had to hang around until the paper got printed so we could deliver it. This went to something like 7 o'clock at night. So Mr. Oyama would call our families and tell them that the paper was late so we'd be coming home a little bit later. But because we did stick around to deliver, he gave us, I think it was a dollar apiece bonus for the overtime and that was pretty generous I think in those days.

So anyway, I got to know the neighborhood as well as the Southwest neighborhood. And these days, they call that Old Town area the Old Town Chinatown area. Well, before World War II, there were very few Chinese businesses in the Old Town area. The Chinatown actually was south of Burnside on Second Avenue up to probably Pine Street, and there were a lot of Chinese restaurants and some Chinese businesses. So to call it Old Town Chinatown and ignoring the majority of Japanese that were in the Old Town area is kind of a misnomer, and I suggested that to a Portland Development Commission representative at a meeting I had that I attended along with Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center. I said, "You guys are too young to remember this, but in my day before World War II, that really wasn't Chinatown, didn't become Chinatown until after World War II and particularly on Fourth Avenue here." One of the big restaurants, Chinese restaurants, Republic Cafe, used to be Tokyo Sukiyaki, and that was a pretty big restaurant run by the Kawasaki family at that time. So anyway, that's north and south in the old historical pre-World War II times.