Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: Sumi Saito Interview
Narrator: Sumi Saito
Interviewer: Alton Chung
Location: Ontario, Oregon
Date: December 4, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-ssumi-01

[Correct spelling of certain names, words and terms used in this interview have not been verified.]

<Begin Segment 1>

AC: This is an interview with Sumi Saito, a Nisei woman, age seventy-seven. The interview is occurring in Ontario, Oregon, December 4, 2004. The interviewer is Alton W. Chung, for the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center's Oral History Project 2004. Thank you so very much for agreeing to go and speak with us today. You've brought several items, photographs and things like that. Would you like to tell us about them?

SS: Well, I thought first I would talk about Paul's family. This is his mother and father's wedding picture, and I'm not sure what year they were married. But they were both from Fukushima-ken, and Paul probably told you everything about the family, but here's a picture of parents and his brothers. They had three boys, no girls, and I believe this was probably when Paul was in high school. So it was probably in the late '30s.

AC: Who are they? Who are the brothers?

SS: This is Abe, the middle son, and this is Joe, the oldest, and this is Paul. Paul's father's name was Yoshikichi Saito, and grandma's name was Hiro Kurotsu Saito. And she was always kind of bummed because her name was Hiro. And she said she didn't even get three syllables in her name, and she didn't get a "ko" or "uye" or whatever on the end, and she was always kind of mad about that. [Laughs]

AC: And what was so significant about having "ko" or "uye"?

SS: I guess it was just nicer or something. More grand or something, I don't know. And this is a picture of the Saito family when Paul's oldest brother, Joe, and his wife Nellie went for a visit. And I'm not sure what year that was, but the one in the center is Paul's aunt, and she's probably the only survivor of that generation, and these were her children. I know this fellow here is Paul's cousin. He looks a lot like Paul's brother Abe. But I thought, well, I'll tell you about their family, but Paul's already talked about his family, so I'll talk about my family.

I'll show you a picture of... let's see. This is my mother and father on their wedding day, and they were married in Japan on February 13th or 11th, 1916. And my dad was thirty years old, my mother was twenty-one. My dad left Japan when he was seventeen, and he thought he would get rich in the U.S. and go back and get his wife he was promised to a lot earlier, but it took him 'til he was thirty to get enough money to get back to Japan to pick her up. But I don't know, Dad had a lot of hard experiences. Can you imagine coming to this country when you're seventeen in 19... or the turn of the century? It was real tough. This was a picture of my mother and father on their fiftieth anniversary. And, oh, this is a picture of the mother and father and the six girls and two boys. And this picture was just of the six girls. And at the time of their fiftieth anniversary, this was the whole clan. Well, the children aren't here, but, let's see, I think everyone was married, and so their spouses were pictured in this one. But my parents had eight children, and amazing thing, they're all still living. My older sister is eighty-seven, the next sister's eighty-five, and I have another one that's eighty-one, and then Shingo, my brother, is... what is he? Let's see. He must be about seventy-nine, I think. And then I'm seventy-seven, then I have a younger sister seventy... let's see, seventy-four. Let's see, how old is Jim? Jim's seventy-one, and then the youngest sister is sixty-nine, I think. But that's my family.

I guess I could tell about my dad coming over when he was seventeen, and in those days, the Isseis, they thought they were coming over here and making a lot of money and then they were going to go home with all their loot and be happy. But they found out how rough it was. And Dad, I don't know what all he did, but I know one time he was a houseboy, and I think that's how he learned English a little bit. And he worked on the railroad in a gang and said it was really awful. They'd give you a biscuit for breakfast, a biscuit for lunch, and a biscuit for supper a lot of times. And he said there were a lot of times he cried for his mother, just seventeen, can you imagine? And let's see... I don't know... I know he started farming with his first cousin, Mr. Matsui, his name was... I can't remember now. Hachisuke Matsui was his first cousin, they came to America together, I think. And then they were living in a very crude place when my dad got married to my mom. He went to Japan to get her, and she said, "Oh my goodness," in Japan in those days they didn't ever see the bones of meat, and she came to this place and there was a ham hanging in the kitchen with the bone exposed. Thought she wanted to go back right now. [Laughs] But that was one of the stories she tells. And then Mr. Matsui went back the next year and got his bride, so the first year after my mom and dad were married, they had their first child. The next year, the Matsuis had their baby, so they took turns every year having a baby. But Matsuis quit at six and we had eight. [Laughs]

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

AC: What were the names of your siblings?

SS: Oh, my oldest sister's name was Teruyo. Our names were really hard to say. And my second sister's name was Akiko. My third sister's name was Teruko, and my brother's name is Shingo, my name is Sumiko, and my next sister's name, Mutsuye, and then Masanobu and Tomiko. And we all had nicknames. The last two, I don't know if it was our neighbors or people who worked for us named the last two kids, so Masanobu is Jim Wada, and Tomiko is Dorothy Wada.

AC: What are the nicknames of all your siblings?

SS: Well, I think my oldest sister they used to call Toots. [Laughs] And then my second sister, we call her Eiki, it's Akiko, and then Teruko, our family called her Ted all the time, but people in town call her Teddy, it sounds more feminine. And then Shingo, he never liked his name, he said, but we called him Shing. And then they always call me Sum, but at school I got called everything: Semako, Semiko, Semicolon, whatever. [Laughs] And my younger sister's name is Mutsuye, and we always called her Muts, and her friends would call her Mutts or Mutt. And then I don't know, we just called Jim Jim or Jimbo, and then our youngest sister's nickname to the family was Toki, and she hates it. She doesn't like it now, and she wants us to call her Dorothy or Dot. So we try to, but it's real hard. We're so used to calling her Toki.

But, let's see... my dad was farming in White Swan with Mr. Matsui, we called him Uncle, but he was actually Dad's first cousin. And anyway, Mom tells some stories about how they never knew any English, she and Mrs. Matsui, and they'd go down to buy something, they'd have to do charades, you know, and she said they went to buy eggs one time and she said, oh, they were making all these motions like hen laying eggs and they say, "Kokikoko," and nobody knew what they were saying. I think Japanese chickens talk different. [Laughs] Because don't they say cock-a-doodle-doo here or cluck, cluck? Anyway, kokikoko is how they say chicken, what chickens say. Anyway, they had a lot of those stories like that to tell us.

Mom said she was so lonesome, when they, the first year she was here, Mrs. Matsui wasn't there yet and they didn't have any friends or support, Japanese people, and so my mom was so lonesome that, she was pregnant... my oldest sister is about 4'10" and real teeny weeny, and Mom says, "I think she's small like that because I cried every day I was pregnant because I wanted to go back Japan." She says, "That's why Teruyo is so small." And then she said, and also they didn't know any better, and when she didn't have milk, she fed her canned milk straight from the can without diluting, and she said they were just so ignorant about some things. So she said, "Poor Teruyo." But then they had Akiko, and Akiko was much taller than my oldest sister, and then they had... they had a stillborn girl after Akiko, and then they had Teruko, who we called Ted. So they had four girls, they were just waiting for a boy. And finally on the fifth try they got a boy named Shingo. And in those economic times, they needed boys to help on the farm, so my dad felt deprived, you know, 'cause he had so many girls. And poor Shingo had to work really hard. And then I was next, and then Muts was next.

And then, oh, we were in Washington when the first six children were born. I don't know, Dad heard about some government land thing where if you cleared the land and everything, you would get that acreage. And so he and a couple of his friends, they were doing pretty well in that Yakima Valley raising potatoes and things, but I guess they were young yet and they wanted to venture out and they went to Vale, in the Vale hills there and cleared the sagebrush and claimed this land. I guess it's kind of like a homestead thing. And so I don't know how many acres my dad got, Mr. Nitta and Mr. Hirai, they were his friends, each got a plot. So they had a little settlement, I don't know what our neighbors called it. Three Japanese people settled in this little place. So it was really tough times there. My mom said it was probably the hardest times in their lives because it was Depression times and they just had a hard time making a living off that land. It was on the west bench of Vale. But my mom and dad were very religious, and they thought they'd make it.

When they were in Washington they helped start a church over there, a Methodist church. So when they were over here in Oregon, they got interested in starting a church here, too. So I don't know, I had that blessings book, our fiftieth anniversary book, that maybe you could read about the history of our church here.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

AC: So where were you born?

SS: I was born in Asher, Washington, and it's in the Yakima Valley there, it's no longer there, it's just a crossroads now.

AC: And so when your father decided to go and clear this land here in Vale, picked up the whole family and you moved.

SS: Yes. We moved to Vale, Oregon, and at first we lived in town because there was no buildings on the place. And so Dad brought his friend, Mr. Jay Nishida, a carpenter, to build on the farm. So he built a garage first, so after we lived... well, I don't know if we lived a year in Vale. We went out and lived in the garage, six kids, and it was a small garage, they had a little apartment in the end. I think Mr. Hirai was a bachelor then and he lived in this little apartment in the end, if I remember right. But anyway, we got to Vale and then it was across the street from the Methodist church, which made my dad and mom very happy. So we had to go to Sunday school every Sunday. But then we moved out on the farm after we got some buildings built, and then Mr. Nishida built us a real nice home out there, two story house. And that's what we grew up in, but we lived eleven miles out, and there was a little country school nearby, but we were in the Vale School District, so we had to ride a bus to town to go to school, so we went to Vale elementary and high school there.

AC: Were there very many Asian or Japanese kids in school?

SS: No, there were none. We were the only... and later, Mr. Nitta was married and started having children, so it was Nittas and us for a long time.

AC: How did that feel?

SS: We didn't know any different. [Laughs] But I guess we knew we were Japanese.

AC: Were you treated any different?

SS: Not really. I always thought I was the teacher's pet in the first grade. [Laughs] We got along pretty well. But let's see... I think when I was about in the fourth grade, they were having a hard time on our farm, so Dad rented some ground near Ontario, and so I went to a little country school between Ontario and Vale for two or three years, and I can't remember too much, but we had a schoolteacher named Mr. Denim who had only one arm. His arm got blown off in an accident. And so my father made me help him. Well, in those days, teachers had to do their own janitor work. So Mr. Denim lived, boarded, room and boarded at our neighbor's place, so Dad made me help Mr. Denim every night after school, help him sweep and clean up the school, then he'd give me a ride home. But I remember that. I was only in fifth grade. Our older kids had to come home from school and go to work out in the fields. I suppose Dad thought I was old enough to help the teacher. So I remember I got that job.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

SS: But we moved back to Vale when I was in seventh grade, I think, and I graduated from Vale High School. But when I was a freshman in high school is when December 7th happened. And I remember going to school the next day, and Ines Wells, this girl that I went to school from first grade, she wasn't a particular friend of mine, but I knew her from first grade, choked my neck and says, "Simako, damn you, Simako." She choked my neck, and I said, "What did I do?" But she thought I was responsible for Pearl Harbor, I guess. So that was really a kind of eye-opener for me. I didn't really think I had anything to do with Pearl Harbor. What do you know when you're a freshman in high school in those days?

AC: Did you even know where Pearl Harbor was?

SS: Well, because of the news I knew, but the folks talked about what they heard on the radio or whatever. But we really didn't know that much. But I remember -- I don't know if I should even say it -- but we used to have that Tencho setsu, and they had a trunk that was full of the emperor's picture, the Japanese flag, and they always put it up and everybody did that banzai thing, you know. And we lived way out in the country so the higher ups in the Nikkeijinkai, I guess, thought maybe they could hide that stuff out on our farm. So I think that trunk is probably buried out there on our old farm somewhere. One of these days somebody's going to dig it up and say, "Oh my goodness, look at this." There's a picture of the emperor, the Japanese flag in there. But like I was saying, it wasn't anything subversive, it's just that they had loyalties to Japan because they were born in Japan and they were brought up that way, to revere the emperor. So we understood that, but I remember Dad and Mom worrying about where to hide it, and these guys, Mr. Sato, it might have been Paul's dad, and some other people in the community, Japanese community, came out and they were digging around, and I think they buried it somewhere, that trunk that had the flag in it. [Laughs] But I don't know. Do you know what happened to it, Paul?

AC: So your parents never went and dug it up after the war?

SS: Not that I know of. I don't know, they could have. You know, the kids don't know everything. They could have done something with it. But I kind of remember that.

AC: So how did you feel when you were singled out and choked by this person who you thought you kind of knew?

SS: Well, I thought, "What did I do?" I really thought that was unfair, because we were not brought up in a Japanese community where you learn Japanese and everything. And our hired men are all hakujins, and our neighbors were all hakujins. We used to run over to our neighbors and play, I found out just the kids that were sort of needy or unhappy or made fun of were the ones that teased us. There was another family on the bus, the DiWolf family, those kids were real mean to us. But they used to come to school with bare feet, and kids used to tease them, so I figured they felt like maybe, "There's somebody I can tease now." But that's the only thing I remember feeling at the time, that it's only those no-count ones who were teasing us. [Laughs]

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

AC: So as a child, what did you do for fun?

SS: Well, we didn't have much, so we played games like... I remember we used to mash cans down and put 'em on our shoes and walk around with these things on our shoes, I forgot what we were doing. But we'd play with stilts, we'd make stilts and play. Annie Over, I remember playing that.

AC: What is that about?

SS: You threw a ball over the roof. Let's see... if you got it over, you said, "Annie Annie Over," but what happened? I can't remember the consequence now. [Laughs] But we used to have games that we played, and we read a lot because we had no TV and the radio wasn't in our rooms or anything. I remember when I was a freshman, you couldn't read Gone With the Wind. They wouldn't let you read Gone With the Wind if you were a freshman. So my older sister had it, and so I read it. I remember reading it. But it was too racy, I guess, to read in those days.

AC: What were some of the other, your favorite books that you remember reading?

SS: I really can't remember. We used to have to read a lot of books in English literature. We used to get books from the library and read a lot. I can't remember any names of books.

AC: What kind of crops did you raise on your farm?

SS: Oh, the folks had onions and potatoes and sugar beets. And I remember having peas one year, and I think Dad raised some carrots and parsnips for seed. They raised seed and hay, wheat, things like that.

AC: Would you mind describing your dad?

SS: Oh, he was a self educated person, a very strong, strict person. We were scared of our dad. [Laughs] He really, I would say he loved his family, but he thought he had to keep us in line, you know. Those Isseis had to be tough to make it in this country. And I think a lot of the Issei men, you know, they had to learn the English and they had to do everything, and the women just stayed home and took care of the kids. A lot of them worked out in the fields, but my mother never really learned English, just enough to speak to the kids. But when she went back to Japan after she lived here thirty-four years, her brothers didn't understand her because she got too many English words mixed in. Like she'd say miruku for "milk," and they didn't even call it milk in those days. But now, I think in Japan they have a lot of words that are English derivatives, like helicopter and things like that. But anyway, Mom didn't think she knew English, but she had changed her language by the time she'd been here thirty-four years. She didn't get to go back to Japan for thirty-four years because we never could raise the money to send her. Yeah, it was kind of sad.

AC: So did she go back to live permanently or just to visit?

SS: Just to visit, yeah. She and my dad went after they were married thirty-four years. It was the first time they went back, just for a visit. And then they barely could make it, you know, and Dad said their relatives were just waiting for a gold watch or something for them to bring to them. They thought America was the land of milk and honey, you know, and some people had lots of money and would bring wonderful gifts, but they barely had enough for passage, or for their plane fares. I guess that the first time they went, they did take gifts, but maybe I was thinking about the first time when Dad went back after my mom, when they got married, he said that one of his relatives asked him for a, where was his gold watch. They thought he was rich now that he lived in America. But yeah, I got kind of mixed up. That was when Dad first went after my mom, when he was thirty years old and had been in this country since he was seventeen and he barely had enough money for passage to go get Mom. But later, when they did go back, after they had been here for thirty-four years, it was still hard for them to go.

AC: What year was that?

SS: 1949. And I remember my mom said, "My gosh, they are so gyogi warui over in Japan now. She says, "They're trying to act like what they see on the movies," and she says, "People are going down the streets hugging each other." [Laughs] She said, "It's just terrible." You know, in '49, it was, even over here it was kind of, people were more reserved.

AC: So how would you describe your mom?

SS: Oh, she was this real strong lady, perfectionist. She and my dad believed in education and they were just, that was the main thing, we had to get good grades and work hard, all that kind of stuff. But she was very... did you see the picture of her here? My mother was very... people called her handsome, I didn't think that was a very good word for a woman, but she was very attractive and very well-dressed. And my second sister was good in, she was in dress design. She lived in New York and she would send my mother all her clothes that she had made by hand, so my mom was very well-dressed, and she always looked nice. She spent her last two and a half years in a nursing home, but she picked her clothes out, it had to be color coded, color matched, her hair was always nice. And just an hour before she died, she was combing her hair. Anyway, but she was a real good woman, real religious, my mom and dad were both religious.

AC: So growing up, you said there were just two Japanese families, so there wasn't really much of a Japanese community, just these two families there in town?

SS: Uh-huh. Well, three, actually, Mr. Hirai was a bachelor for a long time, he married a widow from Seattle who had a son. I guess he was eleven years old when they married. So it was Mr. Hirai and the Nitta family and then our family, just the three families, and we shared a pump, pumped water to each home. And then their land is kind of spiraled off of that center where we lived. But Mr. Hirai had a smaller house than ours, and a garage and shed. Nittas had another home. But we had the biggest family, I guess, so we had the biggest house.

AC: Did your parents say very much about their life in Japan?

SS: You know, my mom, we used to go out and weed onions, and my mom would tell us all about Japan up and down the rows, and we would let it go in one ear and out the other. So it's real sad, we don't really know a lot about our relatives in Japan. My brother, my older sister remembers a lot that Mom told us, but younger ones, we didn't pay attention, but Shingo, my brother, was in the service, was in the occupational forces, and he visited our relatives over there. And so he got to know quite a few of our relatives. He knows who the pictures are of, you know, our old pictures. So, yeah, it's kind of sad, like Paul doesn't really know his family history either, and we don't really know our family history. It's kind of sad.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

AC: So how was it for your family? War has broken out, and all of a sudden, with war, your family is on this farm in this tiny little community. How was it for you?

SS: Well, I was trying to think... I remember Dad, like Paul mentioned, that he used to get his hair cut from Mr. Pruitt until their... and then that one time he just sat and sat and sat and Mr. Pruitt didn't cut his hair. He said, "Well, I'm sorry, I can't take care of you," and he showed him this sign that said, "No Japs." And it was just kind of the town thing, I think, maybe the city council got together or something and might have done that, I don't know.

AC: How did it affect you? Was it all the businesses or just a few businesses?

SS: Well, I don't remember that much really. I think I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, and really you don't think that deeply when you're that age. I didn't, anyway. I'm sure it bothered my folks a lot. They worried a lot about it, but I don't think it affected us too much. I remember Jim, my younger brother, was hunting with his friend Billy Clement next door, and they were crossing a fence, and the gun that Jim was holding went off and it hit Billy, and he was hurt pretty badly. My mom was so worried that the Clements were just going to be so furious and call us names and everything, but they didn't, they were real good about it. Jim and Billy were good friends after that even.

AC: You were able to hold onto firearms? I mean, the boys still had guns and things like that?

SS: I guess. They must have.

AC: So when Roosevelt came out with this declaration that ordered people to be evacuated from the coast, I mean, the Japanese going into "assembly centers" and internment camps, did that make any impression upon you at all?

SS: Well, as Paul was saying, my oldest sister was in the Yakima Valley, and she had just had a baby April 26th, and I think they had the baby in May for the "assembly center" in Portland. And my dad was so, wanted her to get out, and he helped a lot in the community to get that camp going in Nyssa where people could come out and find work on the sugar beet farms and things. So my sister and her husband and the baby came out. I think they stayed with us for a while and then they had to go to this camp, because they were supposed to be... I don't know, it was the rules, I guess. But I remember my sis telling us about the camp and how each family had a little cubicle, and the planks, the flooring was, it was a livestock pavilion, you know, so she said there were cracks about an inch wide with each plank. And so it was hot, it was getting to be June, and that odor just steamed up, that manure odor would just come up through the cracks, and it was just pretty wretched. Anyway, that was just an "assembly center," so they were sent out to Minidoka and places like that. Those that didn't go out on work release had to go to the camps.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

AC: So your sister went from the "assembly center" directly to Nyssa to the work release.

SS: Uh-huh. So she was able to come out to our place to live. So that was our... and then our cousins, too, I think, came out. I think they came out, too. But I can't think of what happened, but I remember going to the Nyssa camp to visit friends, and the young people would have dances and things. It was fun for the young kids, but for the parents I think it was hard.

AC: Why?

SS: You know, just being uprooted and without their possessions, without community.

AC: So was this... it was a camp or was it a farming type...

SS: It's a rural area, it's just fifteen, twelve or fifteen miles from Ontario. And I don't know why they chose that place, but the government built a camp there at, oh, tent-like places, and later they built little houses, much like the labor camps they have now. I don't know.

AC: Were there guards at this camp?

SS: No.

AC: It was just a tent city?

SS: Yeah, it was just a work camp. No, there were no guards. But that was where I was telling you that Miss Pete and Miss Finley came out and conducted church. And Reverend Shaver from Caldwell was a Methodist minister from... was probably sent out here, and they all spoke Japanese, so they all helped us.

AC: So how was it going to high school in the middle of a war?

SS: Well, you know, there were a lot of evacuees that came in, and we felt different than they, because we didn't experience what they experienced. We grew up in Vale, in the Vale Hills, isolated and not knowing too much of anything. And these... oh, even our school principal would call my brother and I in the office and say, "What shall I do? What shall I do?" This one, I remember this one kid, Nihonjin kid had a crush on one of the real popular girls, and she resented it, and Mr. Conway didn't know what to do, so he called me into the office and said, "What shall I do?" And I didn't know what to do. [Laughs] But anyway, and my brother was on the baseball team, and this baseball team had a strike because they didn't want to play ball with these two. They were two Kibei boys that were on our team. And they didn't want to play with them. Well, they didn't speak good English, and they thought they were different. Anyway, they said, "Well, what about Shingo?" They said, "Well, he's one of us." So they thought of us differently. And then those kids who came in, for a while anyway, at first, maybe. But I don't know.

AC: So this real popular girl, was she Caucasian?

SS: Uh-huh. And, you know, another thing I was thinking about, the Methodist minister's wife, her name was Mrs. Cowdrick. But we lived way out in the country, and there was some school event that I wanted to attend. So my girlfriend that I started first grade with, Donna Jacobson was her name at that time, we were juniors in high school, I think, and we had to stay overnight in Vale. So Mr. Cowdrick said we could stay at her, the parsonage, because Donna was a Methodist and I was a Methodist, so we knew her and everything. So our folks said, okay, we could stay in town if we stayed at Cowdricks'. Well, Mrs. Cowdrick got the sofa ready, and then she had a double bed in the spare room, and she told Donna to sleep there and for me to sleep on the sofa. And Donna said, "Well, why can't we sleep together in that double bed? Then you don't have to make the bed on the sofa." And Mrs. Cowdrick said, "Oh, I'll just have to tell the Ladies Aid about this." She couldn't believe this hakujin girl would want to sleep with this little Japanese girl. And we didn't think anything of it because we were friends from first grade we're still friends.

AC: So did you sleep in the bed, or did you sleep on the sofa?

SS: We slept on the bed. And so Mrs. Cowdrick was just going to tell her Ladies Aid Society all about it, 'cause she thought it was so wonderful. [Laughs] Because we didn't think of it as wonderful, we just thought it was natural.

AC: So getting back to the baseball team strike, how was that resolved, or was it?

SS: You know, I can't remember the results. But I really probably shouldn't talk about it because of the local people, you know. Anyway... because those fellows still live around here, so cut it out. [Laughs]

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

AC: What did you do for fun? When you're growing up in high school, you go to Nyssa for dances, did you have dances in high school?

SS: Yeah, but my dad was very strict, he wouldn't let us go. Anyway, I don't think they really wanted the Nihonjin kids to dance with the hakujin kids at that time when the evacuee kids came in. And Mr. Grigg was the bishop at the Mormon church, he started having these dances for us, the Nihonjins, at this LDS little recreation hall. And so a lot of the guys Paul's age would come from Ontario and stuff, and we had a lot of dances at this LDS building. And I don't know... I remember the coach not wanting the guys to date Japanese girls, I remember that.

AC: How did that make you feel?

SS: Huh. Well, I couldn't date anyway, my dad wouldn't let us. [Laughs]

AC: So what did you do for extracurricular activity in high school?

SS: Let's see. Extracurricular, you mean...

AC: Were you part of any clubs?

SS: Well, yeah. JA, I remember riding my bicycle... it wasn't my bicycle, it was my brother's bicycle, clear to Ontario and back, and we got credit for that. I didn't get home until about ten at night. Bicycle clear to Ontario was twenty-seven miles from our home. I don't know... but we had to do things for points to... I forgot what it was for now. [Laughs]

AC: Now during the war they had all kinds of, like, rubber drives and scrap metal drives and all kinds of stuff, war bonds. Did you participate in any of those?

SS: We used to save all our tinfoil, and they were having these balls of tinfoil. Let's see... we used to have savings bonds, yeah. I think at school they used to have these savings bonds drives, we used to all participate. I don't know what we did.

AC: So you met your husband, your current husband, sometime during high school?

SS: Well, he was older, he was around, but I didn't know him. Really he was just part of the community, older guys. But he came back from the service and was on the GI Bill at Oregon State.

AC: So you didn't meet until you were at Oregon State.

SS: Yeah. So I got together with him.

AC: Before, though, how did you feel when the war kind of ended? You were still living here in Ontario?

SS: Let's see, what year was that?

AC: The war ended in 1945.

SS: Oh, I just started college that year, just graduated from high school.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

AC: So you graduated from high school June of '45 and began Oregon Agricultural College in the fall of '45?

SS: Uh-huh. I was actually the first one in our family that Dad helped through school. My older sisters didn't get to go to college, my oldest sister went to sewing school, I think, and maybe language school in L.A., and stayed with a friend. My dad was having a hard time making a living, and so he sent the girls to go to work and try to get through schooling on their own. And my second sister, I think, went one year to University of Washington, but I don't think Dad could afford that. So she just kind of worked her way through school herself. My third sister, Teddy, worked herself through school, and I was the only one that really got to go to school and live in a dorm and do all those things.

AC: How did that make you feel?

SS: Well, I just probably was real selfish and didn't even think about it. But later I felt really bad because my brothers couldn't go to college, 'cause they had to stay home and farm with Dad after they got out of the service. Oh, I'd feel guilty when I goofed off, which I did. I would feel guilty, because Shingo and Jim had to stay home and work, send us gals to college. Dorothy and I got to go to college.

AC: Here it was during the war, you're a young woman, and the shortages, were you craving nylon stockings during the war without those?

SS: No, I was younger than that, I think.

AC: But just afterwards you just started college, and there were still, the war was just kind of recovering. Did you feel that you were needing any of these luxury items?

SS: No, that was before I was in college, I think. During the war, all those shortages of sugar and gas, nylons and whatever. But there wasn't my age, it's my older sisters probably remember.

AC: You're the first one from your family to actually get a full ride in college, but your other sisters worked their way through college.

SS: Uh-huh.

AC: Did they graduate?

SS: My third sister did. My second sister graduated from a design school, but it wasn't an academic type of college. But my third sister, she's really a scrapper. She's the one married to Dr. Tanaka. Mom said Dad was having the worst economic times when she was in high school. She went to Los Angeles and did housework, and then she enrolled at Los Angeles City College 'cause tuition was free if you were a resident, I guess. So after she established residency, she went there. And then she told Dad that she wanted to be a nurse, and he said, "That's fine, but I can't help you." So she applied for St. Mary's Hospital in Minnesota, probably he knows. It's part of the Mayo Clinic. And she got in, but she didn't have enough money to get there. So she got as far as Denver and then she did housework until she got enough money to get to... where was that? Rochester, Minnesota? And she got top grades there. And I don't know, she got honors and everything, but she had to really work to get there. I don't think I could... I was too spoiled to do that. Because, you know, Ted, by the time I went to college, he was paying for everything but my spending money. I had, I worked to get some spending money, but he paid my tuition and board and room. And they never got that, the older ones. So it was real tough for them. I marvel at it because I think, gee, I don't think I could have done that. We'd tell my sister-in-law what happened to Teddy and she said, "I don't believe that. Ask her." She did it. And then she got in the nurse's... what do you call that? Nurse's cadet corps. It wasn't the army, but it was a government sponsored program so she could finish her schooling, and she got to be a nurse through the nurse cadet corps. And she was in New York working and nursing at Sloan-Kettering Hospital, and doing real well. And then she thought, well, if she's going to be single, she's going to live in style, so she decided to get her master's I think, and she was working on her master's when she met Gus. He was a doctor, or learning to be a doctor when they met and married. It's been real good. But she had to really work all her life. I didn't have to work that hard. So I'm kind of privileged in our family.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

AC: So what kind of fun things, what did you do for fun when you were in Corvallis?

SS: We went to the coast, we went to dances. Oh, I have to tell you about prejudice, not just against Nihonjins, but I belonged to this club called the International Club at Oregon State. They probably don't even have it anymore, do they? The people, we had the kids from Turkey, Iran, different country, India, China, or maybe it was Taiwan, I don't know, Chinese kids. And there was a boy from Baker City, it was called Baker then, but it's called Baker City now. His name was Bill Tebeau, and his name is spelled T-E-B-E-A-U, sounds French, doesn't it? Well, he got into Oregon State accidentally. He's black, and he signed up for a dorm and everything, he couldn't get in. He had no place to stay, they wouldn't let him have, live in a dorm or any kind of school housing. And so Dr. McGruder, I don't know if you know, he's the author of the Oregon History books. He lived on campus, he was a professor then. He took Bill into his home and made an apartment for him in his basement. And Bill lived there for a year, I think, before they got things arranged so he could live on campus. But people were really prejudiced against blacks.

Here I was, in '45, and I was Japanese descent, but we had what you call Nickel Hops then, and each housing group was trying to raise money for, I forgot, it was some charity, and the fellows had to pay a nickel for a dance. So we'd all line up against the walls, and they guys would come and ask you for a dance, they'd have to pay a nickel in this pot. So that's how the dorms made their money for this charity fund. And this black kid who was in the navy and ROTC, I think they called it, he was from New Jersey. His name was Tim but I can't remember his last name. Just the nicest guy. And he asked me to dance and he was teaching me these jitterbug steps and stuff. And when I got through I went over to introduce him to my friends, they all ran. I was just shocked. I just came from Vale, there were no blacks there either. And one of my friends says, "Sumi, don't you know he's a nigger?" You know, in those days, they used to say things like that. Well, I just thought he was Tim, you know. But that's how the prejudices against blacks was worse than prejudice against Japanese. It's more ingrained, I guess.

AC: How did it make you feel?

SS: I was flabbergasted; I couldn't believe it. And I felt bad for Tim, but I guess he was used to it. I don't know. He had this navy uniform on, cute white cap and everything, but they wouldn't dance with him. That was probably 1947, '46.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

AC: For you, a junior in college, and who should come wandering onto campus but Paul. And how did you get reacquainted?

SS: Well, I remember him coming to a dance at Waldo, where I lived. I must have asked him. [Laughs] And I don't know, we went on a double date after we got home for Christmas with friends we knew, and I guess that's when we started dating.

AC: Now, you knew each other beforehand, but you were trying to get him hooked up with one of your other friends.

SS: Yeah. This girl from Ontario was catching rides with us, and she was a little older than I. I thought, Paul doesn't have a girlfriend, so I made her sit in the middle next to Paul in the front. [Laughs] It didn't click.

AC: On her side or his side?

SS: His side. [Laughs] I think she liked Paul.

AC: And so all of a sudden he started paying more attention to you?

SS: I guess. Oh, dear. I think I had a boyfriend at that time, so I wasn't really interested in him.

AC: So what happened?

SS: Oh, I can't remember that far. Or I don't want to remember, I guess. Anyway...

AC: Now, I guess there was a tradition at Oregon Agricultural College that every leap year there was a thing called a Leap Dance, Leap Year Dance?

SS: Oh, that's what Paul was talking about, but what I remembered was... what is that? Lil' Abner and Daisy Mae?

AC: Sadie Hawkins Day.

SS: Sadie Hawkins Day, that's what I remember. But maybe Paul thought it was a Leap Year dance, but it was Sadie Hawkins, and you're supposed to go find a man, you know. [Laughs] And I think I asked Paul to that thing.

AC: But you also made him a little gift?

SS: Oh, a corsage with cigars. [Laughs] I think that's what he remembers, he said it had three cigars on it.

AC: Do you remember making that for him?

SS: I don't remember, but he remembers it because it had cigars on it, I guess. Well, he used to smoke cigars. He never smoked cigars in the house, and my daughters and I used to complain about his cigar smoking. He quit for four months one time and the three of us never even noticed. [Laughs] Isn't that awful? Oh, gosh.

AC: So after seeing each other for a couple years, you decided to get married.

SS: Uh-huh. Well, I guess when we got engaged, he decided he'd better stay home and farm, and so he quit school. And then, so we got married in December over the Christmas holidays. I wasn't quite finished with school, and then he was gonna come back and finish school, and he came back for winter term, so we lived on campus married. And then he decided... well, I got pregnant with the twins, and I guess it was just overwhelming, he decided he'd better stay home and farm. So that's what happened.

AC: So you moved back to Ontario and began farming?

SS: Yes. And a year after we were married, we had these twin boys. Our anniversary is the twenty-seventh of December, and they were born December 26th. And then when we thought we wouldn't have any children for three or four years, 'cause we had twins, but here come Marilyn twenty months later, so we had these three little kids in diapers for a while. Then we had a little respite, five years, and had Paul Jr. and Cathy. So we had five kids all together.

AC: Where are they now and what are they doing?

SS: [Coughs] Excuse me. Our two older sons are farming in Weiser, and our daughter is in Portland -- our oldest daughter Marilyn -- and our third son is Paul Jr., living in Moses Lake. I think my voice is leaving me. Our youngest is Cathy, and she's single and she's a graphic designer in Seattle.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

AC: So when you moved back out here, you had your family, was there a Japanese American cultural league out here? Or Citizens League?

SS: JACL?

AC: JACL, yeah.

SS: Yeah.

AC: Was there one and was it very active?

SS: Yes, they were pretty active in the '50s and '60s. I don't know, it's kind of not as active now.

AC: Why is that?

SS: I don't know. We're not active. [Laughs] But Paul was president of JACL I think in 1956 or '54. '54 I think it was. We went down to L.A. for a JACL convention in those days. We went with Mem and Mary Wakatsugi who lived out here, and they were very active in JACL and politics and everything, church. But I don't know, we don't get too involved with JACL now.

AC: When all this talk about redress started surfacing, what were your feelings about that?

SS: I thought that's something good because it was an injustice, but it was actually a paltry amount for what they went through. But if you talk to black people they think we should have a lot, you know, and why are the Japanese getting this? So it's all relative, I guess.

AC: So looking back over your entire life right now, what conclusions have you come to about living in America?

SS: Well, I've always been proud to be an American, and I felt American, but I knew I was Japanese American, and I was proud of that, too. I don't know, I can't think.

AC: Well, I guess if your father were standing right here with you today and listening to this whole conversation we just had, and they can see your children, grandchildren, what do you think he'd say?

SS: He'd be very proud. He'd think, well, he did a good job. [Laughs] My dad was really quite a man. I mean, he's somebody that everyone respected, my mom, too. They as a couple were pretty neat. But they were strict raising us. They were very strict.

AC: So how did that influence the way you raised your own children?

SS: Well, probably maybe a little negative, our kids think. We were maybe, that I was maybe too strict, and maybe it was kind of a carry-over from my folks. You know how they say you act like your parents? And even things that you didn't like about your parents, you find out you're doing yourself. I don't know. Well, I think our kids think we did okay. We didn't raise any criminals or anything. [Laughs] I don't know.

AC: Well, we certainly have talked about all kinds of things for the last couple hours. Is there anything that you'd like to talk about that we haven't talked about?

SS: Let's see, did I forget something? Paul, can you think of anything? My better half; he's half my brain. [Laughs] I guess he's not gonna help me. So you can cut that out.

AC: Is there anything you'd like to add to anything that you have said before? Any other thoughts that have come up about some other things that we've touched upon in our conversation today that you just want to add a little more to?

SS: Let's see, I can't think of anything. But we're really, our family has been, the Wada family has been very healthy and strong all these years, and just lately my oldest sister has been having health problems and she had to go to assisted living place. She's widowed now. And then we found out our second sister has cancer, so we're kind of sad right now. And then Shingo fell and hurt his neck that was already hurting. But as a whole we're doing fine. Paul's family's good. Paul lost a brother, I guess it was seven years ago. His middle brother died unexpectedly. They were the Saito brothers, and now there's just two left.

AC: Looking back again across your entire life, all your experiences, what advice would you want to give to your grandchildren and your great grandchildren?

SS: Hmm... I would like them to be kind and honest and giving, and think of others. Spend time, I thought there's... not be self-absorbed. Education's important, I think they should be educated and try to live an upright life. That's our main goals, I think. I don't know, Paul and I have been pretty blessed, I guess, with a nice family and nice friends, good community and good country. Oh, I forgot to tell you about my roommate and one of my best friends that I went to college with. Bertha Lee Saget. I don't know, you might know her in Portland, do you know her? She's a Chinese American girl. I met her when I first went to college, she was a year ahead of me. And at that time, Chinese people didn't like Japanese in Portland, anyway, but she was always friendly to me. And her roommate wasn't always friendly, but she was always friendly and really good friend. I'm still friends with her. And then Marilyn Todd was a girl from, Catholic girl from the Dalles, was my roommate, and we were always chums, the three of us. But anyway, I was married first, and had twin boys, fraternal twin boys. Bertha got married second, she had, I think she had three children, and her last one was a twin boy and a girl. And Marilyn was married about ten years, we thought she was going to be childless, and all of a sudden she had twin identical girls. So we had, the three of us each had a set of twins that was each kind, you know: fraternal, identical, boy and girl twins. Isn't that amazing? That was one thing I was going to tell you, I just about forgot. But we're still friends, we keep in touch.

AC: So Bertha was your good friend, your roommate from college?

SS: She was a friend, she lived down the hall. We were always good friends.

AC: Who was the third one?

SS: Marilyn Todd was my roommate, and she was a girl from the Dalles. Bertha was from Portland. She's a typical Chinese lady. She's just on the ball, and she's the oldest in her family and just keeps all her brothers and sisters in line. [Laughs]

AC: Is there anything else you wanted to add?

SS: No, I just thought of that just now. I'm finished.

AC: I'd like to thank you so very much for spending all this time with us and telling us your wonderful stories.

SS: Well, you're welcome. We enjoyed it. Hope we didn't bore you too much. [Laughs]

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.