<Begin Segment 3>

AC: So did you attend Japanese school at all?

NH: Yes, I did. Oh, up until I was the eighth, grammar school age, I guess, I did attend Japanese school then, 'cause they had one of the Issei teachers come out to that farming community where I lived, so he taught us Japanese. But that was our second language, so we weren't serious about it.

AC: So were you, in school, were there very many Japanese or Asian people in your school?

NH: Well, I think there may have been about ten, fifteen of us. 'Cause we were in a farming community where we raised strawberries, so all the strawberry growers around, they were Japanese, and so that made a little community of Japanese then.

AC: And how was your relationships with the other students?

NH: Fine. We just, it was fine. It was nothing unpleasant at all.

AC: So what happened? When the Depression came, what was it like?

NH: Well, I think we struggled like everyone else.

AC: So what kinds of things did you end up having to do or sacrifice?

NH: Well, it was just regular living expenses that were cut down. Other than that, we managed to live.

AC: Did you have to do without anything or give up things that you really wanted to have?

NH: Well, no, there wasn't other than college education after finishing high school. For our particular family it couldn't be done. But there was others that managed, but like I say, we had a handicapped father and so many of us children, so couldn't manage the college education.

AC: So growing up, did your parents speak very much about life in Japan?

NH: Now and then, but they didn't elaborate too much. We had a little language barrier, I guess. [Laughs]

AC: So they only spoke Japanese?

NH: Yes. So it was a very simplified Japanese that they used on us. So as far as elaborate into their history in Japan, they didn't because they knew that we wouldn't be able to comprehend, you know.

AC: So did you date at all in high school?

NH: Did I...

AC: Date at all?

NH: Very little, 'cause that was one of the rules that, among the Japanese, that girls did not go out on dates. So after I was able to date, well, then my two younger sisters had the liberty of making their own dates, which I was denied that.

AC: What did you do?

NH: Well, I felt like I was shorted on that. But after they felt like the others, Japanese society didn't think that girls of any respect at all would go out on dates, so they wanted to keep us from having that reputation, I guess.

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