<Begin Segment 5>

JK: When you went to school, which school did you go to?

MO: Shattuck.

JK: And that was the neighborhood school?

MO: Uh-huh.

JK: What was the population of the school?

MO: I don't know.

JK: Did it have more, a lot of Japanese?

MO: They had Jewish people, Chinese people, Japanese people, majority, I think. Lots of Jewish people.

JK: Lots of Jewish people. When you started school, did you speak English or were you still, were you speaking Japanese?

MO: No, went right into English.

JK: Okay. And you were speaking English because of your...

MO: Uh-huh, rest of them were brother and sister.

JK: And what was your school day? Do you remember what your school day was like?

MO: It was fun.

JK: And how did they make it fun at Shattuck for you?

MO: Oh, well, I liked to read, I liked to write. Arithmetic was my favorite. I liked school.

JK: Okay, so you enjoyed going. Shattuck had a swimming pool.

MO: Yes, they did, but I was too young for that and didn't know how to swim yet, but they did have a nice pool in the basement.

JK: Oh, okay, so you didn't take swimming lessons at school.

MO: No.

JK: Did you do any community activities when you started going to school, did your mom sign you up for anything in the community or Japanese community?

MO: We attended Japanese school after the regular grade school. Our time was filled with school.

JK: So what were your day, when did regular school start and then Japanese school?

MO: Eight o'clock, and then ended at three-thirty, around there. And then we'd walk to the Japanese school, school started as soon as we could. 'Cause they had two sessions. Grade school were first and high school was afterwards. They went to past five o'clock in the evening.

JK: What time was school done?

MO: From about three-thirty to five.

JK: It was a long day. And was school, Japanese school, every day?

MO: (Six) days, Monday through Saturday. Saturday was very brief and we did the cleaning. We scrubbed our classrooms.

JK: And what were they teaching you at Japanese school?

MO: Reading and writing mostly.

JK: And did they do any cultural activities at school?

MO: Oh yes. Yes, they had... well, I hate to say contest, but any dancing, any talent that anybody had, they would have a program like that. So they would entertain our parents in the school with all of our talents.

JK: Did you enjoy Japanese school, too?

MO: Yes.

JK: Okay. The one you went to was South Portland?

MO: South Portland.

JK: South Portland's Japanese school, okay. And did you have any hakujin friends when you went to Shattuck?

MO: Yes, uh-huh. There were some special ones and then there were some special ones.

JK: Uh-huh. And then how did you keep a balance between Japanese and being American?

MO: You know, it never occurred to me that much. You know, I didn't think of Japanese and Japanese so much as when you go to school, they're all there. And you sit next to them and play with them, eat with them. I didn't ostracize.

JK: It was just, they were just friends?

MO: Yeah, just friends.

JK: And I remember a story one time you talked about how your mom, you took lunches to school and your mom would make a special lunch. What was that?

MO: I don't know, sushi, it would be a special lunch for me, and it was always stolen. It was always swiped. So somebody knew what I was getting for lunch and they would take my sushi lunch.

JK: Okay. So you never did get to enjoy your special lunch, someone else enjoyed it.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.