<Begin Segment 4>

VO: Do you remember those first days of going to school?

EO: [Laughs] Yes, I remember. My dad took me, and when he left, I cried. I still remember it.

VO: Do you remember in terms of... was it not knowing the language?

EO: Yes, I used to kind of, especially our principal was very, very strict, and if I had to go to the principal's office for anything, I'd just be shaking. She just made me very nervous because my English wasn't all, I couldn't express myself that good in English. But at that age, it doesn't take very long. By the time I was in the first grade, I was fine.

VO: Did you ever have a nickname?

EO: Well, yes and no. Most of my friends in Seattle know me as Ets, E-T-S. [Laughs] But over here, somebody started calling me Etsu, so that kind of stuck. But other than that, no, no nickname.

VO: So the shibai sounded like it was the main connection to Japanese culture.

EO: They taught flower arranging at the temple, I think, once a week people would come to do flower arranging.

VO: Did you ever take any of those lessons?

EO: Yes, I did. That's why I'm doing flowers here.

VO: So you do the flowers for the temple here?

EO: Yeah, well, there's about ten of us that, we rotate and do it.

VO: And the piano, you started at an early age.

EO: Yeah, I started lessons about eight years, when I was eight years old, and I had a very good teacher. Of course, she was also a member of the temple. [Laughs] And I loved it, I really did, and I learned so much from her, including theory. She taught theory at that time.

VO: And so did you continue with lessons through...

EO: Well, during the war, no. Except in Minidoka, they arranged for us to take some lessons, but I just don't remember too much about that.

VO: So your life really centered around the temple, but did you have friends in the neighborhood that, did people play out in the streets or were there gathering places in the neighborhood?

EO: Well, when we were early in Seattle, the neighbors would gather around in this empty lot next to our house, and we'd play jintori, do you remember that game, jintori? Taking prisoners? [Laughs] That was one of our favorite games.

VO: So that would be both boys and girls.

EO: Yeah. And then at our grade school, we'd play some of those games. You know the game called onibabasan, "the witch"?

VO: How does that work?

EO: They're all Japanese games. Well, it's like prisoners also. It's like "Stop and Go," "Green Light, Red Light."

VO: Did your grandparents from Japan ever come to America to visit?

EO: No, never. I didn't know my... well, I used to write to them. I used to write to my grandmother, but I really didn't know any of my grandparents.

VO: So you were not taken back again to Japan after that two years in Kobe?

EO: No, we weren't.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.