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TI: Okay. So can you remember your house when you were in Troutdale, where you lived?

RS: We were, my dad and mom, they worked for some farmer, Japanese farmers, and so we lived in the house on their place.

TI: Okay, so it was kind of like a little house that the workers stayed in?

RS: Yeah.

TI: And so did they move around quite a bit, then?

RS: No. From there, I don't know how... well, first grade there, and then we moved to Gresham, which is just a little ways from Troutdale. And then that's where I started, I think, second grade, second grade until the war broke out.

TI: Okay, so it's really the Gresham house or place that you remember the most then. So let's talk about that. So can you describe that house?

RS: It's just a small, I think, two-bedroom house, and a kitchen and a living room. Then outside toilet, and then as for taking a bath, we have these Japanese tubs, you know, they call it outside ofuro.

TI: And so there was you and then...

RS: My three brothers.

TI: Three brothers.

RS: And my mom and dad.

TI: And so how did the six of you sleep in two bedrooms? I mean, how was it arranged?

RS: We all sleep together. Well, the boys, brothers all slept together, and then I would have a bed of my own.

TI: In the same room as your brothers?

RS: Same as my mom and dad.

TI: Oh, okay, so you did that. Okay, that makes sense. And so just tell me when you were a kid, as much as you can remember, like a typical day. Like waking...

RS: A typical day? Well... a typical day was I had, Mom was out there doing gardening, I mean, planting, taking care of my dad's farm. He was more or less a truck farmer where we grew vegetables, and he would take that, the produce to Portland, which was about ten miles, twelve miles away. And then I would, my job would be to kind of prepare the meal. Now, can you imagine me... I'll never forget, because many times I would cook rice, and I would fall asleep. And so I would have to dump that rice and start all over again.

TI: Because it would burn on the bottom?

RS: Yeah. And then, but I never told my mother that, you know. I have to hide these things.

TI: And do you remember how old you were when you had to make the rice?

RS: Well, I imagine it was early, about third grade, third, fourth grade. And I didn't know, she showed me how to do things, you know. Then another thing, interesting thing was we would plant vegetables with plants, from plants, you know, we'd buy the plants. And Mom would do the shovel work, and my job was to put the, when she does the shovel work, then my job was to put the plant in that hole, and then have to cover it. Well, you know, that's hard on your back. [Laughs] And another thing what I used to do was I'd see all those plants, then I would get a whole bunch of them and throw 'em away. And Mom never knew what... she never questioned. She didn't think I was that smart enough to throw plants away. But it just, but it was just hard work.

TI: Because you threw 'em away because then fewer to plant.

RS: Yeah. I didn't want to keep doing, planting, and it's hard on your back.

TI: So I'm curious, when you do something that maybe your parents didn't approve of, what would they do when they found out, like, you maybe threw away plants or burned the rice or something else that they found out about? What would they do?

RS: I don't think... you know, I haven't even come face to face with that, but I don't think she, they would be really upset with me. They would say, maybe, "Why did you do that?" or... and another thing that my job -- and here my brothers got away scot free. You know how Japanese families are, they favor the sons. And so there's me, and then so where we had that outside bath, I mean, taking a bath, ofuro, well, then it was my job to burn, put the logs in so we would have hot water, you know, in that big wooden tub. So I had to do all those things while my brothers got away scot free. But I didn't say anything, I thought I had to do that, so I did it.

TI: So your brothers didn't really have as many chores as you did?

RS: No. I think they'd go out and help Dad do, maybe hoeing or something, the strawberries and all that.

TI: So going back to making the rice in the morning, so I'm imagining really early in the morning your dad and mom would get up, and because you slept in the same room, they would get you up also?

RS: Sometimes they do. But they got to make sure that we get up to go to school.

TI: But it sounded like they made you get up earlier to make the breakfast and let the boys sleep in a little bit longer?

RS: You know, it never dawned on me. [Laughs] Probably. But I don't cook breakfast anyway. My main thing was cooking the rice. My mom was out there working.

TI: Okay, because that took a little longer.

RS: Yeah.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.