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TI: And besides rice, what else would you eat in the morning?

RS: Well, like eggs, we had some chicken, eggs. We didn't have much; that was what was sad. And but we never, but we never complained. And so our thing was like for school, we have jam, mom makes the jam because we have strawberry. Makes the jam, and so for our school lunches, we have like peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We had that practically every day to take to school. That's why it was embarrassing, you see these other kids with their fancy lunch pail and their food. And here's me in there, wrapped up in newspaper and in a brown bag.

TI: And the kids had sandwiches in like waxed paper or things like that?

RS: Yeah. So you kind of... but they never, but they never made fun of me that way.

TI: So tell me about these other kids. Were they farmers' kids?

RS: No, they were city people. And then there were some Japanese, too, that lived in Gresham. There were quite a few Japanese people. And so I knew a couple of 'em, we grew up together. And so we had something in common. But I had a lot of Caucasian girlfriends, and they were very, very nice. But just certain things, you can't dress like these other kids, I mean, they dress so nicely and here Mom would have maybe, she would make a dress or something. She would make, maybe out of the same materials, she'll make two, three dresses out of that same material, and then so people think, "Gee, don't you ever wash your clothes?" things like that.

TI: So it was really when you went to school and you saw what the other kids had for lunch and what they wore, was when you started noticing that maybe your family didn't have as much as you had.

RS: Oh, yeah.

TI: How did that compare with the other Japanese families? Did you feel the same way with the other Japanese?

RS: No, about the same. Because they went through the same way I did. Some of their, like some of my Japanese friends, their siblings were older, so they were farmers. But, see, they were out working and all that, so they make money. See, like in my situation where my brothers and I... I don't know. They got away. They got away with a lot of things.

TI: Now I'm curious, when you started school, were you speaking English at this point, or was it more Japanese?

RS: It was all Japanese before I started, when you, when I was little. And then I picked up a lot of the English.

TI: And how did you do that? Was it through the teacher or the students?

RS: Just in class. And so that's one thing, I think that's one of the characteristics of Japanese people. They learn something and they improve that, and then they do... I mean, they don't go backwards, they go forward. See, that's the same way with learning English language.

TI: Because you just had to learn it so you learned it and just went forward?

RS: That's right.

TI: And were you able to retain any of your Japanese once you started doing English, did you still speak a lot of Japanese?

RS: Oh, yeah, because of your parents. But other than that...

TI: And then how about with you and your brothers? Did you speak Japanese...

RS: English.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.