THE LOCKE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
A Project
Presented to the faculty of the Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
History
(Public History)
by
Maya Beneli
FALL
2012
THE LOCKE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
A Project
by
Maya Beneli
Approved by:
_____________________________, Committee Chair
Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D.
_____________________________, Second Reader
Christopher Castaneda, Ph.D.
_________________________
Date
ii
Student: Maya Beneli
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format
manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for
the Project.
______________________, Department Chair
Aaron Cohen, Ph.D.
_______________
Date
Department of History
iii
Abstract
of
THE LOCKE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
by
Maya Beneli
The town of Locke, California, located in Sacramento County, was built and occupied by Chinese
laborers in the early twentieth century. This project describes my participation in the Locke Oral
History Project. The Locke Oral History Project was commissioned by the California
Department of Parks & Recreation (DPR) to be used in the restoration and adaptive reuse of the
Locke Boarding House. Along with professors Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda, I gathered oral
histories of current and former Locke residents and wove these histories into a report on the
history of Locke. The compilation was later used by DRP in its presentation of the history of
Locke at the interpretive center at the Locke Boarding House.
A multitude of sources were used to complete this project, including published and unpublished
secondary and primary source materials located at the Sacramento State University library and
the North Central Information Center. Additionally, oral histories gathered from former and
current Locke residents made up the primary sources for this project.
iv
By compiling, transcribing, and distributing oral histories of former and current Locke residents,
the history of Locke became more accessible to the public.
___________________________, Committee Chair
Dr. Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D.
____________________________
Date
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to all the individuals in my professional and personal life who have made this thesis
project, and all the coursework in the CSUS Public History graduate program possible. Thank
you specifically to Dr. Patrick Ettinger, Dr. Chris Castaneda, Dr. Lee Simpson and the old Dr.
Gregory Campbell, who once told me I wouldn’t always work for Macy’s. Thank you to my
grandmother, safta Leah, who has always been an inspiration. And finally, thank you to the
family and loved ones who pushed me to see this work to completion.
vi
PREFACE
Built in 1915, the boarding house formerly known as “Sam’s Rooms” is one of the oldest
structures in the rural town of Locke, California, located south of Sacramento on the Sacramento
River. The significance of the boarding house is directly related to the history of Locke, “the
only rural Chinese community to survive intact into the second half of the twentieth century.”
Locke flourished between the 1920s and the early 1940s, despite difficult economic times during
the Great Depression. The town experienced a gradual decline and loss of population in the
1940s that continued for the next several decades. By the 1960s, Locke’s unique heritage
attracted the attention of historic preservationists, who were successful in establishing the Locke
Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In 1977,
the developer Ng Tor Tai purchased the town, and in 2001, the Sacramento Housing and
Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) acquired the township. Today, Locke is a small residential
community with art galleries, a museum, shops, restaurants and other sites of historic and cultural
interest. 1
This thesis project describes my participation in the Locke Oral History Project. The
Locke Oral History Project was commissioned by the California Department of Parks &
Recreation (DPR) to be used in the restoration and adaptive reuse of the Locke boarding house. I,
along with Sacramento State University historians Dr. Patrick Ettinger and Dr. Chris Castaneda,
worked with guidance from DPR staff to complete the Locke Oral History Project.
The project’s scope of work consisted of conducting oral history interviews and drafting
an historical narrative report. With the assistance of DPR, Ettinger, Castaneda and I identified
persons with knowledge of the early history of Locke and conducted oral history interviews with
United States Department of Interior, National Park Service, “National Register of Historic Places
Inventory - Nomination Form, (The Town of) Locke,” August, 1979. Revised March, 1987.
1
vii
them. A total of eight oral history interviews with former Locke residents were recorded. The
recorded interviews were professionally transcribed, audited, edited, and proofread. After
completion of the interviews, a narrative report, which draws on previously published material as
well as the oral history interviews, was written. It focuses on the history of the Locke/ Delta
region, the Locke Township, and the lifestyle of the town’s residents. I assisted in researching and
drafting the narrative report, which was then completed by Dr. Castaneda and Dr. Ettinger.
Five copies of the report, along with five copies of each transcribed interview and
original audiotapes, were delivered to DPR. Although it was not required under the terms of the
contract, in 2007 Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda also conducted one videotaped “walk through”
interview of the boardinghouse with members of the Kuramoto family. All audiotapes and
videotapes became the property of DPR.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments............................................................................................................................ v
Preface ............................................................................................................................................ vi
Chapter
1. Project origins .............................................................................................................................. 1
2. The historical development of cultural resources management in the united states .................... 6
3. The development of oral history and its application in cultural resources management ........... 14
4. Project narrative ....................................................................................................................... 19
Appendix I: Narrative report .......................................................................................................... 29
Appendix II: Scope of work ........................................................................................................... 66
Appendix III: Oral history questions ............................................................................................. 73
Appendix IV: Oral history interview agreement form. .................................................................. 76
Appendix V Transcribed oral history interviews
Interview with Gene Chan ......................................................................................................... 77
Interview with Connie King..................................................................................................... 152
Interview with Sam Kuramoto ................................................................................................. 234
Interview with Sam Kuramoto, Kikue Okomoto, and Matsue Tao ........................................ 321
Interview with Ping Lee ........................................................................................................... 406
Interview with Penny Lee Pederson......................................................................................... 508
Interview with Harry Sen ......................................................................................................... 563
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 632
ix
1
CHAPTER ONE:
PROJECT ORIGINS
The town of Locke, which is located south of Sacramento, California on the Sacramento
River, began experiencing a shift in its population during the mid twentieth century. This shift
and a growing awareness of the unique history of Locke brought forth an increasing interest in the
town, which was the foundation for preservation efforts beginning in the 1960s.
By the 1960s, Locke’s distinctive history received attention from historic
preservationists, and by 1971, they succeeded in nominating the Locke Historic District to the
National Register of Historic Places. In May 1971, the nomination received concurrence from the
State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO), and Locke was designated as an historic district and
listed in the NRHP. The nomination specifies the historic district is bound on the west by the
Sacramento River, on the north by Locke Road, on the east by Alley Street, and on the south by
Levee Street. The district included 54 contributing wood frame buildings including residences,
commercial buildings, and major outbuildings, most of which were constructed in 1916. The
newly designated historic district at Locke received attention from developers, and in 1977
developer Ng Tor Tai purchased Locke. Over the course of the next three decades, Tai did little
in the way of preservation in Locke. However, in 2001, the Sacramento Housing and
Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) acquired the town, which it maintains to the present day. 2
Calvin Trillin,“The Last Chinatown,” in The New Yorker (New York: Condé Nast:1978), p. 111.
Office of Historic Preservation, National Park Services Form 10-900, “Locke Historic District,” (accessed
21 February 2009 and 22 March 2009); available from
http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1080&ResourceType=/; Internet.
2
2
Since 1978, the California Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) has managed the
preservation efforts of Locke. DPR manages the most diverse cultural heritage collection of any
land management agency in California. DPR operates under a 1974 mandate to acquire and
operate state recreation areas and facilities, including historical sites such as Locke. Under this
mandate, DPR holds responsibility to protect and interpret the state’s cultural heritage. This
followed the passage of Senate Bill 1043, sponsored by Senator John Garamendi and
Assemblymen Norman Waters and Victor Fazio, which required DPR to establish a plan “for
acquisition, development, operations, protection, preservation and interpretation” of Locke. In
response to the bill, DPR produced the Locke Feasibility Study (July 1979), which concluded that
Locke was a unique town of historic significance and that the town’s cultural make-up was
shifting as an increasing number of non-Chinese established residence in Locke. The study
recommended that DPRs’ interpretation of Locke educate the public about the “social, economic,
and political stresses experienced by the Chinese” in the United States, and about Chinese
traditions brought to Locke from China. These two framing issues strongly influenced the
questions asked during the oral history interviews conducted as part of this project. The study
further recommended that DPR recognize that its actions might affect the town’s future identity
and purpose.3
The study recommended that buildings be stabilized, rather than restored, in order to
preserve the original “old feel” of the historic town. But it noted that because DPR owned only a
small fraction of all of the town’s buildings, it might be impossible to preserve the town’s overall
cohesiveness. The study proposed acquisition of two historical core acres of town, the trucking
State of California Department of Parks and Recreation, “About Us,” (accessed 01 August 2012);
available from http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=91/; Internet.
3
3
yard, located south of town, and the watershed. The study stated that only a small portion of the
town was listed in the NRHP but added “after further investigation and understanding of the
historical events that happened in the community, we are recommending that a larger area be
considered for the register,” including Key Street residences and the communal gardens.4
Over the course of the next three decades, DPR internally produced and contracted for
three additional reports relating to Locke. These reports were “Locke, California: A History,”
(Yip, Summer 1979); “Historic American Building Survey,” (White, August, 1979); and “Draft
Environmental Impact Report Asian City General Plan Amendment, Community Plan
Amendment and Rezone” (Sacramento County Planning and Community Development
Department, 1985). These reports set the stage for further work in the preservation of Locke’s
heritage and community.5
During the 1990s, DPR continued efforts to interpret the history of Locke. On December
14, 1990, Locke was designated a National Historic Landmark, significant as the only surviving
example of an historic rural Chinese-American community in the United States. This designation
was significant because National Historic Landmarks are properties deemed nationally significant
by the Secretary of Interior for their exceptional ability to interpret the heritage or culture of the
United States. The Chinese culture illustrated by Locke was thus recognized as important to the
United States at large. By 2002, DPR had acquired the Locke Boarding House, a boarding house
California Department of Parks and Recreation “Locke Feasibility Study,” July, 1979.
Scott Nakaji, interview by Maya Beneli, 21 June 2008; Sacramento County Planning and Community
Development Department, Draft Environmental Impact Report: Asian City. General Plan Amendment,
Community Plan Amendment and Rezone (Sacramento County Planning and Community Development
Department, 1985. John White, “Historical American Building Survey No. CA-2071,”(accessed 25
September 2011) available from
http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca0400/ca0495/data/ca0495data.pdf/; Internet. Christopher Yip,
:Locke, California: A History”, 1979.
4
5
4
located on the north edge of Locke that had been operated in the 1920s and 1930s by a Japanese
family. It began taking steps toward preparing the building to become an interpretive center for
the town. In 2004, DPR received a matching award from Save America’s Treasures. This
program is a collaboration of the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust for
Historic Preservation, formed in 1998. Its mission is to conserve and preserve America’s
treasures, including historic sites, for the benefits of future generations. DPR dedicated these
funds toward the preservation of the boarding house, which they maintain “is a pivotal structure
in the National Historic Landmark community.”6
After acquiring the boarding house and envisioning it as an interpretive center, DPR
recognized the potential for oral history as a tool for documenting the town’s historic
significance. For the oral history component of the project, DPR sought former Locke residents
who could speak about the town’s history. They were especially interested in identifying
potential narrators who had resided in Locke for extended periods of time. DPR superintendent
Scott Nakaji and associate Jennifer Paget participated in the process to select narrators for the
project. They consulted with DPR cultural staff to identify potential participants. DPR
identified the Kuramoto family, former proprietors of the boarding house (which had been known
as “Sam’s Rooms”) as potential narrators for the project. Ironically, before Nakaji and Paget had
a chance to contact former boarding house resident Sam Kuramoto and his family, Kuramoto’s
wife contacted DPR. Kuramoto’s wife informed DPR superintendent Scott Nakaji about her
husband’s connection to the building. The Kuramoto family owned the boarding house from
National Park Services, “National Historic Landmarks Program,” (accessed 21 February 2009); available
from http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/Lists/CA01.pdf/; Internet. National Trust for Historic
Preservation, “Who We Are,” (accessed 22 February 2009); available from
http://www.preservationnation.org/who-we-are/; Internet.
6
5
1921 through their internment during World War II. They were therefore an important potential
source of information about the boarding house and the town in general. When additional funds
became available, DPR sought additional potential narrators for the project. Though the number
of potential narrators was limited, DPR was eventually able to compile a list of sixteen potential
participants, including Sam Kuramoto and his sisters.
In April 2006, DPR contracted with Professors Patrick Ettinger and Christopher
Castaneda of the Capital Campus Oral History Program at California State University, at
Sacramento to conduct oral history-based research on Locke and to produce a written history of
the town that incorporated the oral history source materials. As a graduate student in Public
History with interests in cultural resource preservation and oral history, I agreed to work on the
project as an internship and possible thesis project. My collaboration on the project involved
planning, oral history, research, and production of a draft narrative report. The following chapter
places the Locke Oral History Project into the context of the cultural resources management
practice and oral history methodologies and provides a description of my involvement in the
project. 7
7
Victoria Yturralde interview by Maya Beneli, 11 November 2008.
6
CHAPTER TWO: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURAL RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
The Locke Oral History Project, as a part of DPR cultural resources management plan for
the Locke Historic District, can best be understood as a product of over a century of growing state
interest in the protection and management of cultural resources. Cultural resources are defined as
any resource that is of a cultural character; “any tangible or observable evidence of past human
activity, regardless of significance, found in direct association with a geographic location,
including tangible properties possessing intangible traditional cultural values.” Examples are
“social institutions, historic places, artifacts and documents.” Other examples include living
people with deep knowledge of history and culture, folk life, traditions, and other social
institutions. Cultural resource management is defined as “managing historic places of
archaeological, architectural, and historical interest, and considering impacts to such places under
the environmental and historic preservation laws.” 8
Cultural resource management as a government-sponsored practice dates back to the
1800s, when the United States government created the Library of Congress, whose main function
was to manage cultural resources. Other government-sponsored preservation steps included the
1906 Antiquities Act, which banned excavation of antiquities from public space without permit
from the Secretary of the Interior and the 1919 creation of the National Park Service (NPS).
Formed within the Department of the Interior, NPS was the first entity with a central mission of
8
Thomas F. King, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice: An Introductory Guide (Walnut Creek: Alta
Mira Press, 1998), pp. 8-9, 361.
7
preserving natural and cultural resources. In 1935, the Historic Sites Act empowered the
Department of Interior through NPS to acquire property for the purpose of “recording,
documenting… and managing places important to the interpretation and commemoration of the
nation’s history.” Shortly thereafter, the Department of Interior established the Branch of
Historic Sites and Buildings to fulfill this new mandate. On a larger scale, preservation remained
unpopular through the 1940s, as postwar construction and consumption spurred by the advertising
industry fueled the ideal of modernity over history and memory. Preservation efforts were left to
a small number of wealthy individuals who sought to promote their social status through
connections to their properties. These efforts resulted in the designation of historic buildings and
districts, mostly in the southern states.9
During the 1960s, CRM developed tremendously. As part of a beautification program
coordinated by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, a comprehensive federal report recommended the
creation of a national historic preservation plan. This recommendation resulted in the 1966
enactment of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), which included Section 106, a
regulation that generated the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). NRHP was to be a list
of all historic and/or pre-historic sites, buildings, structures and objects evaluated to be significant
in national, state or local history for its connection to an historic event, person, its architectural
significance, or its ability to yield historic information in the future. Section 106 requires federal
agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties and that
King, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice, 20. Mike Wallace, “Reflections on the History of Historic
Preservation” in Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Public, eds. Susan Porter Benson, Susan
Porter, Brier (Philadelphia: Temple university Press, 1986), pp. 169-173.
9
8
federal agencies (and entities that they fund or license) consider the effects of their actions on
properties that are listed in the NRHP. The scope of CRM activities was extended farther with
the 1970 passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This established “national
environmental policy and goals for the protection, maintenance, and enhancement of the
environment” and provided a method for applying these goals through federal agencies. These
two laws became the foundation of CRM practice today.10
Private interest in historic preservation also grew during the 1960s, but continuing
postwar urban renewal projects threatened to set back preservation efforts. In response,
individual preservation supporters, largely made of inner-city middle-class residents, argued that
Americans needed historic components in their environment to feel “secure and purposeful.”
Public officials agreed, and in 1965 a commission assembled by the National Trust and Colonial
Williamsburg issued their manifesto, With Heritage So Rich in which they stated “a nation can be
a victim of amnesia. It can lose the memories of what it was, and thereby lose the sense of what
it is or wants to be.” This idealistic approach to preservation was coupled with a more practical
concern for preserving older houses and neighborhoods. Riots in largely black, urban
communities were partly attributed to a backlash against highway construction and urban renewal
through these “blighted” neighborhoods. Significant as these developments were, perhaps more
influential was the developing tourism industry, rooted in the newly expanded highway system.
Americans in unprecedented numbers were traveling in their cars to view historic sites, including
National Parks Service, “National Historic Preservation Act of 1966,” (accessed 13 March 2009);
available from http://www.nps.gov/history/local-law/nhpa1966.htm/; Internet.; United States
Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the National Environmental Policy Act,” (accessed 25
March 2009); available from http://csusdspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.9/1327/Courtney%20Skinner%20MA%20Thesis%20Final%20
Draft.pdf?sequence=1/; Internet.
10
9
houses and districts, and investors and developers began rethinking their renewal and
development approaches.11
These changing approaches to renewal and development in the 1960s brought forth the
progressive concept of adaptive reuse, a preservationist ideal that maintained that historic
properties should not be mummified into museums and sterile representations of their former
selves but rather should be preserved and used in a profitable way. Adaptive reuse meant that
historic properties maintained their old, and where possible, original exteriors, while their
interiors would be modified to allow for continual use in a changing environment.12
During the 1970s the federal and state coordination on environmental issues gained
momentum and with that came recognition that the federal government had to have a strong role
in protecting cultural resources. The position of State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPO),
created under NHPA, became increasingly consolidated and professionalized during this decade.
President Nixon’s 1971 Executive Order 11593 directed federal agencies to maintain inventories
of historical, architectural, or archaeological cultural resources and to establish policies and
procedures to ensure their protection. SHPOs were made responsible for coordinating and
overseeing these inventories. Through these acts, which solidified CRM standards, government
recognized the importance of historic preservation. 13
In addition to federal development, grassroots efforts also gained momentum during the
1970s. Early in the decade, neighborhood conservationists began forming groups such as the
National People’s Action and the National Association of Neighborhoods, groups that insisted on
Wallace, “Reflections on the History of Historic Preservation”, pp. 173-177.
Ibid., p. 177.
13
King, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice, p. 23. Wallace, “Reflections on the History of Historic
Preservation”, pp. 178, 185.
11
12
10
preservation of their working- and lower- to middle-income neighborhoods. These groups won a
response from the Carter administration, which created the National Commission on
Neighborhoods. Neighborhood conservationists increasingly utilized modern approaches to
achieve their preservation goals, including oral history programs.14
At the same time, historic preservation during the mid 1970s began to include ethnically
diverse people working to protect their culture and environment. In 1974, the American Institute
of Planners recognized this development in preservation and called for the preservation of “the
unique pasts of all groups.” Two years later the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
announced: “No longer does the term “historic district” necessarily mean cobblestones, arching
oaks, and serene federal-period houses. It may now also designate a working class area of
rehabilitated houses and corner bars that reflect both an epoch of local history and an ethnic or
cultural strain that has figured prominently in community development.”
15
While this new awareness of historic significance among properties belonging to or
associated with ethnic Americans developed, not all ethnic minorities were eager to participate in
the preservation movement. It seemed that once a neighborhood obtained recognition as an
historic property, it became desirable and its property value rose. That often meant that the
typically poorer ethnic minority residing in the property could no longer afford residing in it.
Indeed, entire communities were displaced through preservation efforts. Preservationists
attempted to respond to the situation with various educational and other programs.
Jones & Stokes, “Successful CEQA Compliance: A Step-be-Step Approach” (Jones & Stokes, 2008), 12. King, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice, p. 81.
15
Wallace, “Reflections on the History of Historic Preservation”, pp. 182-185.
14
11
By the early 1980s a shift again occurred in attitudes about preservation. A global
recession halted new development and people began both purchasing older homes and fixing up
their older homes. The government began appropriating rehabilitation funds for neighborhood
Main Streets and historic business districts in order that they might exploit the tourist potential by
marketing their history. Business developers began recognizing the benefits of preservation,
including a cost benefit, quicker work turn-around, a tax credit (created during the mid 1970s for
those who rehabilitated historic properties for the purpose of income production), and less hassle
from increasing government regulation for issues of environmental protection among other
benefits. Businesses began seeking historic designations to receive the tax benefits. 16
During the 1980s the preservation movement took a step backward. Developers won a
series of court battles that resulted in the demolition of entire residential communities and historic
rural districts implemented the requirement of owner consent for historic designation, resulting in
fewer receiving the designation. Shifting views on preservation were also evident in government
action during this decade. The Reagan administration began taking steps to roll back funding and
support for preservation, including calling for the elimination of all funding for the National
Trust, and removal of legislative preservation protection. Preservationists responded with a new
approach, focused on the viability of preservation through a focus on profitability through
benefits such as tax breaks. This push to link preservation with profit worked, and many
developers rushed to register buildings as historic in order to benefit from the 1981 tax credits.
At the same time, steps forward were made by the Native American community, whose tribes
became more involved in their own cultural resource preservation. This lead to the enactment of
Jones & Stokes, “Successful CEQA Compliance: A Step-be-Step Approach” , 2-3. Wallace, “Reflections
on the History of Historic Preservation”, pp. 189-191.
16
12
the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPR) in 1990. Congress
appropriated funds, which NPS granted under NHPA, to tribes and minority groups to support
preservation of cultural heritage.17
The 1990s brought additional changes to environmental law, this time by way of
expansion. New executive orders were issued, tribes were granted greater power over their own
cultural preservation, and greater emphasis on social impact assessments to diverse minorities all
took place during the decade. Today NHPA declares:
It is the continuing policy of the Federal Government, in cooperation with State
and local governments, and other concerned public and private organizations, to
use all practicable means and measures, including financial and technical
assistance, in a manner calculated to foster and promote the general welfare, to
create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in
productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of
present and future generations of Americans. 18
In order to carry out its stated policy, NHPA states it is the responsibility of the federal
government to (among other things) “preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of
our national heritage, and maintain, wherever possible, an environment which supports diversity,
and variety of individual choice.” Additionally, through periodic amendments, Section 106 has
evolved. Today, the Section 106 compliance process can consist of up to six steps, including
consultation and public involvement, identification and evaluation of historic properties, the
assessment of effects of a project on historic properties, consultation with SHPO, and others.
King, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice, 29-30. Wallace, “Reflections on the History of Historic
Preservation”, pp. 193-194.
18
United States Environmental Protection Agency, “National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, As
amended through 2006 [With annotations], (accessed 7 July 2009); available from
http://www.achp.gov/docs/nhpa%202008-final.pdf/; Internet.
17
13
Indeed, today cultural resource management plays a necessary and significant role wherever there
is federal involvement in a private or public project.19
In California, cultural resource management has been an integral part of environmental
compliance since the 1970s and 1980s. Enacted in 1970, the California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA) was an outgrowth of NHPA, and was patterned after the federal regulation.
Originally applicable only to government projects, a landmark decision in 1972 (Friends of
Mammoth vs. Board of Supervisors of Mono County) declared CEQA applicable to any action
affecting the state’s physical environment where governmental permit, approval, or funding was
necessary. Today, CEQA requires state and local agencies to identify any significant
environmental impacts resulting from their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts when
possible. As a state agency, DPR is responsible for environmental compliance set forth by
CEQA. Under CEQA, DPR is obligated to consider the environmental impacts of projects with
which they have involvement, either through permit, funding, or authorization. DPR is also
responsible for maintaining a list of properties deemed historically significant. The California
Register of Historical Resources (CRHR) encourages public recognition and protection of
resources of architectural, historical, archeological, and cultural significance; identifies historical
resources for state and local planning purposes, determines eligibility for state historic
preservation grant funding and affords certain protections under the California Environmental
Quality Act. As part of the DPR cultural resources management plan for the Locke Historic
19
King, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice, p. 86.
14
District, the Locke Oral History Project, illustrates California’s position toward the protection and
management of its cultural resources.20
California National Resources Agency, “Frequently Asked Questions About CEQA,” (accessed 3 August
2009); available from http://ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/more/faq.html/; Internet.
20
15
CHAPTER THREE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORAL HISTORY AND ITS APPLICATION
IN CULTURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
Since the 1960s, Oral history has become a commonly used methodology in CRM. Oral
history can be both a tool for conducting research and “a natural tool for reaching” the public
audience. Through use of formal interviews, informal personal communications, and with aid
from video and audio taping, oral history can fill in gaps where written records fall short. For the
Locke Oral History Project, oral history provided a valuable way to document both an historic
structure and aspects of life in a small, rural Chinese community in central California. 21
Oral history is an historical research method intended to gather information of historic
significance for the benefit of future generations. According to Donald Ritchie, “oral history
collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded
interviews.” In his book Doing Oral History, Ritchie explains that “an oral history interview
generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their
exchange in audio or video format. Recordings of the interview are transcribed, summarized, or
indexed.” These interviews may be used for research or excerpted in a publication, radio or video
documentary, museum exhibition, dramatization or other form of public presentation. For this
project, interviews were used as a foundation for an historical narrative.22
Modern oral history evolved out of the oral tradition used over three thousand years ago,
when scribes of the Zhou dynasty in China gathered adages of their people for use by court
historians. Oral histories were gathered by Thucydides after the Peloponnesian wars, by Spanish
21
Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003),
p. 41.
22
Ibid., p. 19.
16
chroniclers during the European conquest of the Americas and countless others. While many
recognized the value of oral history, others considered the method inaccurate. During the late
nineteenth century, the German school of scientific history endorsed documentary research and
condemned the use of oral sources for their lack of “objectivity.” Leopold von Ranke maintained
that history required a careful use of evidence, dismissing oral sources as myth and folklore. But
while many disparaged use of oral sources, others held firm that “all history was at first oral.” As
technology developed, making recording of voices possible, including Thomas Edison’s 1877
phonograph invention in Menlo Park, California, oral history as a serious tool, gained
momentum.23
During the twentieth century, oral history gained popularity and more credibility. In the
1930s, the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) contracted writers to record the lives of
common citizens. During World War II, the WPA hired historians to document wartime
experiences among all branches of the U.S. military. In the 1940s Joseph Gould used the term
“oral history” to describe the task of collecting memories in oral form. In 1948 Allan Nevins
created the first contemporary oral history archives at Columbia University. Nevins also created
the Columbia Oral History Research Office. By mid-century oral history developed into an
academic discipline. In 1954, the University of California at Berkeley began an oral history
program; UCLA did the same in 1958. Though innovative, these earlier efforts were
23
Ibid., pp. 19-21. Andre Millard, America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound (New York:
University of Alabama Press), p. 1.
17
characterized by the “great man” approach to oral history. This approach focused on gathering
the histories of elite white men as the only truly important sources of history.24
During the 1960s and 1970s oral history continued to gain momentum and became a
favored approach for those interested in a new bottom-up history. In 1967, the Oral History
Association was established, which included both U.S. and international members. At the same
time, historians began recognizing the need for more inclusive histories, especially when changes
in national and international politics and social conditions were not well reflected in government
documents and traditional histories. Historians began focusing on history of the non-elites and
incorporating oral history sources. The rising social movements during these years contributed to
a new emphasis on the contributions of the ethnically diverse and historians began incorporating
their testimonials in oral history works. In his 1967 book, Division Street America, Chicago
radio personality and emerging oral historian Studs Terkel presented the thoughts of a diverse
group of Chicago residents on issues ranging from race to politics to everyday life in Chicago.
His subsequent book, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression is one of the most
widely recognized oral history works. Amateur historians followed suit, encouraged by the
newly available, convenient and inexpensive cassette tape recorders.25
While oral history methods were being embraced by academic historians, public
historians likewise embraced the method. Public historians began using oral sources for
information they could not find in libraries, archives and government agencies. Indeed
Ibid., pp. 21-22. Mary A. Larson. “Research Design and Strategies” in History of Oral History:
Foundations and Methodology, eds. Thomas L. Charlton, Lois E. Myers and Rebecca Sharpless, (Lanham:
AltaMira Press, 2007), pp. 102-103.
25
Millard, America on Record, p. 2. Mary A. Larson. “Research Design and Strategies”, p. 104. Terkel,
Studs, Division Street America, (New York: Pantheon, 1967). Oral History Association, “About OHA,”
(accessed 10 November 2010); available from http://www.oralhistory.org/about/; Internet.
24
18
sometimes no public agency existed for the gathering and maintenance of information public
historians required. In those instances, historians found important facts relating to ownership
history and construction only available through oral interviews. As technology progressed and
lightweight digital recorders became available, public historians began conducting oral history
interviews during field investigations. Indeed, advances including web-based ones continued to
evolve well into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, resulting in innovative
approaches to gathering and distributing oral history projects.
Today, oral history is often used as a research method in CRM work when written
records fall short. This is especially important due to the gap in written records of smaller
communities for years prior to the mid twentieth century. When information is lacking in written
records, CRM consultants can gather information orally from individuals with personal
experience relating to a community, single property or subject of research. Narrators may include
landowners and former residents. Landowners often provide CRM consultants with information
about their specific property, previous landowners, years particular buildings were constructed,
and more. Landowners can also provide consultants with information about the general area,
including residential and agricultural development and specific events or persons significant to
the area. Former residents of a community can speak to life in the community generally,
including day-to-day activities and the community workings. In this way oral histories can play
an integral part of the research process. This was precisely the vision that motivated DPR to
contract for oral history interviews with residents and former residents of Locke. It was expected
that members of the Locke community could provide insight into various aspects of the
community.
19
But while oral history can assist historians and researchers by filling in the informational
gap often present in the written record, oral history as part of a community history project can
also create and promote a sense of collective memory within the community. The term collective
memory is discussed by French philosopher Maurice Halbwachs, who argues that distinct from
individual memory, which an individual gathers from his/her own (lived) experiences, collective
memory is by contrast rooted in learned experiences and is "distributed within a group for which
each member is a partial image." Though the two are intertwined, collective memory
encompasses the individual memories while remaining distinct from them. Collecting oral
histories of a community, as done for the Locke Oral History Project, becomes a way of reestablishing connections with the past, and preserving the memory for the future. Preserved
memories in turn become a shared learned memory for those exposed to the oral history
collection. They thereby become a collective memory.26
As the Locke Oral History Project’s interviews are presented to the public at the Locke
Boarding House Interpretive Center, they becomes a learned memory for visitors. By
highlighting the Locke community’s connection to the boarding house, a shared physical space,
the collection fosters a shared identify. Novelist Richard Rive notes that people generally “situate
what [they] recollect within the mental spaces provided by the group [and that] no collective
memory can exist without reference to a socially specific spatial framework. The closed space
and the sites of memory contained within are the special framing.” Indeed, community oral
history projects have the ability to create a collective memory, and by situating the Locke
26
Maurice Halbwachs, “Historical Memory and the Collective Memory” in The Collective Memory, trans.
Francis J. Ditter, Jr. and Vida Yazdi Ditter, (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1980), pp. 80-83.
20
community’s memories within the public physical space of the Locke boarding house, the Locke
Oral History Project begins to form a collective memory.27
Sean Field, “Imagining Communities: Memory, Loss and Resilience in Post-Apartheid Cape Town” in
Oral History and Public Memories, eds. Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 2008), pp. xii, 111.
27
21
CHAPTER FOUR: PROJECT NARRATIVE
My participation with the Locke Oral History Project began in early January 2007, when
Dr. Ettinger invited me to fill the position of research assistant. I began working later that month,
meeting with Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda for a project kick-off meeting.28 During the meeting
Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda explained the project background and the terms of contract
between DPR and Sacramento State University, including the project purpose, scope of our work,
and the project deadline.
Since they both had been working on the project since early 2006, they also briefed me
on the status of their work thus far. Dr. Ettinger had already conducted two oral histories for the
project. On March 23, 2006 he interviewed one of the surviving children of the owners of the
Locke Boarding House, Sam Kuramoto, and on July 5, 2006 he interviewed the three Kuramoto
siblings, Sam Kuramoto, Matsue Tao, and Kikue Okomoto. Additionally, Dr. Ettinger had
scheduled interviews with the honorary Mayor of Locke, Connie King, to take place in her home
in Locke; and long-time resident of Locke Harry Sen to take place in his home in Sacramento.
Dr. Castaneda had scheduled an interview with Ping Lee, the son of one of Locke’s founders, to
take place in his home in Walnut Grove.
During our meeting, and in light of the work Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda had each
already done, we discussed our individual and collective tasks for the project. We agreed that
Dr. Ettinger would conduct two more oral history interviews, Dr. Castaneda would conduct the
interview he had already scheduled, and that I would conduct 2 oral history interviews. We
28
In this document, Ettinger, Castaneda and Beneli will be referred to as “historians.”
22
agreed that each historian would be responsible for contacting the potential narrator, introducing
the project, mailing release forms, gathering signatures on release forms, and conducting the oral
histories. Transcriptions of interviews conducted by Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda would be
done by TechniType, a professional transcript service, while I would type the transcriptions for
the oral histories I conducted. I would also audit and edit transcriptions as needed. This shared
approach allowed for a timelier turnaround of project deliverables and a collaborative final
product.
The meeting concluded with a discussion of several of the project’s potential problems.
One potential difficulty lay in the fact that some of the narrators spoke Chinese more fluently than
English, a possibility that our interviews would be limited by what author Donald Ritchie terms
“the “insider/outsider “ experience. As non-Chinese (or Japanese for that matter) historians, we
were “outsiders” to the Chinese and Japanese culture shared by our narrators. We therefore may
not have been trusted to understand the experiences shared by our narrators, and it is possible we
were ultimately not trusted with information our narrators may have shared with us had we been
“insiders.” Author Barbara Sommer expands on this idea in her work The Oral History Manual.
Sommer discusses the idea of enlisting the help of an intermediary to “introduce outsiders to a
group…and build relationships between the stranger and the group members.” No intermediary
existed for our purposes. Another of the project’s potential problems was the gap between the
project’s goal of capturing an oral history of Locke’s heyday (1920s and 1930s) and our ability to
do so considering the available narrator pool. Try as we might, there were few potential
narrators old enough to remember living in Locke during its heyday, and those individuals were
often less than lucid. We simply had to gather testimonies from the narrators who were available,
23
willing and able to speak with us about life in Locke from as far back as they could remember.
Finally, we faced technical problems inherent in conducting oral interviews with more than one
narrator at once. Donald Ritchie warns about conducting interviews in this manner is problematic
for the transcriber who often cannot identify who is speaking. Dr. Ettinger’s interview with the
Kuramoto siblings proved this practice to be truly problematic. TechniType indeed struggled
with identifying which Kuramoto sister spoke during the interview and finally settled on
identifying the speaker as “Female Voice” thereby limiting the reader’s understanding of each
individual’s history and experience.29
Within a week, we held a second meeting to review the list of potential narrators
provided by DPR to assign to each member of the team a few names to contact for an interview.
The list consisted of sixteen former and current Locke residents and their telephone numbers. In
some instances, DPR had also included a bit of information about the potential narrator. Those
on the list included:
o
Sam Kuramoto, the youngest son of Locke the boardinghouse owner
o
Matsue Kuramoto Tao, oldest daughter of the owner of the Locke boardinghouse
o
Kikue Kuramoto Okamoto, second daughter of the owner of the Locke
boardinghouse
29
o
Locke resident Connie King
o
Former Locke resident Connie Chan
o
Locke resident and store owner Ping Lee
Ritchie, Doing Oral History, pp. 62, 226. Barbara W. Sommer and Mary Kay Quinlan, The Oral History
Manual. Second Edition. (Lantam: AltaMira Press, 2009), p. 64.
24
o
Former Locke resident Gene Chan
o
Former Locke resident Eugene Lee
o
Former property owner in Locke Clarence Chu
o
Former Locke resident Penny Lee Pederson
o
Locke resident and building owner Dustin Marr
o
Locke resident Myrtle Owyang
o
Locke resident Harry Sen
o
Locke resident Joe Chan
o
Former Locke resident Everett Leong
Because Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda had each already contacted several potential
narrators from the list, Dr. Ettinger asked me to contact Myrtle Owyang, a 90-year old current
Locke resident, Eugene Lee, also 90 years old but a former Locke resident, and Joe Chan, a
former Locke resident whose age we did not know. I was to attempt to schedule oral histories
with these individuals. Simultaneously, I was responsible for reading the research materials we
gathered for the project in order to prepare for the oral histories I would conduct. Research
material consisted of published books, unpublished works, a thesis paper written on the history of
Locke and several newspaper clippings. Over the next few weeks, in addition to reading these
materials, I gathered historic context and information about the nomination of the historic district
of Locke from the North Central Information Center at Sacramento State University.
In early February, I initiated contact with Ms. Owyang and Mr. Lee by telephone in
order to introduce myself and discuss the nature of the project. As recommended by author
Donald Ritchie, I was prepared to inform the potential narrators about the interviews, explain
25
what will happen with the interviews and the legal release form which I planned on mailing after
our discussion. 30 I quickly discovered that my assigned task would be more difficult than I had
anticipated. Both Ms. Owyang and Mr. Lee were unreachable because they either did not answer
the telephone or had instructed family members to relay to me that they were “too old” or
“unwell.” Although I tried to persuade them (through their respective family members) that the
oral history interviews would be casual, and done where they felt most comfortable. And
although I tried to comfort them by explaining to them (again, through their respective family
members) that the interviews would give them the opportunity to tell future generations about
their memories of life in Locke, and that the project would benefit future generations of people
interested in learning about Locke, I was unsuccessful in persuading them. This was a challenge I
did not anticipate. Not having an intermediary to assist me in reaching out to potential narrators
proved to be difficult.
In mid-February, I returned to a follow-up meeting with Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda,
where I updated them on my efforts. I described the difficulties I encountered in reaching and
convincing Ms. Owyang and Mr. Lee. Dr. Ettinger had similar difficulties and suggested I
attempt contacting two other individuals from the list of possible narrators: Penny Lee Pederson
(Eugene Lee’s daughter) and Gene Chan. Dr. Ettinger also suggested that I attempt to obtain
names of other potential narrators from those I succeeded in contacting.
During this follow-up meeting Dr. Ettinger provided me with a list of questions to use
during the oral history interviews, a list that was originally generated by DPR but which Dr.
Ettinger augmented in order to facilitate interviews that captured as much relevant information
30
Ritchie, Donald., Doing Oral History, p. 89.
26
about Locke as possible. These questions followed the standard I had learned during my oral
history graduate studies seminar course; they dealt with memories of early childhood and
proceeded chronologically through the narrator’s life experience with focus on the town of Locke.
They were still general enough to be adaptable to each interviewee. Oral history interview
questions are generated with the intent of garnering information about a desired topic. Since the
topic DPR desired to learn about was Locke during the 1920s, specifically the development of the
township and the lifestyle of its residents, our questions focused on memories our narrators had
from life in Locke during this decade, especially relating to the development of Locke and day-today life in the town. However, since our narrators were all too young to have memories of life in
Locke during the 1920s, there was an obvious inconsistency in the history DPR sought and the
history we were able to produce.
In addition to the problem of the ages of our narrators, we were missing narrators who
represented the town’s “underclass.” These included the prostitutes and gamblers that many
written histories of the town described. Seasonal workers were also missing from our narrator
pool. Indeed, seasonal workers made up a majority of the Locke’s population during the spring
and summer months and no doubt were contributing members of the community. Representatives
of this underclass were either deceased or unidentified to us and therefore the perspective they
may have offered to the project was missing. This resulted in a gap in our narrator pool and an
incomplete oral history compilation. The contribution that oral histories from these members of
the community may have been important, but for now remains unknown.
By late February, I succeeded in contacting Penny Lee Pederson and Gene Chan by
telephone. I had done my research on methods of preparing for oral history interviews. I
27
followed the advice of author Donald Ritchie. I introduced myself to each of them, described the
nature of the project and answered all of their questions while being careful to keep my
conversations with each narrator short and to the point. Keeping these introductory conversations
short was important lest either of them start reminiscing about Locke and share with me
information best saved for the interview itself. Instead, I stuck to practical matters like place and
time for our respective interviews.
As Ritchie suggests, I scheduled oral history interviews to take place at each of their
homes at a date and time of their convenience. Choosing a location and time that is comfortable
for the narrator is important because, as Ritchie explains, when a narrator is at ease they are more
likely to open up. I explained to both that since our discussions would be recorded, we would
need to sit in a quiet place. Although I could not control my narrators’ home atmospheres and did
not want to be rude and bluntly ask they turn off any telephones in the rooms we would use, I
hoped each of them understood the importance of quiet and limit distractions on the day of the
interview. I ended my conversation with each by explaining that I would be mailing release
forms to their homes prior to the interviews for their review and signatures and thanking them for
their willingness to participate in an important project. Both Pederson and Chan were
enthusiastic to participate in the project. I was pleased with the status of my work and was eager
to begin interviewing these narrators.31
I conducted the oral history interviews with Penny Lee Pederson and Gene Chan during
the last two weeks of February. I conducted the interviews in each of the narrators respective
homes. I chose to use a digital recorder for my interviews. I found this method preferable to the
31
Ritchie, Doing Oral History, pp. 61, 84.
28
cassette recorder because it was light and small, therefore easy to situate on smaller surfaces
during the interview. I also found the digital recorder preferable because it has greater storage
capacity than an cassette recorder, which is helpful considering one never can know how long an
interview may go. The digital recorder also offered good sound quality and is adaptable to a
computer, which streamlined the transcription process. I also found the digital recorder no worse
or better than the cassette recorder on sound quality. While conducting the interviews, I did not
experience technical difficulties. We had few if any sound interruptions during the interviews
and each narrator answered all my questions. Though Gene Chan spoke with a heavy Chinese
accent, I also did not experience difficulties with a language barrier during his interview. In fact,
my interview with Mr. Chan ended as he showed me photographs of his work product and some
family photos.
Over the course of the next few days, prior to our next project meeting, Dr. Ettinger and
Dr. Castaneda each conducted their own oral histories. We met after we had all gathered our oral
histories to discuss our thoughts about the project thus far and to share our experiences. I spoke
of my success in interviewing Gene Chan and Penny Lee Pederson. Dr. Ettinger shared with us
his earlier experience while conducting the interview with the Kuramoto siblings. This was a
challenging interview because it involved multiple narrators. Although it is generally not
recommended to interview more than one person simultaneously, Matsue Tao and Kikue
Okomoto refused to participate in an interview unless their brother, Sam Kuramoto, were present.
Author Donald Ritchie discusses the issue of interviewing multiple narrators at once. He
states that the best interviews are done with only one narrator. He notes that some of the
challenges that can occur if interviewing more than one narrator at once include less focus on
29
each narrator, and the historian’s need to moderate between the parties who interrupt or contradict
each other. Transcription challenges can also result from group interviews as the transcriber
struggles to identify exactly who is speaking. Ritchie notes that although it is not recommended,
group interviews are sometimes unavoidable and can be beneficial as parties help generate
forgotten information. Dr. Ettinger found his group interview with the Kuramoto siblings
difficult because the sisters spoke little English. He also struggled with moderating the interview
as the siblings argued about events. Later, when this interview was sent to TechniType for
transcription, the transcriber and Dr. Ettinger were forced to decide to transcribe only the English
portions of the interview. This left unknown information out of the transcription. Additionally,
when it became difficult to determine which of the sisters were speaking, “Female Voice” was
used to identify the narrator. The result was an at times unclear oral history interview. 32
Following the interview process, we began focusing on the transcriptions. Dr.
Castaneda’s interviews with Ping Lee and Dr. Ettinger’s interview with the Kuramoto siblings
were submitted to TechniType Transcripts, which transcribed both interview audiotapes.
Although TechniType provided a quick transcription turnaround, Dr. Ettinger discovered errors in
the transcription of the Kuramoto siblings interview. These errors were largely due to the
overlapping narrative provided by the siblings when more than one spoke at the same time. Dr.
Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda checked the verbatim manuscript of these interviews against the
original tape recordings, edited for punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling and made corrections
to the content when necessary. I produced all other transcriptions, which were reviewed by Dr.
32
Ibid., p. 62.
30
Ettinger. Upon completion, copies of all transcriptions along with the original audio recordings
were submitted to DPR.
Later in July, and simultaneous to producing transcriptions, I wrote the first draft of the
narrative report, “A Brief History of Locke: Recollections of its Residents.” This report blended
the compiled oral histories with secondary literature on the history of Locke. Dr. Ettinger and Dr.
Castaneda reviewed the draft and indicated changes they wanted to see. These changes most
often dealt with expanding on content. In late June, I produced my second draft. This draft
included changes both Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda requested in response to the earlier draft of
the report. Due to a personal obligation that necessitated my traveling overseas in late June, my
input and writing was limited following completion of the second draft. I continued to
communicate with Dr. Ettinger and Dr. Castaneda via email and verbally regarding additional
changes required to finalize the report. In late June, I ceased work on the project. At this time,
Dr. Castaneda oversaw production of the final report, including printing and submitting the report
and transcriptions to DPR.
DPR received all deliverables by the due date of August 30, 2007. DPR utilized the
report and accompanying transcriptions in their interpretive center content at the Locke Boarding
House, for which they celebrated a grand opening on October 11, 2008. Several members of the
Kuramoto family, Connie King, and Ping Lee were all present at the event.
31
APPENDIX I
NARRATIVE REPORT
32
A Brief History of Locke: Recollections of Its Residents
The Chinese In California: Migration, Settlement, And Early Work Patterns
The California Gold Rush remains one of the most celebrated eras in the state’s history. During
the three years between 1849 and 1852, California’s non-Indian population increased from about
14,000 to 224,000, most of who were traveling to California initially to seek gold. Less
celebrated, and perhaps less understood, is the history of Chinese immigrants who participated in
the gold rush. Like many immigrants, most of the Chinese who traveled to California had every
intention of returning home, but many Chinese ultimately remained in California.
Few Chinese lived in California prior to the Gold Rush. The United States Census
reports that some 100 Chinese immigrated to the West during the thirty-year span between 1820
and 1850. This number increased sharply during the single year of 1851, when 2,719 Chinese
traveled to California, colloquially referred to in China as Gum Shan (Gold Mountain) after the
discovery of gold. To these and subsequent Chinese immigrants, the Northern California arrival
ports of San Francisco, Sacramento, and Marysville became known as the First, Second, and
Third Cities, respectively.33
In the mid-nineteenth century, it was not particularly easy to leave China. Trade as well
as contact with westerners was discouraged. Historian Peter C.Y. Leung, who wrote a monograph
on labor conditions in Locke and the surrounding Delta region, noted that “… before 1840, only
one port in China was open for trade with the west: Canton located in Kwangtung province.” He
33
Peter C.Y. Leung, One Day, One Dollar: Locke, California and the Chinese Farming Experience in the
Sacramento Delta, ed. L. Eve Armentrout Ma. (El Cerrito, CA: Chinese/Chinese American History Project,
1984), p. ix. Also see, “California’s Population,” The Record-Union (Sacramento), April 4, 1891.
33
added that it was through this single open line of trade that Canton’s people learned of the
California gold discovery. Most of the Chinese immigrants from this period were from the
Kwangtung region.34
Many Chinese immigrants, while eager to find their fortunes, sought relief from political
and economic instability of China. Defeats to England during the Opium War and to England and
France during the Arrow War saddled China with reparations and forced more open trade with
the West. But the influx of western goods created hardship for local businesses, and this coupled
with silver depletion led to massive inflation. General economic instability combined with
episodic floods, poverty, civil uprisings and banditry in the Kwangtung region, and droughts and
famine prompted many to look for opportunity overseas. Erika Lee, a specialist in the history of
Chinese immigration to the U.S., explained that many Chinese immigrants were of middle class
families, and they sought to accumulate additional wealth in order to maintain their family’s
status in China.35
Seeking to make a quick fortune and then return home to a struggling economy in China,
thousands of Chinese men journeyed to Gum Shan. Often these men left their wives behind to
care for their children and elderly parents. Many unmarried men also traveled to Gum Shan.
Locke historian Peter Leung observed that:
The Chinese who began streaming into California in 1850-1851 were primarily
unmarried men voluntarily emigrating from the southern, coastal province of
Kwangtung. Most came as sojourners, hoping to stay only long enough to reap a
fortune, then return to their homes in China. Their families were often very poor
and there was neither sufficient farm land nor jobs enough (in the cities as in the
34
Leung, One Day, One Dollar, pp. 2-3.
Erika Lee, At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2003), p. 113.
35
34
countryside) to support all of them. In addition to the need to sustain themselves,
geographical as well as social and political elements inspired their journeys.”36
Though America offered comparably greater economic opportunity for Chinese
immigrants, those opportunities remained restricted in large part due to cultural differences and
prejudice. Chinese stereotypes greatly limited social and economic prospects for these
immigrants. It is important to note that most Americans developed their first impressions of
Chinese from the reports of American traders, diplomats, and missionaries in China who
characterized its people as “heathen, crafty, and dishonest `marginal members of the human
race.’”37 Even the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson contributed to popular
misconceptions of the Chinese character in his own writings when he suggested that making tea
was China’s most significant contribution to civilization.38 These characterizations, steeped in
prejudice, misunderstanding and ignorance, persisted through the nineteenth century and into the
twentieth.
While the Chinese immigrants may have believed that opportunity awaited them in
America, they often discovered a far different reality. The new Chinese immigrants headed
straight for the gold fields. They quickly discovered that supplies were costly, and they often
worked side-by-side with Caucasian miners who resented the resourcefulness and hardworking
mining practices of the Chinese. The Chinese miners worked extremely hard even when little
gold could be found, and they often took over mines and sites abandoned by others. Intense
36
Leung, One Day, One Dollar, p. 2.
Lee, At America’s Gates, p. 25.
38
Stuart Creighton Miller, The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1785-1882
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969).
37
35
competition in the gold fields led to restrictions on foreign miners, and these restrictions were
directed primarily at the Chinese.
Anti-Chinese sentiment developed in California during the early 1850s and continued to
be intense for decades. As historian John L. Levinsohn simply stated, “The Chinese became
scapegoats for all the economic ills of the state.”39 In May 1852 the San Francisco newspaper,
Alta California, reported that Americans were then displaying “entirely without a precedent or a
parallel … their hatred and hostility for the Chinese.” The newspaper reported on a large group of
miners who had met and passed resolutions that “no Asiatic or South Sea Islander” would work in
local gold mines or sites. As was popular in San Francisco during these times, the miners also
charged a vigilante committee with enforcing these restrictions.40 In San Francisco, Denis
Kearney’s Workingman’s Party actively terrorized Chinese immigrants and called for their
exclusion from the state.
This intense hostility was reflected in the deliberations of California’s new government.
In 1852, the California Legislature passed the Foreign Miners Tax. This tax levied a $3 per
month tax on foreign miners. Foreign miners who did not pay this tax could have their claim
confiscated or be simply forced off the land. Many Chinese miners paid this tax, while others
avoided the tax collectors. The tax was another burden on the Chinese miners and a tangible
manifestation of the growing popular and institutional prejudice against the Chinese. Although it
39
John L. Levinsohn, Frank Morrison Pixley of The Argonaut (San Francisco: The Book Club of
California, 1989), p. 53.
40
Quoted in, Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (New
York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), p. 246.
36
did not end Chinese mining activity, it actually became an important source of revenue for the
state.41
With gold mining work on the decline, Chinese laborers sought other types of
employment. Many eventually found work in the burgeoning railroad industry of the American
West. As early as 1858, the California Central Railroad employed Chinese workers to help build
its line to Marysville. It would not be until the construction of the transcontinental railroad,
however, that Chinese workers would become recognized as a vital source of labor. Construction
of the Central Pacific began in 1862 as it began to extend eastward from Sacramento in order to
meet the Union Pacific track that originated in Omaha. A chronic shortage of labor in California
made it difficult to hire and retain a workforce sufficient to the task, and many Chinese secured
passage to the United States through contracts with American railroad companies before leaving
China, and then worked to repay their debts. Chinese workers figured prominently in the difficult
and often treacherous work on the western section of the transcontinental railroad. By the end of
1865, about 3,000 Chinese worked on the transcontinental railroad line; that number later
increased to approximately 10,000.42
The significant contribution of Chinese labor to the construction of the transcontinental
railroad temporarily mitigated anti-Chinese sentiment. In 1868, the Burlingame Treaty granted
China “most favored nation” status and actually encouraged Chinese immigration. The treaty was
controversial, however, as anti-Chinese prejudice continued. In 1880 the United States amended
the treaty, giving the government the authority to suspend Chinese immigration. Then, in 1882,
41
Johnson, Roaring Camp, p. 248.
Christopher Lee Yip, “Locke, California: A History” (Historic American Building Survey, Heritage
Conservation and Recreation Service, Department of the Interior, Summer 1979), p. 11.
42
37
the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended most Chinese immigration
for ten years. The law was renewed in 1892 and then again in 1902. Another blow to Chinese
residents of California during the early twentieth century was the state legislature’s passage of the
Alien Land Law of 1913. The Act prohibited aliens “ineligible for citizenship” from owning land
in the state, a prohibition that specifically targeted Chinese and other Asian immigrants. These
laws were only gradually changed. In 1943, the U.S. Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion
Act, but Chinese immigration was not restored to a level comparable to that of other nations until
the Immigration Act of 1965. The Alien Land Law was repealed by popular vote in 1956.
38
Reclamation, Agriculture, and the Chinese in the Delta
With declining opportunities in the gold fields and railroad construction, Chinese laborers sought
new opportunities in the 1870s and 1880s. While many returned to San Francisco and other
cities, many others found work in Central Valley agriculture and reclamation. Levee building
opportunities arose in 1861, when the California State Legislature passed the Reclamation
District Act to encourage levee building for flood control and other reclamation purposes. Such
work came in demand as land companies eager to reclaim land acquired large acreages of
swampland and tidelands. New techniques, implemented in the 1870’s, resulted in more
permanent reclamation methods.43
Levee work proved physically demanding. Again, Chinese laborers displayed the same
tenacity as they had in gold mining and railroad construction. According to historian Christopher
Yip, “…the Chinese went to work. Using only shovels and wheelbarrows, working in waist-deep
water, they dammed sloughs, cut drainage ditches, built floodgates and piled up levees. Some two
hundred Chinese built forty-nine miles of levee around Sherman Island.”44 Peter Leung also
acknowledged the tremendous contribution of Chinese labor to the development of Central Valley
reclamation and agriculture:
… Chinese laborers under contract to American developers built hundreds of
miles of levees. Their task was arduous, requiring them to work in waist-deep
water in an area where malaria was still endemic. They cut drainage ditches,
built floodgates and slowly piled up small levees. In this fashion, between 1860
and 1880 a total of 88,000 acres was reclaimed from the Delta
See, Eric David Chin, “Locke: Growing Past Our Roots” (M.A. Thesis, California State University,
Sacramento: 2002), pp. 8-15.
44
Yip, “Locke, California,” p. 20.
43
39
marshlands…[although later rebuilt, these] levees were the foundation for
today’s levee network and for Delta agribusiness.45
Chinese reclamation workers became the “mainstay of the many ‘wheelbarrow brigades’
that reclaimed the Delta before the 1880s.46 Former Locke resident Gene Chan, who was born in
1932, recalled family stories of his great grandfather’s work on reclamation. “When the railroad
was finished he came down here to the valley, as a contractor again, helping arrange for the
people for the dikes…. After that, he was kind of displaced by the machinery, the farmland was
reclaimed and he went farming.”47
The Chinese laborers first attracted to the Delta for reclamation work eventually became
the backbone of the region’s agriculture industry. Commercial farming developed a significant
regional market with the increase in population that was stimulated originally by the Gold Rush.
As transportation connections between Sacramento and the Bay Area improved, exporting
produce from the Delta became possible. Delta soil proved ripe for agriculture and farms for
growing wheat and other crops soon developed. By 1867 these farms sold to their product to
national and international markets, and wheat production replaced mining as the primary source
of income in California.
The rapid growth in wheat production along with increased competition and rising land
values created a boom and bust cycle during these years, creating some social and economic
instability for farmers and farming communities. However, improvements in shipping methods
and an abundance of readily available and inexpensive Chinese labor, still organized under
45
Leung, One Day, One Dollar, ix.
Jeff Gillenkirk and James Motlow, Bitter Melon: Inside America’s Last Rural Chinese Town (Berkeley:
Heyday Books, 1997), p. 19.
47
Gene Chan, Oral History Interview conducted by Maya Beneli, February 22, 2007, p. 6.
46
40
Chinese labor bosses, attracted farmers eager to lower their production costs. Other farmers tried
growing and marketing new crops, and among the most profitable was the Bartlett pear, which
grew in most orchards in Locke and Walnut Grove. The advent of ice cars meant a broader
market for the fresh produce.48
Through the 1860s and 1870s, a growing population of Chinese immigrants, coupled with
California’s changing economic climate, fueled anti-Chinese sentiment in the West. AntiChinese leaders blamed Chinese workers for low wages and the scarcity of jobs. Chinese were
seen as morally inferior. This was supposedly evidenced by their diet of rice and rats, their
exploitation of Chinese women into prostitution, their traditional loose clothing and their
possession of jobs traditionally assigned to women such as domestic service and laundry. AntiChinese activists labeled Chinese “incapable of attaining the state of civilization [of] the
Caucasian.”49
During the late nineteenth century, anti-Chinese sentiment continued and often led to
arson in Chinatowns. Hate crimes permeated Chinatowns throughout California, including those
in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Pasadena, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, Hollister,
Merced, Fresno, Redding, Napa, Sonoma, Yuba City, Santa Rosa, Chico, Placerville, Marysville,
Dixon, Wheatland and San Francisco among smaller cities. Hate crimes targeted Chinese
workers as well as Caucasians who employed Chinese workers. As Christopher Lee Yip writes,
“Barns and fields were burned. In the agricultural valleys of San Joaquin armed vigilantes
48
49
Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, p. 20-21.
Erika Lee, At America’s Gates, p. 27.
41
roamed from town to town. They were equally severe with the Chinese and the whites who tried
to defend them.”50
While seeking to avoid conflict with oft-hostile white community, Chinese laborers in the
Delta continued to work on levees and in agriculture. Many Chinese worked as itinerant laborers
and sharecroppers. Sharecropping is a labor system in which a landowner allows a farmer to use
the land in exchange for a portion of the harvest. Ping Lee, a long-time Walnut Grove resident,
described the sharecropping process:
…let’s say you’re the [white] land-owner. I’m the Chinese guy, you don’t care
what it is--you know me, you trust me. I say, hey, let me run this cherry orchard
for you. I am the one that brings the labor. I got to prune the trees, I got to
harvest the crop, I got to put your field back in shape for next year…. And it was
split fifty-fifty when the pears are harvested, when the bills come in. You’re not
interested in how much I pay for labor. That’s my business. I’m supposed to
take that crop in and get that thing off to the market. All you furnish me is my
ranch and my trees--and you better keep them up, and good. That’s
sharecropping.51
For some, sharecropping combined with other means of support. Poi Chan, maternal
grandfather of longtime Locke resident Harry Sen, established himself in two industries:
sharecropping and later grocery retail. Leaving his wife behind in China, Chan arrived in
California sometime between 1910 and 1915. After bringing his wife from China, Chan
established a collaborative business with his two sons and wife, sharecropping up to four
orchards.52
In addition to sharecropping and itinerant labor, many Chinese found seasonal
employment in the growing number of regional canneries. The Delta’s fruit industry maintained
Quoted in Yip, “Locke, California,” p. 28.
Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, p. 34.
52
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview conducted by Patrick Ettinger, January 25, 2007, p. 3.
50
51
42
profitability with the opening of more than half a dozen canneries. Rising produce prices further
ensured profits during World War I, and the pear industry, followed by the asparagus industry,
boomed during the war years. Some canneries offered company housing for their employees.53
Sen’s family resided in such housing while his father worked for the National Cannery in Isleton.
During the late 19th century and early 20th century, Chinese lived and worked throughout the
Delta region. Most worked as laborers in reclamation, farm labor, and canning, while some
ventured into sharecropping. Still others worked as merchants, either in their own business or as
co-partners in a shared endeavor. Others lived in company housing or on farmland, but most
lived in communities of Chinese, or Chinatowns.
The Founding Of Locke
Founded in 1851 by John W. Sharp, the community of Walnut Grove sits on the banks of the
Sacramento river approximately 30 miles south of Sacramento. Like other Delta towns in the late
nineteenth century, Walnut Grove featured a Chinatown, a section of town in which members of
the ethnically Chinese population resided. According to historian Peter Leung, Walnut Grove’s
Chinatown by the 1890s “boasted restaurants, general stores and other shops.”
The Chinese population of Walnut Grove included immigrants from two different regions
in China. Zhongshan Chinese, from the Guangdong province of China, settled in Walnut Grove
along with the Sze Yap Chinese, from a neighboring district. Different dialects divided the
Zhongshan and the Sze Yap residents of the community, and the two groups came to work in
separate forms of agriculture labor. Zhongshan typically worked in the area orchards while the
53
Yip, “Locke, California,” pp. 22-28.
43
Sze Yap predominated in cultivating field crops. Ethnic tensions existed between these groups in
China, and those tensions persisted in Walnut Grove.54
On October 7, 1915, a fire destroyed Walnut Grove’s Chinatown, displacing a number of
Chinese residents. Officials estimated damages at $100,000 and both the Sacramento Bee and the
Sacramento Union reported carelessness as the cause of fire. Although a Chinese section of
Walnut Grove would ultimately be rebuilt, some of Walnut Grove’s Chinese, led by merchant
Bing Lee, decided to build a new community about a mile to the north on lands owned by George
W. Locke. Historian Sucheng Chan and others have suggested that ethnic tensions contributed to
the decision of leaders of the Zhongshan Chinese to relocate to Locke following the 1915 fire.
“Age-old social cleavages brought over from their homeland,” notes Chan, continued to exert a
strong influence on the Chinese in California’s Delta.55
Considered one of Locke’s founders, Bing Lee originally emigrated from China’s
Zhongshan district to Chicago in 1893. He relocated to Walnut Grove within days of arrival,
where he worked as a laborer during the day. He studied English and several Chinese dialects at
night. Bing eventually left agricultural work and began investing in Walnut Grove businesses,
including a dry-goods store, hardware store, herb shop and gambling house. Upon losing his
holdings in the Walnut Grove fire, Bing, along with two other Walnut Grove Chinese merchants,
decided to approach George Locke about the possibility of leasing orchard lands for a new
Chinese community.56
54
Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, p. 13.
Yip, “Locke, California,” pp. 31-34. See also, Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, 21-23.
56
Ping Lee, Oral History Interview conducted by Christopher J. Castaneda, January 11, 2007. Also see,
Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, pp. 29-35.
55
44
Since California’s Alien Land Act prohibited persons ineligible for citizenship from
owning land, Lee and his partners needed to lease land for their enterprise. George Locke, born
in New Hampshire in 1830, had relocated to Sacramento in 1852. In the mid-1850s, he formed a
successful partnership with Samuel Lavenson, Locke & Lavenson, that specialized in furnishings.
He invested some of his earnings from this business in land, including orchards north of Walnut
Grove on the Sacramento River. On his land adjacent to the river, he constructed a small port for
shipping produce. This site became known as Lockeport.
By the end of the century, Lockeport, later known simply as Locke, featured a Southern
Pacific Railroad stub track and a packing shed. According to a study by historian Christopher
Yip, a small Chinese presence already existed in Locke even before 1915 Walnut Grove fire. In
1912, three Chinese entrepreneurs originally from the Zhongshan district in Kwang Tung
province of China, constructed three buildings in Locke to serve the workers at the packing shed.
Tin Sin Chan, Wing Chong Owyang and Yuen Lai Sing built a saloon (later known as the Tule
Café), a three-story boarding house, and a gambling house. All three buildings served the
predominantly Chinese dock and shed workers.57
After the Walnut Grove fire, Lee and his partners entered into a verbal contract with
George Locke, who cleared nine acres of his orchard land to rent to the group. The agreement
specified a monthly rate of $5 for a single story house and $10 for a commercial or two-story
building. For these standardized rents, Chinese residents could lease the land and own the
buildings while Locke retained land ownership. Bing Lee’s son, Ping, explained his father’s
leasing arrangement:
57
Yip, “Locke, California,” pp. 30-31.
45
So, my father decided, well, if I am going to build a town, here is a nice place.
They have got two nice houses there. It is right on the big wharf there. So he
came to Mr. Locke, him and the merchants, seeing Mr. Locke to see if he could
pull down some trees and let us continue on where Locke Garden is and build the
town along this road, there was not a highway this good. He said, “Sure, you can
do that. I will rent you the ground and all that.” All they did was shook hands.58
The establishment of Locke was a temporary setback for Walnut Grove. Relocation of
some of Walnut Grove’s Chinese population to Locke hurt business in Walnut Grove. Alex
Brown, who owned Walnut Grove’s hotel, bank, telegraph office and general store, had tried to
persuade Bing Lee to keep his business investments in Walnut Grove, but Lee remained
committed to the move. According to one account, Lee “pointed out that he had already made
commitments to his friends and that without his contribution there would be no town at
Lockeport.”59
Bing Lee began the process of creating the new town at Locke. Using his savings
reported at about $8,000, Lee began building the town. According to Christopher Yip, who
studied the early history of Locke, Lee “built six buildings along Main Street including a
restaurant, a boarding house, a dry goods store, a hardware store, and two gambling houses. A
portion of the money was lent for the construction of a town hall which found use as a Chinese
school.”60
Believing that the original layout for Main Street was too narrow, a fire hazard similar to
the one that destroyed Walnut Grove, Bing Lee persuaded builders to narrow the sidewalks.
They narrowed sidewalks by two feet on either side, thereby widening the street by four feet to
Chin, “Locke: Growing Past Our Roots,” p. 38.
Yip, “Locke, California,” p. 35.
60
Ibid., p. 36.
58
59
46
allow for greater traffic flow and fire safety.61 For decades after the town founding, Locke
residents recognized that buildings posed a fire hazard so they hired a fireguard that made hourly
checks nightly. According to historian Christopher Lee Yip, “At the completion of each
inspection he struck his bok-bok, small wooden blocks, as a sign that all was well.”62
Financing Locke’s early growth and development was challenging and often required
community members to work together. Additionally, Chinese seeking relocation to Locke often
needed financial assistance. Because many residents lost their savings during the Walnut Grove
fire, they sometimes sought financial assistance from members within their community. The
rotating credit system known as a hui was used to raise the necessary funds. The hui system
involved several community members, each of whom required financial assistance. Members
gathered at a dinner and took turns donating to a pool of money. The evening’s designated
recipient acquired the necessary means to relocate to Locke; however, he also picked up the
evening’s dinner tab. Dinner rotations continued until each member of the group received aid.
Hui systems required dedicated members. Member families shared financially responsible in the
event that a member fell behind. California’s hui credit systems remained in effect through the
1950’s as a method of rotating credit in Chinese communities.63
The community of Locke took shape in the decade after the Walnut Grove fire. Locke’s
primary role was not residential, it was to serve the itinerant Chinese laborers, primarily
Zhongshan, who worked in the Delta’s agricultural industry. One estimate is that its peak
population, reached during the mid-1920s, was never greater than about 600 persons. To serve the
61
Ibid., p. 35.
Ibid., pp. 35-37.
63
Ibid., pp. 37-38.
62
47
laborers as well as for its residents, approximately 48 residential and commercial structures were
constructed between 1912 and 1930, most on Main Street and Key Street. Locke architecture was
inexpensive and practical. Construction featured wood frame on concrete foundation. Clapboard
or board-and-batten sheathing formed the exterior of the gabled structures, roofed with corrugated
metal. Two-storied or split-level houses lined Main Street while single story structures, used as
residences or brothels, were built on Key Street.64
64
Ibid., p. 41.
48
THE LOCKE COMMUNITY: CONTOURS AND HISTORY
The Town’s Residents
Locke by the 1920s was a bustling town serving the needs of the resident Chinese and the large
population of itinerant laborers working on nearby farms. From its founding through the 1950s,
the community was largely a mix of Chinese families and single men, with a smattering of other
ethnic groups. Single Chinese men, often referred to as “bachelors,” predominated in town.
These residents typically worked as agricultural laborers or as packinghouse or dock workers.
Some worked for white farmers year round or on a seasonal basis. Some worked for other
Chinese who had sharecropping arrangements in the Delta. Many also worked in nearby packing
sheds or on the docks, according to seasonal needs. 65 Harry Sen, born in the early 1930s,
perceived these men as the center of town life:
Most of the labor that we had were basically bachelors, because many of the
Chinese living in Locke were bachelors. They couldn’t bring their family over or
they never were married. So it was just a labor town and a place to stay and find
work. That’s how most of the men in Locke survived, was working in the farms.
They were all farm laborers.66
During the 1920s, Chinese laborers still only received $1.00 per day.67 Working hours
were grueling at eleven hours per day. The Delta experienced an asparagus boom during the
1920s and 30s and Locke’s canning industry grew, with asparagus as the staple crop. Indeed,
largely due to its fine peat soil the Delta was a premier asparagus-growing region in the country.
This fine soil produced straighter asparagus shoots, perfect for canning. In April 1917, with
Many “bachelors” were in fact men with wives and families in China.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, p. 9.
67
Leung, One Day, One Dollar, p. 38.
65
66
49
established asparagus canneries in Isleton as well as other parts of the United States, Libby,
McNeil & Libby opened a large plant in the Locke District. The cannery, variously known as
Libby’s Locke, Lockeport or Walnut Grove plant, was located just north of Locke. Chinese labor
contributed to both asparagus fields and canneries during the 1920s and 30s.68
Chinese families in Locke derived their income in a variety of ways. Many Locke
families, such as the Lee and Sen families, had roots in the Chinese merchant class. Only
merchants had been permitted to immigrate to the United States after 1882, and many brought
their wives and children with them. Unlike members of the larger class of bachelor laborers,
these individuals were able to create family life. Chinese entrepreneurs, such as Bing Lee, used
their capital to create businesses catering to the community of workers. Lee and other
entrepreneurs earned their living indirectly off the workers by operating restaurants, stores,
boardinghouses, brothels, and gambling halls. Some, such as Harry Sen’s grandfather, combined
commerce, labor contracting, and sharecropping.
Few Chinese families in the Delta region seem to have been above at least some seasonal
work. Connie King, who spent much of her childhood in Isleton before moving to Locke during
the 1940s, recalled that her parents’ work in the fields and canneries often took them away for
weeks at a time:
We were so poor that my father and my mother have to go out of the town, like
left us alone at our home and they go out to other cities to look for work. So I
was about nine or ten years old and I took care of my two brothers and my sister
and I cook for them, I clean house, and I wash clothes, and I pack their lunch to
Peter D. Schulz, “Class I Archeological Survey, North Delta Program, Sacramento and San Joaquin
Counties, California - Preliminary Draft” (Prepared for Division of Planning California Department of
Water Resources, Sacramento, May 31, 1994), p. 80.
68
50
go to school and make sure they go to school. So my mother come home maybe
once a month to check on us to see if we need any money to buy food.69
Women in Locke and the Delta, both Chinese and Japanese, often worked seasonally in
the canneries as well. Indeed, many Locke women, like Gene Chan’s grandmother, worked in the
canneries. Connie King recalled the central importance of cannery work to the family economy
in Isleton:
The cannery that we worked was run by Chinese and so the Chinese women, all
the immigrant mothers, women all worked in the cannery. That’s the only job
they can get because they don’t speak English. So they worked in the cannery
year after year, year after year. They have a spring season and the summer
season and then they have a fall season and they all work together. This is the
only way they can support and raise the family.70
Although the Chinese predominated in Locke, members of other ethnic groups were part
of the community’s life as well. Growing numbers of Japanese and Filipino farm workers joined
the Chinese in the Delta regions. While the Japanese and Filipino workers did not share the same
language or cultural ways with the Chinese, they did work in the same fields and spent time in the
same gambling halls and boarding houses. Sam Kuramoto whose family emigrated from Japan to
the Sacramento Delta region recalled that for some time his family owned the Locke
boardinghouse on the north edge of town and that it predominantly served Japanese itinerant
workers.71
The mix of single men and families gave the small community of Locke a unique flavor.
Locke’s leisure establishments served the area’s single men in particular, and included gambling
69
Connie King, Oral History Interview conducted by Patrick Ettinger, January 11, 2007, p. 6.
Connie King, Oral History Interview, p. 20.
71
Sam Kuramoto, Oral History Interview conducted by Patrick Ettinger, March 23, 2006, p. 12.
70
51
houses, a bar and brothel, all located on Main Street.72 Some former residents recall a social
divide between the bachelor society, centered in the town’s boardinghouses, and the town’s
families. Harry Sen, born in 1933, described the atmosphere in Locke during his childhood:
Locke is a very small town, and in the evening they [bachelors]
all lined up on benches on the main street and sit and talk. The
time that I intermingled with them was when my dad hired them
to work in the farm and then I’d get to talk to them when I’m
working with my dad on the farm. But there was very little
interaction between us people and the bachelors…73
Boarding House Life – Sam’s Rooms
As did the surrounding towns in the Delta, Locke featured several boarding houses. Occupied
mostly by single male, seasonal workers, these businesses were central to town life. For a
nominal fee, residents received a clean but sparse bedroom. Some boarding houses offered
laundry services. Others offered meal services. Boardinghouse owners might reside in a portion
of the building. This was true in Sam’s Rooms, a Locke boarding house owned by the Kuramoto
family.
Longtime Locke resident Wong Yow lived in a Locke boarding house during the mid
1920s. He recalls his circumstances:
I rented a room up in the boarding houses - the rooms on top, above Main Street
there. Locke was a Chinese town; there were very few places suitable for us to
live in like that. There were no Caucasians in town; the houses were all the
property of local Chinese businessmen here …. The rent in the boarding houses
was about five dollars a month, as I recall. There was a main kitchen, a common
kitchen, but we each had our own bedroom so at night we wouldn’t have to sleep
together in one big room. There wasn’t much to it - maybe half the size of the
room here. There was a bed, one light. I had very few pictures on the walls or
72
73
Yip, “Locke, California,”pp. 40-41.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, p. 18.
52
anything else. It was small, just enough for you to sleep in and maybe read the
newspaper in, that was about it. We did have a window, but not sink for
washing.
I hardly ever stayed there for any length of time, though. Most of the time we
were out in the fields or the orchards, working. Most of us just rented a place [in
town] were we could store our stuff when we left for work. We’d stay there
when there wasn’t any work to be done. But when you were working, you lived
in the camps.74
Siblings and former Locke residents Sam Kuramoto, Kikue Okomoto and Matsue Tao
represent the smaller group of Japanese who immigrated to the Delta. Their father arrived from
Japan and later married their mother through a “picture marriage,” after which he brought her to
the United States. By 1914 they both relocated to Locke. In 1921, the Kuramoto family acquired
the building that became known as “Sam’s Rooms,” or the Locke boardinghouse. The family
members remember very spare accommodations; boarding rooms contained only a bed frame,
mattress, bureau, and mirror. Boarders took their meals elsewhere, and there was no common
room.
Both of the Kuramoto parents worked in agriculture and continued to do so even after
acquiring the boarding house. Sam Kuramoto recalls his father pruning pears in the fall and his
mother going off to pick crops in the spring and summer and doing seasonal packing work. The
siblings recall their mother, Nobu Kuhara, cooking and changing bedding for boarders, and
seasonally working at the packing shed across the street from the house. The siblings helped by
working in the home as well as at the packing shed.
Sam’s Rooms served as the Kuramoto residence as well as their place of work. The
family lived downstairs. A ramp connected the front entrance with the street and provided access
74
Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, p. 46.
53
to the second floor of the building. Guests often used a back entrance on the rear porch to enter
the first floor. In their oral history interview, members of the Kuramoto family referred to the
south side of the building, which faced Locke, as the “China side.” On the first floor of the
boarding house, Sam Kuramoto describes a toilet, wash basin and hallway on the right, and a
kitchen/ dining area and three bedrooms on the left. Kuramoto recalls seasonal Japanese
itinerant workers boarded at the house and used one of the downstairs bedrooms. The first floor
also included two storage rooms, several bedrooms and a recreation room. Ping Lee describes
Sam’s Rooms during the busy packing season:
Later years, oh, I would say when I came back in ’37, ’38, that place was used
primarily during the summer when the packers, you don’t see that recently, they
packed the pears, that work on the boathouse there with all that fruit going out,
the packers, they were living there. It was only for three weeks….Yes, the
summer. And they were renting those places, because their shoreline is
connected to our town.75
The clientele of Sam’s Rooms appears to have crossed ethnic lines over the course of the
1920s and 1930s, with non-Chinese boarders dominating. Former Locke resident Harry Sen
remembers Sam’s Rooms as having primarily rented to seasonal Caucasian laborers, although he
may have been referring to its clientele by the late 1930s. According to Sen, “It was used as a
rental for mostly Caucasian, because I went to school with them, people that are migrant workers
that come into the Delta and they needed a place. Rarely did I remember a Chinese family
there.”76 Sam Kuramoto remembers mostly Japanese and Filipino boarders when he lived there
as a boy in the 1930s. Sam’s Rooms was often vacant during winter months, when seasonal
employees left to find work elsewhere. During these months, the Mrs. Kuramoto often spent time
75
76
Ping Lee, Oral History Interview, p. 35.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, p. 46.
54
sewing the family clothing. The family also kept a garden at Sam’s Rooms. This garden
provided the family with all their produce. The garden also produced flowers. Sam Kuramoto
explains: “You know, from the road, everything was terraced. We planted vegetables and mostly,
this side was mostly flowers. I remember we had a lot of snapdragons, I remember that, and
daisies and snapdragons. On the side of the house we had a vegetable garden.”77
Indeed, most residents occupied the Locke boarding house during peak season. Residents
often worked most of the day and only used their rented rooms at night. During winter months,
boarding house rooms were empty while seasonal workers transited elsewhere.
Gambling Halls and Prostitution
As a town dominated by bachelors, Locke’s social life included gambling halls and
brothels. While gambling houses have a reputation for corruption and illicit activity, Locke’s
gambling parlors often served a much more benign social function. They where a place were men
went to socialize. The gambling house was also the location where an itinerant worker might pick
up his mail or even make a contact for a job.
Two gambling houses belonged to Bing Lee, erected by the early 1920s, and by 1927, the
Sanborn map notes five gambling houses along Main Street. Gambling houses featured
architectural devices designed to alarm players of impending police raids. Back doors, iron bars
and strategically placed exits all provided players with a rudimentary form of security. Gene
Chan recalled the “security” system. He noted that there was bench outside the gambling house,
and a small hole in the hall next to the bench:
77
Sam Kuramoto, Oral History Interview, p. 30.
55
They got a little plug there right now. Used to be a rope there. I used to sit next
to there with my grandpa and a watchman. There’s a watchman, always
watching to see who’s the sheriff or who might be coming to raid. He would pull
the latch and the big heavy door closes. And everybody takes off out the back.78
Indeed, gambling halls played a significant part in the town’s viability. Games
commonly played included Mai Biu, Fan-Tan and Pai Gow, all played daily with additional
games during weekends and holidays. Sam Kuramoto described the ceremony surrounding Keno
winnings: “They played this keno, Chinese keno. You can tell when they are ready to give out
the winning number, because they threw out the firecracker on a string. Then all those Isseis to
run to that place.”79 Gambling halls offered more than games and gambling. Bachelors spent
leisure time with their friends, catching up on mail or drinking tea. Ping Lee describes why
gambling halls were an important part of community life:
In those days it’s a necessity for the Chinese people to have a place to hang out.
When you talk to anybody, they’ll tell you that place [the gambling hall] served
as a labor hall, a social hall. There’s a lot of people I know went into the
gambling houses and never even gambled. They went there and drank tea that
was free, there’s a pot of tea back there. There’s musical instruments they play
around with…. All right, they get back there [the back of the gambling hall] and
we’re all shooting the breeze, all the Chinese guys. Sometimes we play some
cards- not gambling on the table, we just play among ourselves.80
A central component of Locke’s commercial life—and a feature typical of many Western
towns with high ratios of single men to women—was the presence of brothels. Often associated
with gambling and bachelor societies, prostitution was also available in Locke. Prostitutes in
Locke were exclusively Caucasian and mostly served the migrant workers. Parents discouraged
their children from straying into “that part of town,” but many recall their presence. Sam
78
Gene Chan, Oral History Interview, p. 41.
Sam Kuramoto, Oral History Interview, pp. 36-37.
80
Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, p. 5.
79
56
Kuramoto recalled that “I tried to avoid going to the main street of Locke, because there was a lot
of gambling houses, opium houses, house of prostitution, several of them.”81 Still, some of
Locke’s children had contact with this side of Locke. Harry Sen remembered his own experience
with the brothels: “In the little town of Locke, we had one, two, three brothels. I used to deliver
to them grocery when I worked at Yuen Chong. When we were kids, we liked to deliver because
we we’d always get a tip. A dime is a lot of money. I’ve been to all the brothels—by
delivering.”82
Throughout Locke’s history, its most vibrant era may well have been during the mid1920s. With national Prohibition in effect, Locke’s speak-easies and gambling halls flourished.
Although Locke had a permanent population of approximately 600 at that time, weekend traffic
often increased the population to as many as 1,500 persons. Brothels and opium dens contributed
to the town’s infamous reputation although they unfairly overshadowed Locke’s significance as a
town of hardworking Chinese residents who supported the region’s agricultural industry.83
Former resident Roberta Yee also recalls the brothels and local prostitutes:
There was a brothel or two in town too. One was next door to Yuen Chong, and
on the side street [Key Street], there was one towards the end. I used to see the
white prostitutes walking their dogs and getting a whiff of fresh air themselves.
As I recall, they weren’t bad looking! Looked out of place though.84
81
Sam Kuramoto, Oral History Interview, p. 23.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, p. 19.
83
Ray Riegert, “Looking in on Locke: Chinatown’s Country Cousin”, Travel & Leisure, September 1981.
84
Gillenkirk and Motlow, Bitter Melon, p. 97.
82
57
Education and Childhood in the Sacramento Delta
Education for the Chinese children of Locke in the 1920s and 1930s meant attending a segregated
“Asian” elementary school in nearby Walnut Grove. Although there was not a comprehensive
elementary or secondary school in Locke, children did attend the Locke Chinese School in the
evenings. In order to attend elementary or secondary school in nearby towns, children often
walked approximately one mile to school and back. Students at Walnut Grove and Courtland
included Japanese and Filipino children. School days began at approximately 8:00 am and
conclude at 3:00 pm. Many children attended the Locke Chinese School in the afternoons.
Jean Harvie was the principal of Walnut Grove elementary school.85 Harvie served as
principal and multi-subject teacher, teaching everything from soccer to history. Former student
Gene Chan recalled that Harvie was a German woman known for her no-nonsense approach to
education. Chan remembers the leather strap and paddle Harvie that were hanging in her office.
He says Harvie’s office décor was all he needed to keep him on good behavior. Harry Sen had
very high regard for this former teacher:
She was one of the best instructors you’ll ever find. She could play every
instrument in the band. I played in the band; I played the saxophone. And she
was athletic director. She could play football, basketball, soccer, and she
coached us. That lady was unbelievable. And she’s a mathematician, as well,
and an artist.86
After a day of school in Walnut Grove, the children of Locke commonly spent several
hours more at “Chinese school.” Located on Main Street, the Locke Chinese School, earlier titled
Kwok Min Dong and now called Joe Sung School, opened in 1926. The school served several
85
86
The Walnut Grove community center was later named in her honor.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, pp.13-14.
58
grade levels and offered children lessons in Chinese language and calligraphy. Gene Chan
attended Kwok Min Dong, located adjacent to his house, every day and Saturday. He recalled
that the teachers at Kwok Min Dong were strict and students learned Chinese by memorizing
lessons. Students received a test every Saturday and missing test questions resulted in receiving
lashes to the open palm in front of the entire class. Chan recalls receiving some of these blows.
Penny Pederson also attended Kwok Min Dong. She remembered some of her teachers
who were from China:
They recruited these teachers from China, gave them a salary, brought them over
and they hated it. You know, it was nothing like China, the town. For an
educated man who had credentials enough to teach school it would be like going
to a backwards village where the children didn’t even speak Chinese, or proper
Chinese. So I’m sure it was very disheartening all the way around. As I
remember it the two or three Chinese teachers that we had really didn’t stay very
long. I think they had to have felt very culturally deprived.87
There were Japanese and Filipino residents in the community as well as Chinese, and
while there was some cultural tension, residents recalled little serious conflict. Gene Chan
recalled most students in Locke got along well with each other. He did remember occasions in
which there was taunting between Japanese and Chinese children, particularly when walking to
and from school. This occurred during a particularly tenuous time between the two groups, when
war raged between China and Japan in the 1930s.
Sam Kuramoto, one of Locke’s only Japanese residents, recalls harassment he and his
family experienced. He says, “Yes, we used to get harassed by the Chinese people at our home
there. In fact, since a lot of times, I was home alone—see, we never locked our doors. So the
87
Penny Lee Pederson, Oral History Interview, p. 30.
59
Chinese would come to look, and steal our furniture.”88 Penny Pederson’s class was strictly
segregated. Although told many times that hers was the first class to integrate she recalls the
classroom to be quite segregated anyway. She stated that “We sat on one side of the class while
everybody else sat on the other.”89 Pederson had Japanese girlfriends but remembers receiving
warnings about Japanese children from her family:
Everybody; My grandmother, my aunts, everybody said, “Now the Japanese are
gonna be in school when you start school. We don’t want you to talk to them.
We don’t want you to have anything to do with them.” Not so much totally
because of World War II, but because of the hardship they caused China and the
Chinese coming over had suffered in the hands of the Japanese.
I remember the first person I saw was Mynomi, [phonetic]. Mynomi looked just
like me. You know, I always remember them telling me that they’re monsters;
they’re yellow peril. I’m conjuring up someone that has a round face and yellow
pole with antenna. I was really expecting to see a monster. It was like when they
said “don’t you have anything to do with them!” Why would I have anything to
do with a monster? And I saw her and as it turns out she does look like me. She
has a round face, [laughs], and we became the best of friends. But I can
remember my shock that these people who came back looked just like me.90
On the other hand, some children felt little or no racial tension between
themselves and Japanese children. Connie King tells of her childhood friendship
with a Japanese girl. The two girls spent nights in each other’s homes, ate each
other’s food and remained friends into their thirties. She recalls the day buses
came to take Japanese residents to internment camps:
It was very sad. I was there to see them all when the bus came to pick up the
Japanese people and here they’re selling their things, an icebox you can buy for
$10. The other things, you know, they sell $5, things like that. And the houses
they sell real cheap just to get some money to leave the town. It was very sad
and everybody was crying, we all cried for them, and we just hate to see them go.
It was very, very sad. So when they leave we all start waving our hands and
88
Sam Kuramoto, Oral History Interview, p. 24.
Penny Lee Pederson, Oral History Interview, pp. 5-6.
90
Penny Lee Pederson, Oral History Interview, pp. 21-22.
89
60
crying, and some of them came back after the war. I was very happy to see
them.91
Childhood in Locke consisted of a mix of school, work, and recreation. When not
studying, children helped with household chores. They often cooked and assisted with other
work necessary to maintain the home. Children whose parents owned shops typically worked in
those establishments as well.
Many former residents of Locke who spent parts of their childhood there recalled typical
American childhood experiences. Popular children’s games included marbles and kick the can.
Another game called Ma Tek involved players kicking a ball in the air with a stick, or a
broomstick. Children also flew handmade kites and transformed cardboard boxes into sleds to
sleigh down fields of grass. Harry Sen agrees:
It was a fun town. We had a lot of fun. Of course, you know, there was not too
much we could do there except to play kickball, basketball, and kick-the-can, and
fishing. Fishing was one of the biggest hobbies. That’s why I’m a fisherman
today, because I learned how to fish when I was five, six years old. Swimming
in the Sacramento River was common. All of us know how to swim. We’d
swim in the most dangerous place you could ever imagine, you know. It was
twenty feet deep and here we’re six, seven years old swimming in twenty foot of
water with heavy current, but we managed. We lost a few kids that drowned in
five foot of water, frogging and whatnot.92
The great American sport of baseball was particularly popular among the youth of Locke.
Sam Kuramoto recalls being “crazy about baseball” and playing regularly with a group of
Japanese friends from Walnut Grove.93 Some Chinese boys even tried, unsuccessfully in some
instances, to join nearby Boy Scout troops. Gene Chan recalled that after not being accepted into
91
Connie King , Oral History Interview, p. 22.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, pp. 11-12.
93
Sam Kuramoto, Oral History Interview, p. 20.
92
61
the Boy Scouts, they created their own “Eagle Scout” group. Scouts ventured to open pastures
where, at times, they would find Native American artifacts. Chan tells of the time that a skull
was unearthed during one of these scout adventures. For years, he says, he saw the skull sitting
atop some perch or laying about somewhere.94
Cultural Traditions and Foodways
Daily life in Locke reflected the lasting influence of Chinese custom and culture even as
American influences intruded on daily life, often through the second generation. During its
heyday in the 1920s, it was a very lively community that sought to retain its Chinese identity. A
Chinese owned movie theater offered silent films to customers. Poi Chan, Harry Sen’s maternal
grandfather, opened Foon Hop, one of the first grocery stores in Locke, which provided local
farmers with roast duck, roast pig and other traditional Chinese food. Chan was one of the first to
sell tofu in the Sacramento area. Two of the town’s six restaurants served traditional dim sum, and
a Chinese herbalist offered medicine and advice to those in need.95
It was perhaps in the area of healthcare that many of Locke’s residents exhibited their
Chinese roots. Since Locke did not have a private “western” physician, the town’s residents had
to travel to Walnut Grove to see a doctor. In fact, many Locke’s residents followed traditional
herbal Chinese practice as a first response to many ailments. Gene Chan recalled that his
grandmother sometimes bought herbs from San Francisco, which she kept in a sealed can
although he disliked the concoction and “willed” himself to betterment to avoid drinking it.96
94
Gene Chan, Oral History Interview, pp. 33-34.
Leung, One Day, One Dollar, p. 29.
96
Gene Chan, Oral History Interview, pp. 35-36.
95
62
Likewise, Connie King, who moved to Locke in the 1940s, recalled the prominent role of the
herbal shop:
They have an herbal store here and then the elderly Chinese believe in that, they
go there and buy herbs for sickness or anything. Some of the people that run the
herb store they cook, they fix the medicine for them. See, certain kind of herb
that you boil with water and then you drink it, see. Some of them are not easy to
drink, it’s bitter.97
Harry Sen concurred about the importance of herbal medicine in community life: “I
would say everybody, every family in Locke practiced herbal medicine, plus the Western
medicine.”98
For dental care Locke resident sought services in Walnut Grove, Sacramento, or other
nearby cities. No dentist worked in Locke. Former Locke resident Harry Sen recalled one
childhood trip he made to the dentist:
There was a Dr. Lee, a Korean doctor, he was my first dentist and he had to fill
one of my teeth. I was six years old and I went to a dentist by myself. I had a
cavity in the front. My sister said, “Harry, you better go to see a dentist.” So I
walked in the dentist’s office, six or seven years old. “Where’s your mother?” I
said, “Mother working.” “You’re not going to come in here.” He said, “You’ve
got to bring your mother with you.” I said, “My sister said I had a cavity here.
Would you look at it?” He said, “Yes, you have a cavity here, but you bring your
mother.” But he filled my teeth.99
Food ways in Locke exhibited a cultural blending as well. As most of the informants
were raised during the Great Depression, their memories are strongly influenced by the austere
economic climate of their childhoods. While most families ate their meals at home, home
cooking varied depending on available means. Further, some families encouraged children to
97
Connie King, Oral History Interview, p. 49.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, p. 42.
99
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, p. 40-41.
98
63
assist with the chore of cooking, often resulting in simpler, more western-style home cooked
dishes. Connie King recalled her own family’s food ways during the difficult depression years:
It was really bad in those depression times and I never forget those days. But yet
I can manage to feed my brothers and my sister. In those days we buy weenies,
we don’t know what hot dog were, but we buy weenies, ten cents a pound,
weenies ten cents a pound, or pork, ten cents a loaf of bread, and ten cents for a
quart of milk. I managed to use those things instead of having hot dogs, which
we don’t know what hot dog were in those days. So I sliced the weenie and stir
fry with Chinese vegetable and we manage to have at least one dish or vegetable
with meat in it to eat with our rice….
My mother have [sic] a garden started so that’s where the vegetables come from,
see. For sandwiches, we could not afford bologna or anything like that for
sandwiches. I make sandwiches for my brothers and sister for lunch when we go
to school, I sprinkle sugar on the bread and then put on both pieces of bread with
sugar and then I cover and I wrap up with a piece of paper and then put in the
bag. Then sometimes we have a fruit, sometimes we don’t. This was our lunch
for when we were going to school.100
Harry Sen noted that his and other Chinese families cooked and ate traditional Chinese
meals for the most part. Although his family’s cooking and meal traditions were altered in part
by his sister’s involvement in Home Economics classes in high school. She “wanted to practice
spaghetti, lasagnas, and all these other food on us as youngsters. So that’s the time when they
started introducing American dishes in the household.”101
King recalled a time when Chinese food custom came into humorous conflict with
American tradition:
I remember my cousin, one year he brought a turkey home for us to have for
Thanksgiving. My mother never cooked a turkey before, so he cook it like
chicken, he chopped the turkey up and cook it like cooking a chicken, see. My
first cousin when he gave us the turkey he laughed like crazy, because he said,
100
101
Connie King, Oral History Interview, pp. 6-7.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, p. 16.
64
“You’re not supposed to chop it, you’re supposed to roast it.” By the time I
became fourteen, fifteen years old I learned to roast a turkey, and then I learned
to make pies, pumpkin pies. Very simple, we just have yam and turkey and, of
course, rice, and we have Chinese rice stuffing for the turkey.102
It was also during these difficult years when the Locke community garden began to
flourish. The community garden was a shared space located where Locke residents grew their
own fruits and vegetables. Many former residents shared personal memories about the garden.
Harry Sen described the community garden at Locke as well groomed and manicured. Children
often had the task of watering the garden by carrying buckets of water to it. Longtime resident
Harry Sen remembered that residents grew asparagus, peas, beans and potatoes in the garden. He
added:
There was an open land in the back, and my uncle had a farm back there and a
chicken coop where we roasted our pig. There was a shed back there. And Yuen
Chong has theirs, and in between there was a lot of vacant area, so everybody
would go out there and just stake an area [if they] wanted to grow vegetables, so
every one of us had a little plot. Probably the biggest plot was my mom and
dad…next to my uncle’s. So they raised their pigs, the chickens, the ducks,
because they have a business and they roast it…. I have to water every day. You
know, you got to go to school, you got to work, mom and dad are busy, but we
took turns….. it’s hot in the summertime, you better water the melon, you know
and mom and dad would check on us. They’ll tell whether it’s been watered or
fertilized.103
Sen noted that women held most of the garden responsibilities, though many children
helped with this chore. Longtime Locke resident Connie King also remembers the community
garden. She recalls its uniqueness:
Mostly Chinese vegetables, mostly Chinese vegetables, Chinese winter melon
and things like that, see. A lot of people used to come here and take pictures of
102
103
Connie King, Oral History Interview, p. 24.
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, pp. 37-38.
65
the vegetable they grow. It’s very unusual kind of vegetable they grow. They
have winter melons the size of a watermelon, see, and then they have bitter
melon and they have cucumber, they have Chinese long beans and Chinese
broccoli and Chinese bok choy and all kinds, and Chinese mustard greens, they
have all kinds of, and then of course there’s tomatoes and green pepper and
things like that. They have all kinds of vegetables. Everybody have a plot and
it’s very beautiful arranged, not just dump in there, everything is— When you
walk in there you can walk by admiring that place. Everything is clean, no
weeds, and all the kinds of vegetables grow and every part is just beautiful.104
Religion
Many American Christians considered Chinese immigrants to be heathens, and they had
sought to convert Chinese immigrants to Christianity almost as soon as they disembarked onto
American soil. The Reverend Charles R. Shepherd, who had earlier traveled to China to work for
the Baptist Foreign Missions in Canton, later settled in San Francisco. There, he was employed as
the Director of Chinese Missions for the American Baptist Home Mission Society. He continued
his missionary work in northern California, and in 1919 he visited Locke. After visiting the town,
he stated: “This town looks like China, it sounds like China, it smells like China and it is China!”
Shepherd reportedly believed Locke’s Chinese “contaminated and exploited by the most
undesirable class of Americans” and began his missionary work immediately.105
Shepherd’s work resulted in the establishment of the first Christian school in Locke, led
by the newly created Woman’s American Baptist Home Mission Society, (WABHMS). The
WABHMS selected Mr. and Mrs. Ong Yip from Kwantung to staff the school for their
knowledge in Cantonese. In 1922, the first Locke Christian Center opened with contributions
from local gambling hall owners. At the Center, Chinese residents could receive baptism, and
104
105
Connie King, Oral History Interview, pp. 45-46.
Yip, “Locke, California,” pp. 53-54.
66
children could attend Sunday school and social events. Girls received lessons in music, sewing
and cleanliness. Summertime collaboration between the Locke Christian Center and the
Methodist Mission for Japanese in Walnut Grove brought Chinese and Japanese children
together. Lessons were of religious content and included hands-on crafts and Bible songs. The
program enjoyed early success, with over 50 students enrolled during the first summer. Some
missionaries traveled out of Locke to nearby Delta towns.106
King describes her encounters with missionaries:
Sometimes the missionary from the Locke church go down to Isleton and they
use my mother’s downstairs, my mother and father have a two-story building,
and they used the downstairs to teach us how to read a Bible in those days. I still
remember the first one, Ms. Skip [phonetic], she was the first one down there and
she helped us a lot. Then we met Ms. Joyce [phonetic]. Ms. Joyce is the one that
got all of the children in Isleton, in fact on the Delta, out and they all have their
tonsils removed. Ms. Joyce took us to the county hospital and we all have our
tonsils removed.107
During Gene Chan’s childhood, his mother acted as the church pianist. Because of her
commitment, Chan attend church more often than many other children. Indeed, Chan attended
church twice on Sundays and otherwise regularly. Chan recalled church summertime activities,
including woodworking and photography classes. He added that most of the people who did not
attend church were more likely than not to be gamblers. Yet, gambling houses supported the
churches by donating funds to them. Ironically, this income supported the churches and when
gambling houses closed down, churches lost needed income.108
106
Ibid, pp. 54-55.
Connie King, Oral History Interview, pp. 14-15.
108
Gene Chan, Oral History Interview, pp. 31-32, 40.
107
67
Anti-Christian sentiment in China, a reaction against Western missionary activities,
seemed to have reverberated in the Locke community. In 1929 some of Locke’s Chinese leaders
openly protested the center and its Christian influence
by opening a joss house. The attendants brought out a ceremonial lion of wood,
paper and silk and paraded with it through the alleys of the village. Chinese
brothel women from another town dressed in red satin with gold braid trimmings
walked in the rear of the procession. This demonstration made a profound
impression upon the boys and the work of winning them had to be started over
again.”109
Locke’s Chinese community experienced a general lack of interest toward the mission
which, coupled with the symptomatic decline of financial contribution, resulted in the mission’s
eventual decline. In fact, by 1934 only approximately 35 boys participated in mission activities.
The mission finally closed in 1965 and the building turned over to the Walnut Grove Church.110
Locke: An Epilogue
Through much of the 1940s, Locke flourished with life. Harry Sen recalls the town “packed with
people” both on weekdays and weekends during World War II. He estimates there were one
hundred teenagers in Locke. He says: “We’d get together and either roller skate or shoot pool or
gossip our in the street.”111 This social vibrancy began to wane by the late 1940s, and Locke
changed with changing demographics. As Chinese children grew and graduated high school,
most left the area to pursue college educations or serve in the armed forces. Some, such as Harry
Sen, did both. Some elderly Chinese remained in Locke, but many others joined their children in
Yip, “Locke, California”, p.55.
Ibid, pp. 55-56.
111
Harry Sen, Oral History Interview, pp. 35-36.
109
110
68
nearby Sacramento or other towns. Changes in population affected changes in Locke business
and overall growth. Many businesses closed due to lack of patronage.
Ping Lee described the town during the 1960s:
The young people who went off to war and came back with a college education
that government put them through, all leaving town. This in the 1960s and I
know it is going downhill and there is no way to bring it back….
By 1960, as I say, a lot of things changed. From eight or ten stores, back to one
or two left. Nobody wants to take care of the town. The town was self governed
by the merchants. Every year they rotate. Your store took care of it one year and
I might the next. By that time, nobody wanted to do it because if you got three
stores left, pretty soon it is your turn again. If you have ten stores, at least you
have got to wait ten years. There is no money involved. So, when I came back,
it was all dying down fast. I saw the thing, I said, “Unless we change the whole
system, nobody else can look after it.” The ones that were looking after it has
done it for eight or ten, fifteen years. They are getting old.112
As residents moved out of Locke, other groups began to move in. Connie King recalls
that Locke became something of a haven for artists and countercultural types in the 1960s and
beyond:
So, you know, the fifties it was still very alive, but once the Chinese people start
moving out of here in the sixties and the seventies things changed, because we
have hippies coming in here. We have non-Chinese coming in here, see.113
Harry Sen remembers tourists in Locke as early as the 1950s.
Early in the twenty-first century, Locke remains a center of Chinese heritage and tourist
attraction. It is now recognized as an excellent location for an interpretive center focused on the
history of Chinese culture in the upper Central Valley. Ping Lee agrees, and he explains why the
Locke interpretive center is important:
112
113
Chin, “Locke: Growing Past Our Roots,” pp. 53-54.
Connie King, Oral History Interview, p. 60.
69
You know, I’d like to see Locke, now today we call it like a memorial, a living
memorial, I like to call it that, because the town at one time represents something
like China. All Chinese is Chinese custom and everything else. Of course, you
don’t see that anymore, you’ll never see it again. But to leave something behind
like the way it is now and if you say, say, five years from now, it don’t have to be
ten, you come by and not even Chinese, there might be one or two in business or
something. There’s a lot of business by Chinese all over, and it leaves a little
story behind, a little something to remember the Chinese by.114
114
Ping Lee, Oral History Interview, p. 47.
70
APPENDIX II: SCOPE OF WORK
71
72
APPENDIX III: ORAL HISTORY QUESTIONS
73
Oral History Interview Questions
Introduction:
Today is (day, date). My name is (your name) and I am sitting in the home of (narrator’s name),
in (city), California. We are conducting an interview for the Locke Oral History Project, which is
being undertaken on behalf of the California Department of Parks and Recreation.
Family Background:
Can you begin by telling me your name, and when and where you were born?
Father:
Tell me a little bit about your father. When and where was he born?
And what was his family background?
What level of an education did he achieve?
When did he or his family emigrate to the United States?
How did he make a living?
Mother:
Tell me about your mother. When and where was she born?
And was about her family background?
Was she educated as well?
When and why did she or her family emirate to the U.S.?
Parents:
Did your parents both learn to read, write and/or speak English?
What language was spoken at home?
Did your parents practice religion?
74
Personal Story: Childhood
You were born in___ in the year___. What are some of your earliest memories as a child?
Where was your family living when you grew up?
Tell me about the town when you were growing up.
Was there a Chinese section of town? Similar to Locke?
Did you have siblings?
When and where did you begin schooling?
Were you active in school outside the classroom?
Were you expected to work as a child?
What chores did you have as a child? What did your siblings do?
What interests or pastimes or favorite games did you have?
Who were your closest friends, or who did you play with?
Did your parents monitor or set rules about whom the children could play with?
Did your parents monitor or set rules about whom the children could play with?
What holidays were observed? Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, New Year? What Chinese
holidays observed?
What kind of food did you typically eat? Did your family keep Chinese cuisine or did they
assimilate to American cuisine?
What forms did that take?
Were there any sources of tension between the American born children and the parents?
What were the educational expectations for their children?
What did you do after high school?
Life in Locke:
Did you visit Locke often in your youth?
75
Was it similar to Isleton, or different?
What was your impression of Locke?
Did Locke have a particular reputation in the 1930s?
When and why did you move to Locke?
Tell me about your husband/ wife.
Were you renting from someone or leasing land?
Describe the first house in which you lived in Locke.
Were you working after your marriage?
When did you start your family?
Where did your children go to school?
Did your children attend the Chinese school in Locke?
Did you have to pay for that?
Who were the teachers?
Can you tell me a little bit about everyday life in Locke when you first moved there?
Describe the residents of Locke. What was the ethnic/ cultural composition of Locke at that
time?
What did most of them do for a living?
Was it a mix of families and bachelors?
What langrage was the language of commerce in the town of Locke?
The Great Depression seems to have really set back the town. Were there still gambling halls and
prostitution in town by the 1940s?
What can you tell me a about the social life of the Chinese residents?
Were gambling halls still the social center?
Forms of gambling? Proprietors?
76
I suppose Sundays and weekends were a bit different than the weekdays?
Did you have a plot in the community garden? How did you acquire it?
How was the garden arranged? Commonly grown produce? Essential to the family economy?
Were you or your husband active in cultural societies or clubs?
Did people use westernized medicine or traditional cures?
Was there a trained professional physician in Locke? If so, was it a physician trained in western
medicine?
When people got sick, what did they do?
How was the town governed?
Who was in charge of law enforcement?
Was there a bank in Locke? Who ran it?
Was American money used or some other form of currency?
Was there a bar in Locke?
Was there illegal drug use in Locke?
Boardinghouse:
When you moved to Locke, was Sam’s Rooms still operating? I know the family had been
interned?
77
APPENDIX IV: ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW AGREEMENT FORM 115
115
Original signed release forms are on file at California State Parks.
78
Locke Oral History Project
Oral History Interview Agreement Form
We hereby grant and give all rights, title, interest, and copyright of the following audio and/or
video(s), transcript(s), and content(s) of this oral history interview to the California State Parks as
a donation to be used for any scholarly and/or educational purposes determined by the California
State Parks. We understand that the tapes and transcripts will be held by the California State
Parks and/or deposited at an archive of their choice and that the materials may be reproduced
and/or broadcast through print and/or electronic means.
__________________________
(Name of interviewee)
__________________________
__________________________
(Name of interviewer)
__________________________
(Signature of interviewee)
(Signature of interviewer)
___________________________
___________________________
(Address)
(Address)
79
__________________________
(Date)
__________________________
(Date)
Subject of Tape(s):
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
80
APPENDIX V:
TRANSCRIBED ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS
81
Oral History Interview with
Mr. Gene Chan
For California State Parks
by Maya Beneli
Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer/Editor:
Maya Beneli
Graduate Student, CSU Sacramento
B.A., CSU Sacramento
Interview Time and Place:
The interview session took place on February 22, 2007at the home of Mr. Gene Chan in
Sacramento, California
Transcribing/Editing:
Maya Beneli transcribed the interview audiotapes. Maya Beneli checked the verbatim
manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for punctuation,
paragraphing, and spelling.
Tape and Interview Records:
The original tape recording of the interview was submitted to California State Parks.
82
Interview with Gene Chan
Session 1, April 27, 2007]
[Begin Tape 1, Side A]
BENELI:
Today is Thursday, February 22, 2007. My name is Maya Beneli and
I’m sitting here in the home of Gene Chan, working on the Locke Oral
History Project that California State Parks has commissioned from us.
Thank you for much for having me in your home today, Gene.
CHAN:
That’s fine.
BENELI:
I’d like to begin by asking you about your name and where you were
born.
CHAN:
Okay. My name is Gene. The middle initial is ‘O’, Chan. The ‘O’
stands for Owyang, which was the student visa name that was on my
dad. He came over on the student visa from the school. He ended up
working in Locke. He was the Assistant Manager and buyer for the
little store in Locke. The Ying Chung Market, [phonetic].
BENELI:
Tell me about your father. Where and when was he born?
CHAN:
He was born in China, actually. He came over on the student visa.
And I’m not quite sure about the time when he was born. I know it
was a little village called Long May, [phonetic], you know like
83
‘dragon’s tail’. And he went to San Francisco. He went to school
there.
BENELI:
Do you remember when he was born?
CHAN:
Uh, I have to really look back. I’m trying to remember when he came.
I think it was something like 1909.
BENELI:
That he came to the United States?
CHAN:
Yeah, I think he was nine years old. Somebody sponsored him to go
to school. And so he went to business school in San Francisco.
BENELI:
At the age of nine?
CHAN:
No. Well, he grew up then. He was going to a, I think there was a
Catholic school. He said he was baptized with the drops. He was shy
about having to get baptized again in Locke. Because Locke has a
Baptist church. He was always very shy. But always a business
person. Kind, helpful.
BENELI:
What was his family background?
CHAN:
That’s the part I’m trying to find out. I know he has one brother here.
And ma said he had another brother that gave him the partnership in
the store when he was old enough and went to school here. But very
little he says about his background. I have found pictures of his dad.
84
And probably two brothers. Yeah, the two brothers that was here.
And that’s about it.
Everything was very quiet. Nobody talks about it, you know. All the
time people talk about their paper son or all this or everybody’s all
hush-hush. I didn’t know. I went to the service. I had to answer all
the questions. “Where was dad?” I wrote down, gee, some little
village in China and came when he was nine years old.
BENELI:
When he arrived, he arrived in San Francisco?
CHAN:
San Francisco. Yes.
BENELI:
Did he come alone?
CHAN:
I think so. That’s why I say “how did he manage to come at nine?”
He went to Catholic school and they named him Francis. Someone
said that’s because his name was Qwon Owyang. But I guess it was a
little hard to pronounce so they called him Francis.
BENELI:
How would you spell his original name, Qwon?
CHAN:
Q-W-O-N-G? Yeah. That’s how I got my middle initial, Owyang.
See my mother’s side is way different. My mother’s side is King.
BENELI:
I want to go back to your dad just a little bit. Was he able to complete
high school?
85
CHAN:
I’m not sure. He went through business school. And he knows his
business real well. And he helped develop that little store in Locke
which is kind of dead now. But when he was doing it the store was
really a booming store. It was a little country store that had a little
hardware, grocery. And it had a little beer and whisky and things.
He was the buyer and he managed to get it to a very very busy store.
Now that’s before the big Raley’s and the Bel Air’s came into being
nearby. That store, you wouldn’t believe it. It was jammed packed
most of the time. It served, not just the Chinese community; it served
all the ranchers, the ranch owners. The white people came. I know
lots of them like the Vanlowensells, [phonetic], the Malodi, [phonetic],
the Browns. You know, those are the bankers. They shopped there so
I knew all of them. Then I went to school with some of their sons and
we got along all okay.
BENELI:
You said your father obtained a partnership at the store-
CHAN:
Yeah, from his brother.
BENELI:
From his brother. I’d like to go back just a little bit. How was it that
he came from San Francisco to Locke?
CHAN:
Because of his brother owning partnership there and wanting him to
take it over.
BENELI:
So his brother owned the store and was living in Locke?
86
CHAN:
No. You know how they started little stores before lots of
partners…there may be twenty partners but legally they claimed, I
think, two partnerships. My dad was one of the paper names on the
partnership. And the other one was Chester King’s father, which had
run the store with Ping [Lee] in Walnut Grove. That’s after he found
out we were doing so well in Locke.
BENELI:
Okay. So your father moved to Locke because of the partnership that
was offered him.
CHAN:
From his brother.
BENELI:
Was he married at that point?
CHAN:
He married my mother.
BENELI:
Let’s talk about that.
CHAN:
My mother graduated in 1930.
BENELI:
Graduated from?
CHAN:
Courtland High School. Valedictorian.
BENELI:
What was her name?
CHAN:
Vivian King Chan. She took the name Chan. She really is a Chan.
Now, I don’t know why when you take a visa you have to use the
Kwon Owyang. I think because someone sponsored them. There’s
87
very little they said so I can’t think too far. He passed away already in
’63. Mamma lasted ‘till 2003.
BENELI:
That’s when your mother passed?
CHAN:
Passed at ninety two. My dad, I think, was sixty five. Just barely in
time to collect social security. That’s it.
BENELI:
What was your mother’s family background?
CHAN:
My family goes way back. My mother’s name is King. That was
derived from my great grandfather who came from China in the
Kwangtung province somewhere. I don’t know a lot after that except
he came in 1855 when he was sixteen.
BENELI:
Your great grandfather?
CHAN:
Great grandfather.
BENELI:
He came to the United States in 1855?
CHAN:
1855. Which is probably when the Gold Rush was not doing too well.
He learned English. Somehow he managed to learn English so he
coordinated as a contractor with the workers and the people hiring. On
the transcontinental railroad his name is listed as Jim King, contractor.
In 1866.
BENELI:
Was that his birth name?
88
CHAN:
No. His birth name is Chow Key. Some people call it Jow. And it’s
similar to King, Jow King. Somehow he got named Jim King. It was
easier to pronounce, probably. And I don’t know where it might be
related to something else like Jim Crow. Because you know at that
time, it might be. You don’t know. I don’t know. But anyway when
the railroad finished he came to the Valley here, as a contractor again,
helping arrange for people to wheelbarrow for the dikes.
BENELI:
You mean the Sacramento Valley?
CHAN:
Yeah, the Valley. After that he was kind of displaced by the
machinery. The farmland was reclaimed and he went farming. He
farmed in Courtland, just a little down the road. I think it was Green’s
ranch there. And that’s where my grandpa was born, in Courtland.
My grandpa was born here!
BENELI:
So your grandfather was born in Courtland. What year was that?
CHAN:
1876, I think. Some of these are hard to remember. I have to jot it
down. Then his mother took him back to China to get a wife. And he
went back, I think, in 1898. It was a couple of times they tried to
arrange for a wife to come back. Meantime they had a son in China.
In 1809 my grandmother came; through San Francisco. But grandpa
was working at some of kind of market. There’s was an import/ export
market there at 42nd Street somewhere, but you know, they don’t write
89
anything down. Then they had a lot of problems in San Francisco
because the other thing was the earthquake. Now my grandfather was
in the earthquake, 1906, another reason why they moved into Walnut
Grove.
BENELI:
Do you remember hearing stories about why they moved to the United
States?
CHAN:
Well my grandma came because my grandpa went and got her. You
know, the situation in China wasn’t too good at that time. Where there
was shooting and-
BENELI:
A lot of famine.
CHAN:
A lot of famine. And there was flood also. That’s the time when
grandpa came over.
BENELI:
So your grandfather came over at that time.
CHAN:
Great grandfather.
BENELI:
Great grandfather, excuse me.
CHAN:
Right. Because the grandfather was born here. And I didn’t realize
that for the longest time. I just assumed he came. But no. [Unclear]
Paper all says he was born in Courtland.
BENELI:
Now tell me about your parents. They were born in-?
90
CHAN:
Okay, mine were all born in San Francisco. Grandma was there. And
she has a birth certificate for one. See, a lot of things don’t [unclear].
And they moved to Walnut Grove in 1913, I believe. And then in
1915, Walnut Grove burned down. The Chinatown and Japan town
kinda burned down.
So a group got together from that same area, you know, same dialect.
You know, the Chinese have two or three different dialects. The
people from the Jimsung province in China can speak to each other
well. They formed a group with the help of Ping Lee’s father. That’s
been mentioned lots of times. They got the okay to lease a pack of
land to build some houses. Although there were already two or three
buildings there that were servicing the ferry, the steamboat that was
coming back and forth to San Francisco. They had a dock there and
there were already three or four buildings there. I think they had a
restaurant and maybe a gambling house and beer parlor and things like
that.
BENELI:
The boarding house wasn’t there at that point?
CHAN:
No, the boarding house, I don’t think was there first. The boarding
house was owned by a Caucasian. Jack Ross.
BENELI:
Do you know how your parents made a living while they were living in
Locke?
91
CHAN:
Well, my dad was managing the store and then, after 1941, I think they
needed help while they pulled a person out for the draft or he
volunteered in the service. My mom helped bookkeeping and she also
helped the hardware part of the store. My dad was running the whole
thing and buying and all things. And even when I was nine I was
already helping stock the wall with cans. I would get fifty cents from
my father and I finally said “gee, how come it’s gotta come out of your
pocket?”
BENELI:
What language did you speak with your parents?
CHAN:
Because of my mother we all speak English. But grandma speak
Cantonese and a little bit of English. Grandpa can speak some English
because of his father who put him through school. And they had
private tutors. Like when they were in Courtland, on the ranch, they
had private tutors to help the children when they needed help. He had
two girls and six boys.
BENELI:
Your grandfather was one of eight children?
CHAN:
My great grandfather. He was number one boy. I think they had two
girls first and he was the first boy. His name was Ty King. See they
all became King, instead of going back to the old name of Chow Key.
They still kind of remain Chow as being Joe. So now I’m Mr. King.
So all the family, from there on, like my mother is Tay King. Bill
92
King is my Uncle Bill, the flyer. Then there’s Myrtle King, the
younger daughter there.
They all went to school in Walnut Grove and Courtland. Bill went to
City College for Aeronautics. He grew up in the valley. He was quite
handsome, tall. Five-ten for a Chinese is pretty good. About a
hundred seventy five pounds and he’s muscular. He played football,
his all league in Courtland and I think he took collegiate boxing when
he was up at city. Because I used to watch him practice. Behind, there
was a court in Locke that had converted to, like a boxing ring with
[unclear] and things back there. It was one of those things that was
built between 1926 and 1930 something where the Chinese were
soliciting money in the delta. Some general would come and the whole
town would gather back there. So they built this platform.
My Uncle Bill’s group- there was quite a number of them in that
group. So they had a group of their own, enough for a good basketball
team. And I think Bing was part of that too. They did well. One thing
about Locke is it was mainly forty Chinese families at that time.
There’s a restaurant; Al Duop, [phonetic] was always there. He was
Portuguese, I think. Al Duop’s Restaurant. And still running strong.
Jack Ross was the gas station and mechanic, where he fixes cars and
things. And that was about it.
93
So the customs were maintained because there were a lot of older
families that came from the same village my grandma came from. So
we were kind of sheltered in the little area. Little customs were
maintained like the Hung Bao- things you pass on New Years. During
New Years, she won’t wake us up but we’re supposed to get up and
serve her tea. When we served her tea everybody had to be at the table
and she would give us the little red envelope.
BENELI:
I’d like to hear more about that but first let me ask you questions about
your birth; when and where you were born.
CHAN:
Okay. I was born in Locke, right next to the church, the Baptist
church. My mom and dad, when they first got married in 1930, rented
a room before we added a section in grandma’s house, before they
moved back. So I was born in another house.
BENELI:
And what year was that?
CHAN:
1932. So I’ve been there a long time. I stayed there almost- 1959- as a
[unclear] because I went in the service in ’53. Then I went to Cal Poly
in ’56.
BENELI:
Let’s go back and talk about your childhood in Locke. What do you
remember of Locke, as a child?
CHAN:
Well, there was lots of boys the same age, and girls, about the same
age. So we have lots of things doing. We don’t have TV, you know.
94
A radio, maybe. Where we listened to the Lone Ranger or Captain
Marvel, that kind of thing. But in general we had games to play like,
of course, we had baseball. We had a basketball court put up just
outside, near our house. There was lots of ways of playing games there
because there’s lots of place to hide. We’d play cops and robbers or
cowboy and Indians. We’d play kick the can. Things like that.
BENELI:
When you were playing with your friends, the majority of them were
also Chinese?
CHAN:
U-huh.
BENELI:
Did you speak Chinese with your friends or-
CHAN:
Probably half and half. But most of the time we would speak English
because we were all going to the Walnut Grove School at that time.
And there was an Oriental School that we went to. It was Oriental but
it had blacks and Mexicans, I think Portuguese, Philipinos, with the
Chinese and Japanese.
BENELI:
Did you have any siblings?
CHAN:
Yes, I have four.
BENELI:
Tell me about them.
CHAN:
I have Karen Chan. Now it’s called Karen Valentine. She’s a
statistician in Salt Lake City.
95
BENELI:
Is she an older sister?
CHAN:
M-hm, she’s the oldest one. Let’s see, how old is she now? She was
born in ’61. So, yeah. She did okay. She went through all the schools.
She went to Kennedy High, here. Kennedy’s just on the other side.
And she went to Davis. From Davis she went to uh…let’s see which
way did she go? She married someone from the Air force. And they
moved to Florida. He was going to pilot training at the top ten school.
BENELI:
Is he Chinese?
CHAN:
No, he was Ron Meyers. [Laughs]
BENELI:
And you said you have three other siblings.
CHAN:
Yes, I have a boy; Mark. He’s up skiing today. He went through
Berkley. And he’s working for the FDA right now.
BENELI:
And he is the second-
CHAN:
The second one. What is he, forty four?
BENELI:
Born in-
CHAN:
He was born here in Sacramento. We were all born in Sacramento.
BENELI:
What year was that?
CHAN:
’63. 1963. Karen in ’61, Susan in ’65. Patricia skipped a little bit to
’69. My youngest was Patricia.
96
BENELI:
Are these all the birth names that were given to you?
CHAN:
M-hm. We were selected. And then my mother gave their Chinese
names but they all sound like the American names. Just like mine. My
name in Chinese is Gene also. She write it out for me so I can
remember. So I have it if you want to see it.
BENELI:
I’d love to.
CHAN:
Like Karen is K-wan. See?
BENELI:
I see.
CHAN:
They’re made to sound like Karen. Just like my Uncle Bill, even then.
William. So his Chinese name is Waylum. [Phonetic]
BENELI:
That’s beautiful.
CHAN:
Yeah.
BENELI:
I remember you said you used to stack cans at the store. Were you
expected to work?
CHAN:
Well sort of. It gets kind of fun and then after a while… (Laughing).
playing. I used to help load the warehouse and things like that. It’s
kind of fun to help unload trucks and things. And sometimes I helped
get rid of the garbage. You know, they let us drive the truck to the
dump site and we’d burn the garbage like that.
BENELI:
Did you ever run the cash register?
97
CHAN:
Oh yeah, finally it got to the point where I graduated a little bit from
doing the cans to the produce to the cash register. And finally I even
learned how to butcher.
BENELI:
How to butcher?
CHAN:
Yeah. Because the other store that formed in Walnut Grove called the
Big Store now, well the butcher there was with us went in partnership
with the other one- left. So it kinda got a vacant spot there. Well he
was training me anyway. He was one of the best butchers. Yeah,
Chester King, that’s my uncle Chester. That’s my grandfather’s
brother’s son.116
BENELI:
Okay.
CHAN:
It’s really tangled up.
BENELI:
What chores did you have as a child?
CHAN:
I helped my mother clean the house sometimes. Especially when I
vacuumed the sofa, sometimes loose change in there. And grandma
would tell me to turn the rice on because she was working in the
cannery and comes home at a certain time. My mom was working at
the store would come home at a certain time. So I learned to cook a
little bit when I was young. And I’d always help grandma when she
was making the Chinese dishes or those pastries. I had to learn there.
116
Chan refers to a picture hanging on his wall.
98
BENELI:
So your mother used to cook traditional Chinese food-
CHAN:
Uh, my grandma was there for quite some time. My grandma lives
there in 1957. So it was her house, actually, you know we were in.
She did the good cooking. My mom kind of followed along and she’s
more working at the store. But she comes home at lunchtime, cleans
the house a little bit and then goes back. Meantime, I’m either playing
and forgot about the rice and burn it up, a few times.
We had things like, we played marbles. There was an alleyway where
(unclear) it was nice to play marbles with. We played kick the can.
You know, there was a lot of place to hide. And there’s one game I’ve
never seen played anywhere but Locke. It’s a game called- I don’t
know why they call it- Ma Tek. That’s what they call it. It takes a
stick this long, [Chan indicates the length of stick needed,
approximately the length of a yard stick], about this long and a little
puck. You put a little divot on the ground. And we played. You
learned to count because you hit the divot, it bounces out, right? The
more times you can tick it before you hit it, then it’s multiples. Then
wherever it lands, if not caught…Now if it’s caught the other people go
up to bat just like playing…
So you can have a range of people playing just like baseball. A whole
bunch lined up and if they caught it they’re up next. Otherwise, if they
99
fall down you get to count but you have to take your stick over there
and count how many…if there’s one-two-three or three-six-nine. We
learned to count and we write the number and everybody totaled the
numbers so we know who’s the winner. That’s one game I have not
seen anywhere.
BENELI:
Do you remember who developed that game?
CHAN:
I don’t know. Just all of a sudden we were playing with it and I don’t
know who started it. And then mother started noticing, “how come the
broom stick so short?” [Laughing] At the back of Locke, it’s a
tremendous place, right? It’s a wild area called the Meadows now.
Well, we had access to all that. On the railroad tracks there, we made
our own kites. We would fly kites all the time. We’d get the paper
from the pear packing- those thin wrapping paper and we’d have
bamboo strips that we got from the bamboo trees nearby, at Mrs.
Tom’s house, had huge bamboo trees there. And we’d make a kite
with tail on it. We’d get some of mama’s threads. It flies a long way
for a little tiny kite. That’s where the tower is now, the big tower. We
used to fly it out that way. The TV tower.
BENELI:
These are all interesting games you used to play and what an
imagination you all must have had.
100
CHAN:
Yeah. Well the thing was, the levee always has dry grass inside and
you know what we did? We’d take cardboard boxes and make sleds
out of ‘em and slide down the smooth grass.
BENELI:
Oh that’s fun.
CHAN:
Just do that. So we had a lot of things going besides the TV and the
computer.
BENELI:
I’d like to ask you a little bit about the ethnic relations in Locke. As
you mentioned before there were a lot of different groups, mostly
Chinese, but there were a few Philipinos and Caucasians-
CHAN:
Just the baker, I think. It’s very self contained; a very quiet town. And
there was one Japanese barber at one time. Even though when I went
to grammar school in Walnut Grove there were mostly Japanese in my
class. I only had one other boy and one other girl in my class that was
Chinese. They were all Japanese and then all of a sudden they were all
gone to camp. And then we mixed with the other school after that.
BENELI:
Do you remember, were you encouraged or discouraged in any way to
play with children that were not Chinese?
CHAN:
No. When we combined it was fine. It’s just that somehow, like the
South, you know, its just because you’re black down at the South, and
I trained in South before, eight months, in Florida and I didn’t know
what to do at first. But it turned out it wasn’t me they were worried
101
about. It was only the blacks. When I first went down there the
bathrooms says, you know, “his” and “hers” and “blacks.” I said,
“Where am I supposed to go?” But it didn’t mean me. And so I was
able to go to the beaches and I swam in the beaches with our crew.
BENELI:
But in Locke you wouldn’t feel any tensions.
CHAN:
No, the only tensions I think was when the Chinese was at war with the
Japanese.
BENELI:
Tell me about that.
CHAN:
It was okay, but it was a little bit of animosities seems like there. And
it seems like; they were kind of sometimes picking on us a little bit.
BENELI:
Tell me about how you experienced that.
CHAN:
Oh let’s see now. Sometimes when we were going home we’d get
heckled by some…sometimes it’s not the Japanese, sometimes it’s the
Portuguese. They’d call you “Chin Chan” or something like that. But
we were so sheltered, we didn’t know. We just thought that’s the way
it is. I never really thought much about it until I went in the service
and ran into some more. And then when I got out of the service I got
married and tried to find a place to live. And that’s when I found
things like that. When you call it’s okay but when you get there it’s
not. I ran into that. But we found other people that say “Hey, fine,
102
we’ll build you the house.” [Unclear] but I was able to get a brand
new house there when I worked one year for Aerojet.
BENELI:
What year is this that you had the house built?
CHAN:
Uh, 1960 I think.
BENELI:
Because you left Locke in ’59.
CHAN:
Oh, I got married in ’59, and I started work in ’59 within one week
after I got married.
BENELI:
So you must have left Locke in ’58?
CHAN:
No, well ’59 was still my home record because all my stuff still there
and my mama still there. We had added the room upstairs because we
couldn’t use the other half of the building that belonged to the other
brother which moved away to San Francisco. Then they had some
kind of earthquake and they got worried and they might want to come
back. So we couldn’t move over there. So we added upstairs. So
Uncle Bill and I roomed upstairs with two rooms.
BENELI:
Now this is the house that you originally lived in. When you were
born and raised?
CHAN:
I was born in another house but within a year we moved. They build
the addition to a kitchen and a huge bathroom for my mom and dad to
live in.
103
BENELI:
What street was this house on?
CHAN:
It’s on the Main Street, the house. What was that…uh…13…396 or
something like that. And we’re on the back house. It’s ‘A’ and ‘B’.
So there’s a back alley there. We were on the back half.
BENELI:
What was the house layout like? If you would walk in what was there?
CHAN:
Our house was pretty modern. A lot of houses was just a row with
rooms on the side. Ours had a porch. And then from the porch we had
two rooms upstairs with a shower.
BENELI:
So there was an entry to the rooms from the outside?
CHAN:
Outside the porch, the screen porch. Then the kitchen was next to the
screen porch with sliding windows that opens. Then on the other side
is my mom and dad’s bedroom. And then the bathroom, downstairs
too. And then we have a living room and my grandmother’s room to
the left before grandma and grandpa. Then Uncle Bill’s room, and
then the living room. So, it was pretty big.
BENELI:
So did Uncle Bill live with you during your childhood?
CHAN:
Yeah. That’s why he was my idol. He has airplanes on the wall when
I was growing so I like airplanes myself. So I went into airplanes. I
was very lucky, I got into the aviation cadet training. Somehow I
passed all their tests and battery and I got in. But there’s another story
there.
104
BENELI:
Tell me about your home décor. Did your mother decorate the home
with things from China?
CHAN:
No. My mother made her own curtains. And standard furniture. We
had very little things from China, actually. One thing was things that
people sent us; maybe Uncle Bill sent some things home. Sometimes
he would send ivory chopsticks. But they were very hard to handle.
They warped and unless you set it right each time…
BENELI:
Did you use chopsticks during your meals?
CHAN:
M-hm. We used chopsticks; Mostly bamboo chopsticks. But I was
always not right. I think I was born left-handed and Chinese doesn’t
like left-handed so when I do it wrong [makes noise for someone
cracking/smacking his wrist].
BENELI:
I see.
CHAN:
So I’m kind of ambidextrous.
BENELI:
You’ve become that way; you’ve had to, right?
CHAN:
Yeah. And I still don’t use a chopstick right.
BENELI:
That’s interesting. Tell me about your teachers growing up. You said
you had attended the Walnut Grove Oriental School. What do you
remember about your teachers?
105
CHAN:
Oh they were quite good. I’m surprised to this day why they can’t
teach school without having only twenty students. We had sixtysomething per class. And you follow, the same class goes through
Geography, History and Math.
BENELI:
Were all the students about the same age?
CHAN:
Yeah. Just about the same age. Probably a couple years different,
apart, maybe. And the Principal was the guiding light; Jean Harvie.
You know they named the community center after her now, the Walnut
Grove community center. You know what that’s called before?
BENELI:
What was it?
CHAN:
White School. Only the whites from all the plantation owners, farmers
were over there
BENELI:
And this was the Oriental School eventually?
CHAN:
No, it was the White School, half a mile down the road, where all the
whites went.
BENELI:
And Jean Harvie-
CHAN:
I think she became Principal of both eventually. But she was our
Principal. Boy was she good. She not only teaches things like History
and some other courses, she taught Gym, she taught baseball, soccer…
BENELI:
Was she Caucasian?
106
CHAN:
No. She’s German.
BENELI:
German.
CHAN:
German, a big German lady. You won’t want to fuss with her.
BENELI:
And she was the Principal but also the teacher.
CHAN:
Yes. And also, [unclear]. You walk in her office and what do you
see? A leather strap and a paddle. And see, everybody behaves.
BENELI:
I would too.
CHAN:
Yeah. I think of all that time I’ve been in there only once, for fighting,
once. But I always admired her because she was able to teach sixty
people in a class. She also taught Gym. And she’s still right in it,
playing with you on like, baseball. It’s very serious.
BENELI:
Do you remember amongst your friends, maybe, talking about, here’s
this German woman being your Principal and teaching you and maybe
she didn’t really understand you as coming from a different culture?
CHAN:
No. She was very well liked. She’s strict, but she’s very well liked.
And everybody respects her. Like I said, we grew up in a town where
we never thought of things like segregation. We were already
segregated so we didn’t know. And it didn’t matter anyway; we had
all the friends there to play with. See we never got out into the world,
107
in a sense, until like me; I went to Sierra College and boy! It was a
new world for me!
BENELI:
What do you remember about your everyday life at Locke? Maybe
during the school year, what was your regular day like?
CHAN:
Well you get up at about six o’clock and we had to walk to school
about a mile. Sometimes awfully cold, frozen feet.
BENELI:
Did you carry books with you?
CHAN:
Yes. We didn’t have anything like backpacks in those days. We were
lucky if we had a binder. We’d stuff things in it. And we were very
lucky that we had Aunty Rose and Uncle Clarence. On certain days,
rainy days, they would take us down in their car. So that was good.
But High School was alright. High School the bus comes to pick you
up. You just stand by the post office and they come pick you up.
BENELI:
And then you would walk to school most days, and school would begin
at what time?
CHAN:
I think it was eight o’clock. And then ‘till about three or four o’clock.
It seems like a longer day than now. But you know, you had Gym, and
you had activities outside and you had practice after school and
sometimes we had teams that played against us on baseball and things
like that. So it was a busy day and the day seems awfully long. Now
the days are [snaps fingers] Oh! It’s time to go to bed. The days didn’t
108
seem to want to end. I was born also on the longest day of the year.
June twenty-first.
BENELI:
June twenty-first.
CHAN:
Yeah. So it seems like a day is so long. We seemed like we played
forever! Before time to go home.
BENELI:
And at the end of school and practice, at three or four o’clock, what
would you do then? They were single people?
CHAN:
Well, there were times when I had to go to Chinese School when I
come back.
BENELI:
Tell me about that.
CHAN:
That little school there now called the Joe Sung School. It wasn’t Joe
Sung School before. It was Kwok Men Dong.
BENELI:
How would you spell that?
CHAN:
[Laughing]. Kwok Men Dong. Like K-W-O-K, Kwok, Min, M-I-N,
Dong, D-O-N-G. Well I have pictures of it though. You can see. It
says “something nationalist something” I have those pictures.
BENELI:
That would be great.
CHAN:
But before it’s called Joe Sung School.
BENELI:
So before it was called the Joe Sung School it was called Kwok Min
Dong.
109
CHAN:
Kwok Min Dong. Yeah, it was a meeting place, sort of. And also
that’s the Chinese school.
BENELI:
You went to Chinese School. Was this from when you were first going
to school? Maybe kindergarten age or first grade age?
CHAN:
No it was uh…let’s see, just before high school I was still going. I
think just before high school because high school I have too many
activities. Like track meet, baseball.
BENELI:
So maybe what would now be middle school years?
CHAN:
Yeah. Probably middle school years where I come home and then I
have a couple of hours of Chinese school. And Saturday morning.
BENELI:
So only some days of the week you would go to Chinese school, is that
correct?
CHAN:
Seems like it was everyday and Saturday.
BENELI:
Every day and Saturday.
CHAN:
Yeah.
BENELI:
And you would walk to Chinese school?
CHAN:
Its just around the corner. The Chinese school is only kitty corner
from our house.
BENELI:
When you were there, what was that like?
110
CHAN:
The teacher was very strict. And everybody kind of pay attention a
little bit. But the Chinese language is a lot of memory work. And for
us, we’re translating from English to Chinese instead of the other way
around. And it’s kind of hard. We have to memorize lessons. And on
Saturday, that would be the test day. And if you miss more than ten
words you know what you get?
BENELI:
What do you get?
CHAN:
Each one over ten? You have to stand in front of the class, hold your
hand out, whack! With those feather bamboo things with a feather on
it.
BENELI:
Oh boy. Did that ever happen to you?
CHAN:
M-hm. At recess time we would put wax on our hands and get ready
for the worst. [Laughing] Right in front, you have to stand up right in
front of the class. Miss all your spelling words. Each one after ten you
get one whack.
BENELI:
Do you remember, did you have any friends there at Chinese school
that you also had at the Oriental School during the day?
CHAN:
Yeah. Well, I’m kind of in between bunches so there was a bunch
younger than I, there was a bunch older than I and then Dicky and I
were sort of stuck in that one class where it’s just two of us and one
girl. But I played with the group either below us or above us. And
111
then when we got older then we got to Courtland and there’s more kids
from the ranch, there, [unclear] because Locke had all the girls. And I
had the basketball team, my girls basketball team. So I helped coach
the basketball team. When Uncle Bill came back he became sort of
like general manager, getting us to the game. And that’s what I wrote
the story about, my Uncle Bill and about one of those games.
BENELI:
I’ll read that when I’m-
CHAN:
Yeah. The book hasn’t- that’s too bad. They had the reception without
what they called the catalogue with the stories being in it. It’s still in
Hong Kong being printed. I wrote a story about it and why I thought
he was the bravest man. That’s before I knew all the thing he did for
the service.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
Yeah, and I start cataloguing that now and I’m trying to write a book
on him.
BENELI:
Wow, that’s amazing.
CHAN:
Yea. He’s a very handsome guy, see. Here’s his air force. I found out
all the things, where he was. And I find “Flying Tigers”, what they
call “Flying Tigers.” He got both wings; see the U.S. and the Chinese.
Captain King, See. [Unclear] But he’s so quiet, he never said much.
Came back, very little. [Unclear] So it’s in my head. But what’s lucky
112
was all the letters he had written home my mother collected. And it’s
all bundled. Here.
117
BENELI:
I can see he was a very big impression on you.
CHAN:
Yeah. And then he sent pictures home for ma, to put on the catalogue,
through this whole career. He ended up in the Chinese air force
academy because he couldn’t possibly get in the U.S. at that time, here.
And then when they advertized for pilot training, in San Francisco, to
help China, I guess his father convinced him to go help. That was
1939, that’s before the U.S. was in the war. So he left already. [Phone
ringing] But he left already. I was seven when he went.
BENELI:
What do you remember about that day that he left?
CHAN:
I saw him go. It was like an embassy car. You know kind of
camouflage and we have stars and something on…picked him up in
Locke. And all he had was one of these standard hats; he had a brown
suit on, and a suitcase. I saw him leave. And when he came back I
swore it’s the same hat, the same suit, the same suitcase. And he had a
box and two Japanese swords. That’s all he had. Because he was in
the Chinese government side, paid in Chinese dollar which is
worthless. Whereas the other part of the Flying Tigers was from the
U.S. They got paid in U.S. money. So he came back very poor. And
117
Chan shows Beneli a photo album full of Uncle Bill photographs and memorabilia.
113
we had to support him a lot of times. Sending him things over there.
But he survived it all. Very quiet, very frugal now. But then we lost
him, just, at least a couple of years now.
Eighty six when we lost him to Parkinson’s. But he was my idol
because his room had airplanes on it so that’s why I got involved. So
when he came back he had to start from scratch, you might say. So
they gave him a job in the store to help out. Earn a little bit to get on
his feet. And then during that time I spent a lot of time with him
because all the days off and things. He taught me tennis so I was
playing tennis, went swimming with him, hunting. Luckily I had
Uncle Chester, Uncle Clarence, and Uncle Bill. So they taught me a
lot more because they were born here and they knew how to hunt and
things like that. My dad knows how to work. That’s about all
he…business, business. And my dad is the only person that seems to
read the dictionary. And he reads the all the newspapers. He’s the one
that gets the Examiner, the Chronicle, and the Bee. And he also has
the Chinese paper.
BENELI:
Did he get the newspaper when you were growing up in Locke?
CHAN:
M-hm. We always had two or three newspaper. And he had his
Chinese newspaper. He would read that too.
BENELI:
Did Locke have its own community newspaper?
114
CHAN:
No. Maybe once in a while we had a local one at the church where we
had church then. The Baptist church was another activity that was very
strong.
BENELI:
Tell me about the Baptist church experience. Were you a member of
that church?
CHAN:
Well you could say I was a member because my mom was the piano
player for the church.
BENELI:
She was the pianist.
CHAN:
So we had Sunday school, evening service. And she was part of the
board, a board member. So I got to go every Sunday, twice every
Sunday.
BENELI:
Did your siblings go as well?
CHAN:
Let’s see. Mark does and Karen does at Presbyterian now. She had
remarried and became Valentine instead of Myers, but she had a
daughter Myers. She’s my little Michelley. She’s coming pretty soon,
next month coming for a visit. They always like to come to grandpa
here.
BENELI:
That’s sweet.
CHAN:
And then the church had activities. We had summertime, when the
school’s out, they had things like woodworking. Besides just the
115
church, they had woodworking classes. They had things we could saw
and make things. And sometimes in winter when it’s cold, upstairs we
had a photography room where we learned how to print pictures and
how to make enlargements with a coffee can and all that kind of stuff
when we were growing up. So it was quite a lot of activity; kept us
busy. And we were not worried about the outside too much.
BENELI:
Did you have a lot of friends from church that you also knew from
outside of the church?
CHAN:
Mostly either from Locke and Walnut Grove, some from Walnut
Grove but mostly from Locke. So there’s a congregation that’s pretty
good. All the ladies, you know, all the first and second generation
ladies all were young. And I have pictures of those. I have pictures of
all those ladies. And I have some pictures of all the minister
worshipers. Initially, all were white ministers until we had one that
came from back East, The Yuk family. They raised four kids there.
BENELI:
In Locke.
CHAN:
In Locke. But they were all well liked.
BENELI:
I’d like to ask you a little bit about- but before I do let me get this tape
recorder back in- I’d like to ask you about the dynamics between those
who were attending the Baptist church and those who were not.
[Begin, Tape 1, Side B]
116
CHAN:
Well there’s not that many people in town, so. The not’s were
probably the people running the gambling places and things like that,
some of the older gentlemen. But mostly all the grandmas and kids my
age- because like Christmas time, you know, the whole town gets a gift
from the church. We pass out the gifts to everybody. That was
donated by the merchants in town. Particularly the gambling houses
give more donations. After they shut the gambling down the church
kind of died.
BENELI:
So the gambling house was a big source of income for the church. And
even though the older gentlemen who were in the gambling house
often weren’t member of the church they still donated.
CHAN:
Yeah. The store owners don’t go to church but some donated; some
didn’t.
BENELI:
And what sorts of gifts were given?
CHAN:
Oh there would be a little bag where there would be fruit and candy.
BENELI:
Was it Chinese candy?
CHAN:
No. It was the sugar cane candies and the wrapped candies and some
fruit, apples and oranges. Everybody got a bag. Even the people at
the- there was an old man home there at that time- where there were
people that were poor and [unclear] and it’s a side building back there.
We were told to keep away from there because somebody said
117
somebody have pleurisy or something so we never go around there. It
was always called “old man home.” And they would give things to
them. And things like that.
So it’s a contained community where New Years is celebrated with
fireworks. We used to throw the fireworks. We were able to get all
these fireworks and confetti and we used to chase each other on the
street and confetti and things like that. The town, initially it was
wooden ramps. But later on it changed to cement. So we ended up
roller skating. And using the poles as stop points for where you can’t
get tagged. So we played down the street.
BENELI:
It was “safe.”
CHAN:
Yeah. Safe when you get to the pole. So we did a lot of those games.
Bicycling too, a lot of bicycling. So there was no lack of activity.
Then we would every now and then wonder out into the meadows
where we had a wiener roast. We’d bring some potatoes and wrap it in
mud and wiener roast. We tried joining the boy scouts but they won’t
let us join at that time. So we kind of became Eagle scouts by
ourselves. We went out and we made bows and arrows and things.
We used to hike into this area, a no-no area. It’s called the Indian
Mound. It’s a high ground near the meadows that belongs to Mr.
Locke, at that time, that big ranch there. That little creek wrapped
118
across to get there. And we would find flints, Indian arrow heads and
sometimes bones.
BENELI:
And what did you do with them?
CHAN:
Well, most of us don’t bother with it. I knew a couple of times
somebody brought it back in town. They brought a scull back in town
and stuck it on the poles by the church.
BENELI:
Oh my.
CHAN:
[Laughing]. And for years I saw that somewhere and it gets kicked
around somewhere. I don’t know where it is now.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
That was when I was small. And no one ever talked much about it.
[Unclear] Kind of naughty.
BENELI:
Let me ask you about your experiences if ever you got sick, did you go
see a doctor and if so, where was that?
CHAN:
Courtland. Dr. Premising. Which is Dr. Gold’s now; took over Dr.
Premising’s job. In fact, Dr. Premising singed my birth certificate.
And he did a bad job on it. He said I was a girl.
BENELI:
Oh no!
CHAN:
[Laughing] I didn’t know that until I sent my stuff in for the air force
and saw that there was this girl business. I had to hurry up and get my
119
mom. She said she had an amendment there but it got lost somehow
when it filed at the office, the state office where you file all your
papers. And found that there was an addendum there missing.
BENELI:
How do you get that wrong, you know?
CHAN:
I don’t know. [Laughing]
BENELI:
So was Dr. Premising, was he Caucasian?
CHAN:
No. Oh yeah, he was Caucasian. Dr. Gold was not. Dr. Gold was one
class behind me. He took over Dr. Premising’s job. He’s still active
now.
BENELI:
And when you used medicine through Dr. Premising was it
Westernized medicine?
CHAN:
Some. And the other part was grandma.
BENELI:
Tell me about that.
CHAN:
Grandma would have bought herbs from San Francisco. Or there was
a lot of times people traveling salesmen from San Francisco, selling
herbs jade and jewelry. She would buy some of these things. Keep it
in a sealed can and when we would get sick she puts it [unclear], boils
it and we have to drink it. [Sounds of displeasure]
BENELI:
Did it work?
120
CHAN:
Yeah. You get well fast, see. You don’t want to drink any more.
[Laughing] You look at the thing and it’s chopped up roots and stuff.
And some look like bugs, you know, and little beetle-like stuff in it.
[More sounds of displeasure] It comes out black and you gotta drink it.
It seems to work but I don’t know if its weather it’s just because we
don’t want to drink anymore.
BENELI:
Would you say that other people used such methods as well in their
families?
CHAN:
Yeah because the first and second generation very well versed in herbs.
And they were all farming people also so that’s why they gardened in
Locke. They had little patches where they grow vegetables all the
time.
BENELI:
And I’d like to talk about that. There was a community garden in
Locke.
CHAN:
Well there wasn’t exactly in the beginning. There was just little open
space by the road and by the fence. And they would start a garden
where they would grow the boc choy and the day choy and the mellon,
fooqua, [phonetic] things like that. Beans, long beans, things like that.
And so we had our own vegetables.
BENELI:
Now who worked on this garden?
121
CHAN:
My grandma. [Phone ringing] I had to lug water for her because we
didn’t have any water pipe over there.
BENELI:
So you would lug the water for your grandma.
CHAN:
Otherwise she lugged it herself so I’d help her. In the evening, go
water, lugged two bails of water for her to water her garden. Just a
little patch but later when you hear about the communal garden, you
know how that started?
BENELI:
Tell me.
CHAN:
When Uncle Bill came home and all the boys looked up to him. He
saw this big opening there. There used to be a water tower right in the
middle of it that holds the town water. But it fell down and so it’s
gone. I have pictures of it. He got the boys all aboard there. There
were trees there and he got a farmer to bring a tractor to help us pull
some of the trees down. And he got permission to clear Locke, first of
all. We did. We cleared the whole area. We were gonna make a
baseball diamond. And what happened? After we finished we got shut
down because of sanitation. There was a sewer problem nearby. And
so after that we couldn’t do it. So what happened? People started
invading it and made it a garden. That’s how the garden started.
BENELI:
So everyone on their own accord came in and just sort of started using
it.
122
CHAN:
Yeah, took up little areas. Like Ping, right behind his house there he
fenced off a big chunk of it. And he was growing some vegetables.
And I think he was selling some in San Francisco too.
BENELI:
Did you have any instances of people stealing other people’s
vegetables?
CHAN:
Generally, Locke, we never even have to shut our door before. ‘Till
very late in the late fifties, nobody worries about taking anything. No,
at that time, nobody. So nobody steal in the garden. Everybody have
their little area and they take care of it, they tend to it. My auntie
Connie now is still there. That’s my Aunt Connie, Connie King. You
probably heard of her.
BENELI:
Yes, I spoke with her yesterday.
CHAN:
Oh okay, well, she’s my aunt. And she was married to my
grandfather’s next brother. Maybe two more, the third one, I think.
Kim King. And his son is Tommy and Connie is married to Tommy
King. I found a nice picture of her wedding dancing with Connie from
his stuff. And I blew it up and they had it in the art gallery.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
They dedicated the show to her the other day, to Connie.
BENELI:
Really?
123
CHAN:
Yeah. So I found the picture in Uncle Bill’s stuff.
BENELI:
I’d like to ask you about later on in Locke. You were born in 1932.
As you became a little bit older, during your early teens, because you
were in Locke until 1959, how did you see the community changing in
Locke? The makeup of the community.
CHAN:
The makeup is, you know, when we had all our boys and group above
me and group below me. Well, once you finished high school and lots
went to college. And lots went to Berkeley. They qualified for
Berkeley. I qualified for Berkeley too. I went there to see what it was
like and I didn’t like it. I got out of the service first and I went two
years at city. I was able to go in the air force flying, cadet program.
And I got out in ’56. I joined Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.
BENELI:
So at around 1949, 1950 when you were finished with high school-
CHAN:
It was ’51 when I graduated.
BENELI:
’51 when you graduated, at that point a lot of your friends had already
graduated, the ones who were older. And the ones who were younger
were getting near graduation. Did you see people move out of Locke
or did you see people stay and turn to farming?
CHAN:
Well, at that time it was still okay. And when I graduated we still got
enough, maybe thirty families there instead of forty families there.
And another group in fluxed in which I didn’t have too much contact
124
with because I was gone either in the service or in school that came
later.
BENELI:
Were they Chinese as well? .
CHAN:
Yes. A group in fluxed in. There was always some coming in. But we
seemed to get along okay. Sometime there was animosity between
those with parents born here, there’s a whole group that has born here,
and then the other group have mothers born in China.
BENELI:
Tell me about that.
CHAN:
I can’t [unclear] my mother was born here and my Aunt Myrtle, you
were gonna interview Myrtle, and Connie. They were born here.
Right? But Connie didn’t get to Locke until about ’49, although they
visited. I knew here before because she was married to someone else
before. Connie was a second marriage to Tommy. But during that
phase there was still enough. The church was still going. And I think
in ’50 when Brown closed down all the gambling.
BENELI:
Tell me about that.
CHAN:
The gambling was kind of fairly wide open before Brown closed it
down. And that’s because you know where all the sheriffs, you know
they were kind of on the take.
BENELI:
And tell me about Brown.
125
CHAN:
Brown was the one that shut the place down. Governor Knight was
before that I believe. He left it run I think. You know this New Year,
you know who comes? All the big wigs, collections. That’s not
mentioned too much. Keep hush-hush.
BENELI:
So because of financial unethical-
CHAN:
Something paid off time. I think they said they let ‘em win on a table
is what I heard. You know, not much is said about these things. But
we knew it’s there because you know when they raid there’s nobody
there. Tip off.
BENELI:
And that is how the gambling came-
CHAN:
Survived for so long. That’s why I said when they had a picture of the
gambling house with a bench outside. I pointed out to him, “You see
that little hole there?” They got a little plug there right now. Used to
be a rope there. I used to sit next to there with my grandpa and a
watchman. There’s a watchman, always watching to see who’s the
sheriff or who might be coming to raid. He would pull the latch and
the big heavy door closes. And everybody takes off out the back.
BENELI:
And you did this sometimes?
CHAN:
I’ve been there when it happens. And I see them running in the
orchard, hiding. Well that’s for the gambling part. And earlier than
that was the making whiskey, White Lightning. They would get raided
126
and they would run to the fence, throw themselves over there and the
pigs eat it. There’d be a lot of pigs along the fence there, a lot of pigs
born over there. It’s kind of cute.
BENELI:
Maybe were some sketchy pigs to eat later on.
CHAN:
Yeah. We used to roast pig almost every Sunday. At two places. One
is the Foon Hop Store; one is the [unclear] store. They each had a big
old yard out there that house chickens at one time for eggs. And they
raised pigs to slaughter at one store. Where, at the other store, we just
did a chicken. Each Sunday a whole bunch of older men that know
how to roast pork, like you do it at Bel Air now, those crispy things,
well they had a long chimney with a chain to hang the pig after they
sew it up with the sauce and things in it. They hang it up there and
twelve o’clock when they test the siren for fire siren Sunday that
means the pig is ready also. So everybody go, buys a chunk of the
thing for dinner.
BENELI:
Very nice.
CHAN:
Yeah. They made that. You know, the stores had that. One store
made a lot of Chinese goods and the other, my dad’s store is mostly
Caucasian food; Some Chinese things. But the other would make, you
know, things that are like tofu. They made tofu there. They sell most
127
of the Chinese kind of things. Some things they import from San
Francisco.
BENELI:
And your mom and grandma, would they shop at-
CHAN:
Either store. Sometime we go to that one to buy some of the things
like dry abalone, you know things like that there, and I have over there.
Ducks feet and things like that; they used to wrap duck’s feet where
they would steam it with chopped pork. It’s very good.
BENELI:
So in the early fifties as you were graduating and ready to move on,
you said the families had dwindled down to about thirty families-
CHAN:
Probably. Then once ’51, I went to city college and I still stayed in
Locke. I just drove every day.
BENELI:
which city?
CHAN:
City College. I took aeronautics there just like my Uncle Bill, except I
went a little further. I took power plant and airframe too.
BENELI:
And you still lived in Locke at that time.
CHAN:
M-hm.
BENELI:
Was this in the same home?
CHAN:
M-hm, same home except I had a bedroom upstairs instead of
downstairs with my mother. I had to bunk in their room for a long
time when Uncle Bill came down ‘till we built the upstairs.
128
BENELI:
Were your siblings are disbursed at this point?
CHAN:
No, I’m the oldest one so I just have one sister. And she’s two years
younger than I am. But she’s okay too. She graduated, went to
Berkeley. And so she’s doing alright too.
BENELI:
Tell me about the events surrounding your moving out of Locke.
CHAN:
The only time I moved out was when I came…let’s see I came back
quickly in ’56 from the air force. I went in ’53. Trained in Florida.
For about eight months there and I trained in Texas for another eight
months there and finally I got out in late’55, I think. I got out of flight
training. I finished my twenty four months and I went home and I
signed up to Cal Poly right away. And I was still living at home but
there I cant commute, it’s too far. So I lived at the dorm there and
luckily I qualified for the GI Bills so I was able to go to school. So
when I graduated in ’59, winter quarter, March 17th, coming up! Saint
Patty’s day. And then a week later I got married.
BENELI:
I’d like to ask you a little bit about the holidays that you experienced in
Locke. I know you talked a little bit about Christmas and New Years.
Would you say that these were celebrated in an American way? Or in
a traditional Chinese way?
129
CHAN:
Christmas is more American way, right? And New Years, there’s two
New Years, there’s the American New Year and the Chinese New
Year; Most of the time we celebrate both.
BENELI:
And how were those different?
CHAN:
It’s different. The Chinese New Year is less of all the activities, I
think. Most of the time they have the dragon, the firecracker things
going on. Particularly when they were at gambling houses, they were
roaring. It’s quieter on the Chinese New Year where they had a
Chinese meal. Grandma would cook things that were more on the
Chinese side. New Year she would always do two New Years. She
would buy peanut oil, a big can and she would cook squab. Deep fried
the squab.
BENELI:
I don’t know what squab is.
CHAN:
It’s pigeon.
BENELI:
Oh okay.
CHAN:
A young pigeon. And she would fry it up for New Year because it
enhanced the flavor of the oil. Then she saved that oil for the rest of
the year for cooking with flavor. So we have that and she’ll make
things like side pork, like bacon. And they would keep cooking it and
cold, hot, cold until it gets all the fat out and then they would put
[unclear] roles on it and then they’d steam it. That was good. Maybe
130
it’s not too good for you but it’s good. But they do try to get the fat
out. Hot and cold, hot and cold until it floats it away.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
And potato was very good in it. Things like that. They would have
shark fin stew. Very expensive now. It was hard to make but grandma
used to do it. She’d get the thing and cleans it. Takes days to get it all
cleaned up. Shred it and then make chicken broth when it’s put in. It’s
very good. And bird nest soup. You heard about that? I still have a
pack left, from my wedding, somebody gave me. See, the parents, they
never even cook it. [Laughing] It’s hard to clean. I still have it.
BENELI:
Bird’s nest-
CHAN:
Bird’s nest soup.
BENELI:
Your grandma used to make some delicious authentic food for you.
CHAN:
Yeah. Then she always tried to make those dumplings with the black
beans in it and then fried. You can see some of that in the stores now.
And they have either sweet, which is with the black beans. And then
they have it with chopped up, maybe pork and eggs and things in it.
BENELI:
So it’s more savory.
CHAN:
Yeah. Or else they have a sweet one where they use the dry coconut
sugar coated. And melon that’s been coated, chopped in there. She
131
makes that. And some kind of cake where she steams it into a cake
type thing. It’s chewy. But see she does that because she’s with us
until 1957 until she got cancer, lung cancer. So we had a lot of things
that we learned from grandma. Grandpa used to cook a little bit. Not
a lot but he’s the one who take care of me when everybody’s at work.
He kind of hurt his back and couldn’t work a while. So he had to
babysit.
BENELI:
Would you say, was Locke the area you would spend most of your free
time in, if you had free time, as a child? Or would you spend more
time in Walnut Grove?
CHAN:
Well school was in Walnut Grove but most of the time we went back
to Locke. Walnut Grove we’d just spend it, let’s say, on our way back
home. We would go to [unclear] town where there were all these
Harare cookies and ice snow cones. We used to do that. Or go to
some lady’s yard where she has black persimmon. We would pay her
fifty cents so we could pick some on the way home. You know, there
wasn’t a lot of animosity. You could sense some there but it’s not bad.
BENELI:
Between the people in Walnut Grove?
CHAN:
Yeah, between the Chinese and the Japanese. Walnut Grove is fine.
It’s just that one group, and the language, like in Sacramento, it’s the
fourth dialect. There’s one group in Walnut Grove that’s the fourth
132
dialect. The third dialect is more like Cantonese like in San Francisco
and here. And then there’s also the village dialect which is among the
villagers are talking.
BENELI:
M-hm.
CHAN:
Some of us can’t understand either because it’s the village dialect,
because they all came from the same area in China.
BENELI:
Right.
CHAN:
See, so they were able to do that. It’s different, it’s different.
BENELI:
Did you have any Japanese friends?
CHAN:
Oh yeah, we have Japanese friends. You know, we played ball
together, we ran track.
BENELI:
Did you feel that you were the same or different?
CHAN:
Well you always knew you were different. And then sometimes, at
times, I felt that they were more nationalistic than the Chinese. They
were having unity meetings and things like that before they were sent
away. And I wasn’t quite sure which side they were on. You know the
feeling. You can kind of feel…
At that time there were problems too, because of the Philippines.
There was the Philippine part of town. They were getting some
conflict. They were getting people knives and things like that. So they
133
were probably safer to move away. And although I’m not sure, they
were having a lot of nationalist meetings before they moved away. So
I’m not sure how things would turn out if it was the other way around.
I’m not sure. That’s why I said some of these things I read in the paper
about all these things. I just didn’t feel the same at that time. You
know, like the injustice, because they were getting hurt. Like I said, I
felt like they were more, but I’m not sure so it’s just a feeling that I’m
not sure which side they’re on. They were always trying to take care
of their own. Even when we were on the same team, sometimes, they
were harsher on us when we got on the same team.
BENELI:
I see.
CHAN:
Not sure. It’s a different feeling than what you read about all the time,
different. That type of feeling. It’s the funniest thing. At the time,
there’s a bus called the Japanese Bus. Only Japanese ride in that bus.
And one time where we’re at war with China and the Japanese they
tried to put the Chinese on that bus. Didn’t last very long, they didn’t
want us.
BENELI:
Who tried to put the Chinese on the bus?
CHAN:
The school. It lasted a very short time. Either complaints by the
Japanese, or which way, I don’t know.
BENELI:
And this was the bus that took you to high school.
134
CHAN:
Courtland High School. Then we finally rode the other bus where all
the Caucasians were. But see when the Japanese left then there’s too
much space left so we had a better school actually. We had a gym. So
the white school kind of combined with us. See? Like I said we all got
along and since I work at the store I know all their mothers. They
came shopping in Locke. Imagine that. I used to have to carry
groceries to their car. Plus my leg was so strong, I ran track for all the
time when I was in high school. Yeah. I was a half miler and a relay
racer. Took the Davis Cup home one day, four of us.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
[Laughing] the coach didn’t even go with us.
BENELI:
So in many ways you felt more comfortable or more kinship with the
Caucasians then you did with the Japanese?
CHAN:
Maybe a little bit. It’s not a lot. It really wasn’t a lot. We all got
along. We all got along except when they came back. They must have
eaten American food and they all got bigger than us! [Laughing] They
all got bigger!
BENELI:
Taller.
CHAN:
Taller. Bigger! Yeah. That was noticeable.
BENELI:
Interesting.
135
CHAN:
But we all still got along sort of. [Unclear] One year in Courtland
when he elected the Japanese president and I became the Vice
President.
BENELI:
Do you remember, because this project is really revolving around
Locke and specifically the boarding house that was in Locke, do you
remember anything about the boarding house? Do you remember what
it looked like or what-
CHAN:
Well the boarding house is just like a hallway and a lot of rooms
because that’s what it was. It was a boarding house. You know what
the boarding house was for? It was for the migrant workers. That’s
why we got lots of business from there too. They all gotta eat and they
all stay home at night because we had asparagus, ripe tomatoes,
peaches, cherries,
BENELI:
Pears.
CHAN:
Pears. You know? And they all came in season and they all stayed
over there and they shopped at the store. There’s hardly any room to
walk in sometimes in the store during five o’clock. They were doing
real well. And my dad puts out an ad every week, special. Before
[unclear] did it. He put it in the mailbox, or, I had to fold it. I put it
there and I get one cent each.
BENELI:
One cent for each flyer?
136
CHAN:
Yeah. He had special like coffee [unclear]. And we had people
shopping from way around: Thorton, Lodi, Isleton, Courtland and
Hood. And all the farmers were out in steamboats. We used to deliver
there.
BENELI:
So a lot of the boarding house residents came and shopped at your
store.
CHAN:
Yeah but they were mostly migrant workers. They were Caucasian.
BENELI:
Did you ever have the experience of going into the boarding house?
CHAN:
I’ve been in there. But it’s not much, you know, just rows of rooms.
BENELI:
What would you go in there for?
CHAN:
I’m trying to remember now what I walked in with, with some friends.
But it’s not when the migrant workers was there. It was late when they
were talking about selling or something like that. They were talking
about making it a museum.
BENELI:
So not during the thirties and forties.
CHAN:
Yeah. But they were mostly Caucasian workers. And I don’t
remember any- I think there were a few Chinese later on that lived
there. But Jack Ross lived on the other side. That’s his house and he
runs the gasoline and mechanic repair shop. And he shops there and
you know, all the ranchers and the [unclear], the Greens, they all knew
137
me because I used to carry it to their car. And they always knew my
dad and that’s his son over there. My dad got along real well with all
of them. And like I said, he quit school so he learned business and he
was good at it.
BENELI:
And he was able to communicate.
CHAN:
Like I said he’s the only guy that reads the dictionary. He reads all the
paper.
BENELI:
Did they also speak Chinese very well?
CHAN:
U-huh. He speaks, he reads, I don’t see him write it but I know, every
now and then he checks to see if I can write my name. If I did it right I
get five dollars. Every now and then I got it wrong.
BENELI:
You have a wonderful, rich story about Locke, Gene. And this
information is invaluable. Is there anything, you think, that we haven’t
touched upon regarding Locke and your experiences there that you
think would be important to add?
CHAN:
Well, you know, one area that they don’t talk a lot about was the
house of ill repute, you know? But they were not run by Chinese.
BENELI:
Tell me about the house of-
CHAN:
Ill repute, you know, like there’s prostitution maybe
BENELI:
Okay.
138
CHAN:
But it was not usually the Chinese. It’s all Caucasian, run by
Caucasians.
BENELI:
Run by Caucasian and the prostitutes were Caucasian and the visitors?
CHAN:
Sometimes mixed. But mostly Caucasian, I think. It was started by a
Caucasian. And I’m not sure whether Al Duop’s place had something
to do with it or the builder. Some people said it was the builder that
started it, the one person that built all the houses in Locke. That had
been built fast; real fast. And I think it was the Hill family, or
something like that. It’s mentioned somewhere but it’s kind of hushhush. But people always mention that thing like it’s a big thing for the
Chinese but it wasn’t. I do know I’d seen it once in a while because
we were kids; we were kind of hiding there.
BENELI:
Sure.
CHAN:
We would run and ring the bell and run. And then see who comes out
and then sometimes we see all these, what do they call it, the tong
meetings. You know. They have a tong in Locke. They have a tong
in Walnut Grove. And they had some tong wars you know.
BENELI:
They did?
CHAN:
Yeah.
BENELI:
Tell me about that.
139
CHAN:
Yeah. My grandma told me the first tong war was between, I think,
some tong in San Francisco that wanted to take over or something.
And she said they shot all night. They hear bullets firing all night. But
there was blanks.
BENELI:
And in the tong in Locke, between the one in Locke and the one in San
Francisco?
CHAN:
Yeah. Trying to scare them to join up, I think. And then, that’s when
my grandma told me those stories and in my time there was one
incident where somebody was shot. And then somebody went to jail
for it. And somebody said “oh, he only went to jail as a fall guy for the
tongs.” And then one time when we were kids, we were out playing in
the meadow area, where the railroad track is, because that’s an ideal
place for practice shooting. Because the railroad track was [unclear].
And one day there came about five or six black Cadillac. All back
there, lined up. And we were playing back there on the track, railroad
tracks. And next thing I know we heard shooting. These people had
opened their trunk and got out guns and they’re all practicing out there.
BENELI:
Now were the tong members adults or-
CHAN:
Yeah, adults, all with suits on.
BENELI:
And so they looked sort of sketchy. Even in their appearance, they
looked different.
140
CHAN:
Yeah, different. But whether they came from San Francisco, tried to
scare them or whether it was some of our own tongs dressed up in
black.
BENELI:
And were you encouraged to stay away from tong members?
CHAN:
Oh yeah. My dad would never get involved in anything like that.
BENELI:
Because I understand they also did a service.
CHAN:
Yeah. They helped maintain the, kind of, law and order because
they’re kind of like the judge before the committee, type thing. Or
help out in cases, family squabble, or things like that. They do good
things. They contribute and they have dinner, party, like New Year, a
lot of their big party. They would cater a huge party. Each one thirty
tables, food. They used to have a huge brick gas oven in the back, a
stove in the back with big woks on them with the water trays.
BENELI:
Did they have their own house that they used?
CHAN:
Yeah. They had a building. It’s the one next to the gambling house
there and they have a built hall. I think it’s called Chin Hin Tong,
[phonetic]. I think it’s named after Ping’s father. I think he used to
handle it. You don’t hear much about that either.
141
BENELI:
Well I have read a little bit about it. I understood that at times the
tongs would be the way that people could pay their passage fees, going
through the tong system of everybody pitching in financially.118
CHAN:
Well it seems like they’re not like a mobster, seems like, but at times,
you know, when they get threatened maybe. But they have doings.
They contribute doings. And we used to borrow their- they had a room
upstairs with a balcony. And we would bring a record player and we’d
do our own dance on a Saturday night. You know, we have enough
girls and boys. We’d learn how to do a waltz and all that.
BENELI:
Oh how nice.
CHAN:
Yeah. We did that because the church doesn’t have dancing.
BENELI:
Right.
CHAN:
So we had [unclear]. And we had a record player. So we did that.
And you know, we had our own basketball team, the boys’ team. And
we had our own girls’ team. Both sponsored by Bronson Insurance.
So we were called the Firecrackers and the girls were called the
Chargerettes. We had activities. But I felt we were very sheltered,
confined. But the things are good things. So when I went out in the
world, first thing I went in the service. I’d never been out of California
and where did they send me? Texas. And then he asked me where I
118
Beneli actually means the “hui” system of communal fundraising for travel fees.
142
want to go when I finished in Texas. I said, “Someplace close to
California. How about Arizona?” And you know where they sent me?
Florida. [Laughing]
BENELI:
Very far away.
CHAN:
Far away. Just outside of the Cypress Garden. That was a very pretty
little place, small. The thing that came to my mind, remember Ester
[unclear] that swam in this pool that’s shaped like Florida?
BENELI:
No.
CHAN:
A very tiny little thing and we all went to see it there. And I used to
fly over that and see it right there. See the girls practicing their skiing
and “yey!”
BENELI:
You were the coach of the basketball team?
CHAN:
All kind of coach, Assistant Coach. A lot I wrote about in that story
but they haven’t published yet. I have a copy but it’s my edit copy.
We played in the church league, in the Lincoln Christian Center and
Lincoln Junior High in June, every Monday night. That one game, the
story I wrote about was, it was a championship game. It was actually a
Chinese team versus a black team. I didn’t dare say that in the write
up, but it was but they told me to take it off. Anyway it was black
week. But it was a team. And we won by two points so all the
spectator got mad at the referee, because it was a tight game.
143
BENELI:
Now was the referee Caucasian?
CHAN:
He was the minister from the church.
BENELI:
Okay.
CHAN:
And next thing we knew this big crowd started forming, mostly
blacks. And when the girls finished showering, but they had an
incident where the blacks climbed on the room and were peeking in on
the girls. So we gathered our team up and tried to walk out together. I
and Ron walk out first and we saw this huge crowd surrounding one
person: The coach, the referee. They were beating on him. And so we
didn’t know what to do. Ron and I, you know, we were about twelve,
fifteen, somewhere in there. And we hid behind two cans until Uncle
Bill came home. He looked, and saw what was going on. He ran right
through that crowd, right to the middle, pulled the minister out and
brought him to the gym. One person and that whole crowd of blacks.
But I don’t say that in the write-up. I just said “a crowd.”
And that’s why I say I wrote he’s the bravest man I’ve ever known.
But I didn’t know about his other activity until I dive into it. Why he’s
so brave. He has a distinguished line cross with two clusters from the
U.S. which means three times heroic Arial fighting. And then he got
144
three huge metals from the Chinese air force. See? He’s in the Flying
Tigers, that’s his squadron.119
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
[Unclear] He belongs to the Chinese government, representing China.
That’s all the metals he got. Here’s a distinguished one with two
clusters, so three times and one, two, three, four for heroism. He never
talks about it much so I’ve been digging in through it and some of
those require how many air killings. Six or seven and this was nine
killings in the air. This was the hours he had flown through the
[unclear], that’s four hundred and some hours here. But these are the
big ones here. So I managed to get the names of all those and I got the
citations.
BENELI:
This is an amazing collection.
CHAN:
So everybody has their [unclear]. Like this metal here, there’s only
thirty seven ordered before him.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
Very scarce. Forty one, sixty four and ninety. This one was only
twenty one. Forty one, fifty six, eighty seven. This one was a little bit
more, it’s two hundred fourteen. Five ninety eight. So it’s very very
119
Chan shows Beneli a picture of Uncle Bill in uniform.
145
scarce. That’s why I’m putting together his book for him. So his sons
will know. He has three sons and they don’t [unclear].
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
Especially, he’s born here. When ’39 before U.S. got in the war but he
was learning to fly. He learned to fly in San Francisco, in Alameda.
But money’s later from people in the valley to help China. And from
there he went and then he graduated form the academy when the U.S.
got into the war. And then he managed to- because he was born here
and he speak English- so it’s logical to put him where there’s Chinese
American compounds, the fourteenth air force. So he’s part of that
team which got the presidential citation from the U.S.
But still when he got back he got nothing. He didn’t have any G.I. bill
he couldn’t get any loans, nothing. He had to start from scratch. He
showed me how to play tennis, swim, hunt, so I learned. But my dad
can’t do any of those because basically he knows business and that’s it.
He works long hours. He works on his day off. And people complain
about him day off taking the car but he’s working. He goes buying on
his day off. He loves to go to all the buying stores.
BENELI:
That’s when he would do all the purchasing for the store.
CHAN:
Yeah. I used to go with him. He’d take me to all the stores.
BENELI:
Where did he do this buying?
146
CHAN:
He goes to General Produce, he goes to Thomson Dick before and he
goes to all the warehouses and cigarette places, candy stores. And I
come in, they’ll give me some.
BENELI:
It’s worth the trip.
CHAN:
[Laughing] So I learned that a little bit and he taught me how to drive a
little bit in the company car. Then Uncle Bill came back and he bought
a Jeep and I learned to drive in a Jeep. So he was more a father like
growing up for me than all my uncles, because I turned out to be the
only boy at that time in the family. See, all the others were girls. So I
used to ride a truck with my Uncle Clarence. He had a trucking
business. So he takes me along because, you know, I like to be alone
driving. So I drive these huge trucks with him.
BENELI:
And he was a truck driver?
CHAN:
U-huh, finally he owned about four huge trucks and he had his own
maintenance station and he competes for work in the valley where
hauling corn, wheat, asparagus and pear and stuff like that. Or when I
was little, when he was driving, then I used to sit along with him. He
had two girls so he didn’t have a boy. They kind of got jealous of me
going all the time. So I got brought up by my uncles. Early, I learned
how to shoot and things like that, safely. They always taught me how
to be safe.
147
BENELI:
Uncle Clarence taught you that?
CHAN:
Yeah, Uncle Clarence, Uncle Bill taught me some and Uncle Chester
taught me some shotguns where we used to go hunting with them.
Three thirty at night we would trudge out to Stanton Island. These
ridges on the water, sit in a fifty five gallon bell, squeezing, shaking in
there waiting for the sun to rise, for the ducks to come by.
BENELI:
Did you ever catch anything?
CHAN:
Oh yeah, we’d get some but it seems like not worth it sitting there.
Except, you know, three thirty at night, empty hand, let’s cook us
breakfast first and I had breakfast.
BENELI:
Did you bring the ducks home and grandma would cook them?
CHAN:
Yeah. Grandma would take the feathers and use it for making pillows,
downs. And they would [unclear] the ducks, too tough otherwise.
Geese too. Pheasant, quail. Yeah, he used to truck for the Jensen
Ranch, a huge ranch by the Jensen family. It’s on the other side of the
meadow. And so when he takes his truck there to load he got
permission to hunt and for me to go with him. So here’s this little guy
with a sixteen gauge shotgun, single shot.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
Sometime I’d get blue in the face, little guy with a big gun. So I
walked a long there. And we’d all go fishing on the levee because the
148
farmer’s just down there. You can get down there and fish for striped
bass. And boy you’d be surprised at how much striped bass there used
to be.
BENELI:
And this was along the river?
CHAN:
Well Tyler Island, that way. There’s a lot. But we used to go to the
French track and rent the boat there and there’s a [unclear] and Uncle
Bill and I got plenty of pictures there too. You should see some of the
fish, huge!
BENELI:
I’d love to look at that. Thank you, Gene. [Chan shows Beneli
pictures around the room, audio from this tour follows].
CHAN:
But huge striped bass.
BENELI:
And grandma was just lucky to have you guys around! To bring home
all this lovely food.
CHAN:
Yeah we had fish all the time. Had enough, too much, in fact. So they
had to make these salted fish. And they used to sashimi, she’d make
sashimi. Sliced thin, put it on hot broth. But I always had to make
sure it’s cooked. I had a hard time with raw, I can’t do it. Like that.
But it’s different. So I thought I was really sheltered when I went out
in the world here. First thing, City College got exposed there and see
what’s going on. I took aeronautics and there weren’t too many
Orientals in our aeronautics either. But I got along real fine. The
149
instructors, they were fine. We had a flying club there and I learned
flying lessons there. I fixed the airplane there so I end up the President
of the club. I fixed the airplane and I flew the airplane.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
But I didn’t tell me mother I was going up.
BENELI:
She would have worried.
CHAN:
Yeah, there’s no way she’d let me do it. So I already learned how to
putt around a little bit and I was real good with the instructors too
because I helped teach their class sometimes. But the thing that
bothered me a little bit was when I graduated and I had signed up for
the service but you had to wait for your class. And it was like an
academy you go into, so I was trying to get a job, so I was top of my
class. They sent me to try to get an interview at Patterson Aircraft.
Nobody talked to me. They sent me to the craft dusting place where I
fixed the airplane for them. Nobody talked to me. I used to fly with
them! [Unclear] I used to take off from there all the time. And I used
to fix their planes all the time. And I went [unclear], he taught me
there too. I’m trying to remember his name now. His wife taught me
cross country, Craft duster, Harvey Mays. There’s another one called
Jack Cameron, and I used to fly them. What I did was after class the
instructor gets certain jobs out in the field here and I’d go fix it. I do
150
the hundred hour check or fix their bummed out wheel or tune their
engine. Things like that. So I did that through City College.
BENELI:
And you got paid for that work?
CHAN:
Uh, I got paid in flying time. [Unclear] took me flying cross country
too, that guy that has some kind of flying [unclear] there. Because I
worked on his plane. So I didn’t get paid but I got paid in flying time
so that’s how I learned my flying first, without my mama knowing.
BENELI:
Gene, thank you for sitting with me today. Your information has been
so interesting and so important.
CHAN:
It’s a different story than you’re used to seeing. And everybody says I
should write it and get it out but time just flies by.
BENELI:
Yeah. Well this is an important step toward getting your story
preserved.
CHAN:
Yeah, somebody said, “record it”, like the Smithsonian would put it on
a CD in their file in the Library of Congress. One person said I ought
to do that. Because it’d be gone. Because nobody talks about it. And
this is just what I feel about it and what I sense, see? Different. But
like I said, my dad got along well with all the Caucasians real well.
And you couldn’t believe that that store could be that busy at that time.
Because there’s no big Raley’s or anything at that time. And when the
151
big store opened, it took away a lot of business because they’re a
newer store and the same butcher. That’s what bothered us at that
time. Because they did it without telling us.
BENELI:
Just one day there was a new store?
CHAN:
Yeah, the butcher wanted to work ‘till the day they opened! And in the
meantime he’s telling customers that he’ll work down there! But that’s
the start of the decline there because all the big stores-
BENELI:
About when would you say that was?
CHAN:
Uh, that was, I was in high school. I worked sometimes there this
Sunday, sometimes this Sunday. Sunday I worked by myself because
Sunday you can’t sell meat before you can sell lunch meat. One
Sunday I sold eight hundred dollar in lunch meat, just by myself.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
You know, you slice it and you stack it up and unless they order
something the day before with the name on it you can’t sell it on
Sunday. They can now but at that time it was a county ordinance that
you can’t sell meat on Sunday. You had to cover up all your case. So
you can’t sell it. So that one Sunday I worked, it’s just, eight hundred
dollar of lunch meat, that’s pretty good at that time. That’s pretty
good.
BENELI:
That’s very good.
152
CHAN:
Yeah. And the store typically sold more than a couple thousand on an
average a day. For a little store like that. That’s real good. It was
busy. We had customers from all over. That’s why Stewart Brown
and the Brown family, they shop there. The Banker’s family shops
there.
BENELI:
Now, your father’s store, what happened to it after this new-
CHAN:
Well, after the big store opened things kind of slowed down a little bit
and then all the shareholders getting old including my father then.
They all wanted their money every year and my dad wanted to improve
it, expand it. He asked me if I wanted to open a store with him. I said,
“no, I’m gonna go into aeronautics.” Boy he didn’t speak to me for a
long time. You know, most dads want their sons to follow them but I
went that way instead. But I did alright.
BENELI:
And how did he proceed, then, with the store?
CHAN:
Well they started to change partnership. Because some of the people
died off and some of the partners gave it to their sons. One of them,
like Peter Law, he’s a Cal graduate, Ping is a Cal graduate, you know.
But he have to go to Locke to work. See he can’t get in. Maybe not
obvious but that’s what it is. That’s why I said I didn’t find much of it
until I tried to get a job and then when I finished the air force I have
problems there and that’s why I got back out.
153
BENELI:
Did you hear other people going through similar experiences when
they left the community, realizing, maybe it was tougher out there than
they’d expected?
CHAN:
Well once they left there’s not too many I keep contact with.
BENELI:
I wonder if yours was-
CHAN:
Like Harry was younger than I am. Harry was, I think below my
sister’s age. Harry Sen. He did well up here in Sacramento and he’s
been out and open a lot.
BENELI:
Because you talk about the racial tension that you’d experienced and
that you really were sheltered from for the majority of your life but
then that you –
CHAN:
Well then
BENELI:
Right. Because then you were forced to experience it.
CHAN:
Well then you see the bathroom and say, “what do I do?”
BENELI:
And now do you think that this was a unique experience or do you
think other people experienced similar stories?
CHAN:
Well I know a lot of other people tried to get in the air force, sign up
for flying and never got close to it. They somehow gets diverted away
when they sign up. At least three or four of them, you know, people
that I admire, I used to fly models with them. They’re aeronautical
154
inclined; wasn’t able to get it. They got in the tank core, they got into
navigator, pilot. So he’s the only one I know that got into the fighter
pilot but he had to the Chinese government. I got into pilot and I got
into fighter training but I ran into problems. I remember the instructor
that wont shake my hand. And he was fresh out of Korea, a Caucasian
that had problems there. I found out he had problems. He was so
nervous. That he shouldn’t be an instructor. And somehow, I don’t
know why he, right away, immediately when I got in he wouldn’t
shake my hand I know something wrong. How come he didn’t fly me?
So on the first flight he flew the whole flight and when we landed he
wrote me up.
BENELI:
Wrote you up as though you had flown?
CHAN:
Yeah. Wrote me up that I… he didn’t want to [unclear]. Immediately.
So I got real nervous, tried again and I went up with the base
commander and I passed, without any instruction in that plane.
BENELI:
Oh, so when he wrote you up it was as though it was a bad thing. It
was as though you did not do well.
CHAN:
I didn’t qualify or didn’t fly right. So I had to go up with a base
commander. And I passed. He wouldn’t fly me till I was the last one
so I didn’t get much training. And the second flight in that plane, I had
never been in that plane. He tried to wash me out. They call it “wash
155
out.” But anyway I stuck with it and I stuck with it and I flew all over
Texas for a while. Next thing I know comes formation time. I got him
back. Same thing. [Laughing] So anyway I tolerated that. He got me
in trouble on that one. I think I saved his life. He’s so nervous but yet
he’d say, “Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it!” You know every time I
touch the stick and then finally we put it right in formation when they
were- Here I had no experience for them flying and not too much, I
mean solo around a lot. Then he had me fly number two from takeoff.
I had never flown in formation before. Sandwich stacking from the
ground up. We’d go roaring down the runway. We fly off the lead
plane and he says, “Everybody wheels up” and everybody wheels up.
[Phone ringing] [Unclear] He told me to tuck it in and I tuck it in.
And then he says, “Tuck it in!” and I tuck it in. And then we were up
about three thousand feet maybe and he says “tuck it in!” and I says
“Jesus, I’m so close” but when I tried to do the next tuck in what
happened? I ran into [unclear] rom the next plane. So my plane went
wild. [Makes sounds of wild plane] like that. And I somehow
managed to slip between two planes and I called back but he had
passed out. So I come back around, call the flight that I’m coming in
so they make a run and I come flying in and he’s still out. As soon as I
almost got in place he woke up. [Yawn] Off the plane, write me up
again.
156
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
So that was probably my last straw. But I had one more chance and I
flunked it. I had to go up with the Assistant Base Commander for
formation and I had to lead. I led the flight. I did everything he told
me okay. I was feeling jubilant inside. And he said “okay, take me
home”, so I signaled for all the planes to be on one side so we can line
up to land. As I come landing down the strip nobody said anything.
As I rounded out I looked, “oh no!” The wind changed one eighty
since I left. I just gave up right at that point. I could have taken off
and tell them to go around. I might have saved myself but the wind
changed direction from the tail and I looked at it wrong. And I had a
court marshal and I told him what happened but it’s his word against
mine. So I was offered the opportunity to either I can get out because
my contract says I can after the cadet training. Or go to the academy.
I had the choice to go to the air force academy. But I was so mad at
that time because of that. I chose to get out. So I spent a little time on
the ground and in another place where I worked in an office for about
four months then I got out. Then I went to school. But I went to the
graduation. I got invited by the class, one member of the class invited
me to the graduation so I’m not gonna graduate. It’s a very sad day for
me. And I went. And I was sitting there while they’re on the stage
and I had to sit at the table. I can’t go. And then the instructor that
157
fluked me came over and sat down. And said he was sorry. He said he
was having a bad time with his girlfriend at the time, and this is his
wife now. And he’s sorry and could he take me out to Round Robin
for Christmas. So he felt bad. But I went. So that was when I got so
mad I said “I want out” so I went to take aeronautic engineer.
And flying wasn’t much, when I got back there wasn’t much you can
do with it. I flew around when I went to flying club since I’m a
lifetime member. I flew the plane around but there’s not much you can
do with it. And then once you have children everybody gets after you
so I have to give it up. But then my job was very interesting. I’ve been
at Aerojet for thirty four years and [unclear] I worked on almost every
program there was. And I became kind of an expert in designing
rockets. Design and promotion and became kind of like a doctor,
[unclear] doctor. So I was involved in the shuttle when the shuttle
exploded, the first one. I was on a team, a blue ribbon team. And see
each one that went up after that I got one of their stickers.
BENELI:
It’s a very impressive career you’ve developed.
CHAN:
Yeah, see so the first missile that I saved was right here, [Chan shows
Beneli picture of missile] And see this one here?
BENELI:
You’re pointing to a picture.
158
CHAN:
That’s called the standard missile. It’s on every cruiser out there,
there’s a hundred of them in there. It’s a big [unclear] thing and its
shoots through the deck and it fires. They fire one every twenty
seconds or so and it can track seventeen targets at once.
BENELI:
Wow.
CHAN:
So I helped save that one and when I got there they blew up five. So I
have lots of [unclear] stories and when the shuttle blew up well, I
worked on the shuttle because we had a proposal to build it at Aeroject.
So we lost on a proposal because we proposed one large piece instead
of all little pieces. The little piece was blamed for the failure because
the connecting point, the chlorine gasket failed. So we bid on the new
one which is supposed to be the advanced shuttle for the space station
but the space station got smaller and smaller so they didn’t need us so
they laid off a whole bunch of people. But I didn’t have to go, see I
still have all the other programs I’m on and I just drive over to
Mississippi and the space Marshal’s space center.
BENELI:
It’s amazing that coming form a little, small town in Locke, California
where you felt so sheltered you’ve created this very –
CHAN:
But at work I just was okay, I got along with everybody. I go to all the
home parties, the department parties, drink the best [unclear] Got it
from my grandpa. See I got dimples; I can drink. But anyway I got
159
along, just somehow I was able to handle the solar rocket thing and
they said because I was Chinese; they invented gun powder, [laughing]
so I got involved with things that you wouldn’t believe because
somehow I had a knack for it and I was able to tell them what’s wrong.
And they said I was crazy, you know. But I proved that I was right.
So from that beginning of that [Unclear] which I salvaged they
wouldn’t fire my design ‘til the last one. And after that they would
have lost the contract before mine worked.
BENELI:
Wow, wow, what a story. Gene, thank you so much for having me in
your home today. You’ve been a wonderful narrator and I really
appreciate your perspective.
CHAN:
It’s a different perspective, I think. Because gee, you see the things
they write and it’s always generic with the first, second generation.
BENELI:
That’s right. Everybody has a very unique story. And I want to thank
you for yours.
CHAN:
Yeah. Now my mother got involved very early in the game with the
Locke visibility in 1979. See I have the old ones from her.
BENELI:
Yeah, let me look at those. Thank you.
160
Oral History Interview with
Ms. Connie King
For California State Parks
By Patrick Ettinger
Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer/Editor:
Patrick Ettinger
Professor of History, CSU Sacramento
Co-Director, Oral History Program, CSU Sacramento
B.A., Rice University, Houston, Texas
M.A., University of Houston
Ph.D., University of Houston
Interview Time and Place:
The interview session took place on January 11, 2007 at the home of Ms. Connie King in
Locke, California.
Transcribing/Editing:
Maya Beneli transcribed the interview audiotapes. Ms. Beneli checked the verbatim
manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for punctuation,
paragraphing, and spelling.
Tape and Interview Records:
The original tape recording of the interview was submitted to California State Parks.
161
Interview with Connie King
Interviewed by Patrick Ettinger
[Session 1, January 11, 2007]
[Begin Tape 1, Side A]
ETTINGER:
Today is Thursday, January 11th, 2007. My name is Patrick Ettinger
and I’m sitting in the home of Mrs. Connie King in Locke, California,
and we are conducting an interview for the Locke Oral History Project,
which is being undertaken on behalf of the California Department of
Park and Recreation.
Connie, maybe we should start, if you could just tell me a little bit
about where you were born and when.
KING:
I was born in Isleton, March 16, 1923.
ETTINGER:
I want to know a little bit about your family background, so tell me
about your father. When and where was he born?
KING:
My father was born in China and he came over to California looking
for gold in the late, I think 1840 or 1850. And he came over and later
on he went back to China and was going to bring my mother over, but
they have a hard time bringing her over until 1922. So he came back
because my mother can’t come back with him the first time and he
come back to San Francisco, he came back by himself. He was a cook
162
for the boat that he came over from China. I forgot the name of the
boat now.
ETTINGER:
About when was that then the second time he came back?
KING:
Have to be late 1800 something.
ETTINGER:
Yes.
KING:
And then so I think he went back to China twice and then both times he
went back there a daughter was born and she died, and then the second
time he went back my brother was born and he lived to come over to
United States in 1922. My father went back there and took my mother
and my brother over here. When he went back to bring my mother
over, my mother got pregnant again and have a little boy and came
over to San Francisco. He was nine months old and he caught the
influenza, you remember the influenza, and he die on the boat.
So, of course, they have to go to Angel Island and my father get to go
into the Chinatown in San Francisco, but my brother, fourteen years
old, and my mother was stuck in Angel Island. So my father got
somebody to bail them out and then they moved to the town of Isleton.
So I was born in 1923.
ETTINGER:
Had you father been in Isleton previously?
KING:
Yes. At that time the Delta was open to the people, see. In fact the
town of Locke was built in 1915 and most of the immigrants that come
163
over from China, they all end up in the Delta, Isleton, Walnut Grove,
Courtland, and then Locke, see. Locke was built in 1915. And then
Ping Lee’s [phonetic] father, Lee Ping, was the one that started the
town of Locke with several men working with him to build the town of
Locke.
The town of Isleton was burnt down in 1926. And so I have an uncle
and aunt that live in Locke, then so we move up here for a while. I was
about three years old. And then my uncle got my father a job in a farm
close by to Locke and so we live in that ranch for several years.
Then in 1928 my father decided to go farming himself, so he got the
farm open across the river at— Gosh, I forgot the name of the island
now. But anyway, of all things we went into the— Gosh, I don’t
remember names anymore.
ETTINGER:
That’s okay. Are you thinking of a crop or a place?
KING:
No, it’s the stock, the stock collapse.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Oh, the stock market collapse, the crash, right, in 1929, yes.
KING:
Yes. So he lost everything and then so he tried to go back to Isleton,
but he lost a house that was burned down, the whole Chinatown was
burned down. So he went and borrowed lumber to build the house. So
he did build a house, a two-story house.
ETTINGER:
Back in Isleton?
164
KING:
Back in Isleton and we all moved back to Isleton. Then it took him
twenty years to pay back the $500 that he borrowed to build the house.
Mr. Gardner [phonetic] was very kind to my father and he didn’t push
it, he said every time he come over to collect the ground rent, we all
have to pay ground rent in the old days because we didn’t own the
land.
ETTINGER:
Right.
KING:
So he saw all of us sitting there hungry and everything, so he said,
“I’m not going to push you to pay me, because I can see you can
hardly manage to support your children,” because I have two brothers
and a sister, see, after me.
ETTINGER:
Who was the landowner there in Isleton?
KING:
Mr. Gardner.
ETTINGER:
Oh, Mr. Gardner, right.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Right, right. So when you came down when you were three. You
probably don’t remember much from Isleton before you were three.
When you came down did you stay in Locke before you went to this
ranch?
165
KING:
Yes, the house is still here. My aunt and my uncle that last live in the
house, it’s still there.
So I remember the Star Theater. They had the opera in those days and
my aunt took me over there to see the opera thing and later on
somehow it didn’t go well because of depression and people don’t have
the money to go so finally they have movie. So she also took me to see
a movie when I was eight years old. Then in those days it’s all
Chinese in Locke, everybody is happy and we have a celebration for
New Year and then they have parade and then they have lion dance and
everything. And all the labor is very cooperative, they work together,
and whichever house you go, in there we always have fun and laugh
and things like that.
So then later they built a church in Locke in 1936, I think. I remember
the day that they have a dedication. I told my mother that it’s a party.
She said the church really was built right across where we were living
in that house, and then I met most of the missionaries. In fact, when I
came here in 1949 I married Tom King and I lived here in 1949, and I
worked with those missionaries. In fact, I still have contact with two
of them. I was Santa Claus for a few times. In church most of the
women go to church, the men all working, see, so they need a Santa
Claus, one Christmas they need a Santa Claus and nobody wanted to be
it, so I volunteered. So not only I became a Santa Claus that night, the
166
next day I stand on the highway and wish everybody happy new year
and merry Christmas, because I love people. I like to make people
laugh and things like that, see.
ETTINGER:
That sounds like it was a perfect job for you.
KING:
Yes. So I was Santa Claus two or three times.
ETTINGER:
I want to go back a little bit to ask about your mother. So your mother
married your father in China and obviously they had some kids, came
over. Had she much education?
KING:
No, in those days women don’t get a chance to go to school. So she
can’t read or write in Chinese, but my father know. My mother came
over here and she was unhappy for awhile, but later on after we were
born then she have to go out and work because of depression. We
were so poor that my father and my mother have to go out of the town,
like left us alone at our home and they go out to other cities to look for
work. So I was about nine or ten years old and I took care of my two
brothers and my sister and I cook for them, I clean house, and I wash
clothes, and I pack their lunch to go to school and make sure they go to
school. So my mother come home maybe once a month to check on us
to see if we need any money to buy food. Sometimes we don’t have
money so we go to bed without food.
167
It was really bad in those depression times and I never forget those
days. But yet I can manage to feed my brothers and my sister. In
those days we buy weenies, we don’t know what hot dog were, but we
buy weenies, ten cents a pound, weenies ten cents a pound, or pork, ten
cents a loaf of bread, and ten cents for a quart of milk. I managed to
use those things instead of having hot dogs, which we don’t know what
hot dog were in those days. So I sliced the weenie and stir fry with
Chinese vegetable and we manage to have at least one dish or
vegetable with meat in it to eat with our rice.
ETTINGER:
Did you have a little garden? This is in Isleton? Did you have a little
garden?
KING:
Yes, my mother have a garden started so that’s where the vegetables
come from, see. For sandwiches we couldn’t afford bologna or
anything like that for sandwiches. I make sandwiches for my brothers
and sister for lunch when we go to school, I sprinkle sugar on the bread
and then put on both pieces of bread with sugar and then I cover and I
wrap up with a piece of paper and then put in the bag. And then
sometimes we have a fruit, sometimes we don’t. This was our lunch
for when we were going to school.
ETTINGER:
I should have asked, what was your father’s name and your mother’s
name?
168
KING:
My father is called Tom Jung [phonetic]. You know, they use the last
name first, see. I was named Constance Tom. See, my father is known
as Tom Jung. And my mother Ng Shee, N-g, S-h-e-e. That’s her
maiden name. A Chinese woman always uses that.
ETTINGER:
And tell me the names of your siblings, please, that you grew up with
there in Isleton.
KING:
Okay. Now the brother came over from China when he was fourteen,
knowing the depression he had to leave home to get job in the city. In
fact, he worked in a restaurant in Sacramento as a busboy and whatever
money he make, he try to send some money home once in a while to
make sure that we get fed.
And then I was born in 1923. I have a brother William Tom born in
1924. And then I have a brother Warren Tom. There was a boy born
between William and Warren and he died. And then after Warren
another boy was born and he also passed away, and then my sister. I
think total my mother have nine children, but only five of us lived.
ETTINGER:
What was your sister’s name?
KING:
May Tom.
ETTINGER:
And when was she born?
KING:
I think 1928.
169
ETTINGER:
So you were taking care of—
KING:
All of them.
ETTINGER:
— when you were nine and ten years old?
KING:
Yes, and then I start to work for a Filipino family when I was child
trying to help my mother out because whatever income she make is not
enough for four children, see, and then we have to pay ground rent and
all that, and then we have to pay electricity and water bill. So I went to
work I think $25 a month and I go to work at six o’clock in the
morning, get their laundry done, and then they have a baby and then I
bathe the baby and make the milk in a bottle and then I go to school.
And then after I get off school I go home and take the clothes in and
then iron the clothes, I cook the meal, and then I go home and take care
of my brothers and sister. It was a big job for me, but I learned to be a
mother in a way, see.
ETTINGER:
At an early age.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
This was a Filipino family?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
In Isleton?
KING:
Yes.
170
ETTINGER:
Very interesting. What language was spoken at home?
KING:
Cantonese. Cantonese. My mother don’t speak English so we speak
Chinese all the time, and that’s why none of us lost that language
because even when I move up to Locke all the immigrant people living
here don’t speak English so I interpret for them. I take them to doctors
and I collect rent for Mr. Lo [phonetic] from house to house to house.
So after a few years of collecting rent for Mr. Lo, I asked Mr. Lo, I say,
“You know I help you collect rent.” I said, “Can’t you sell me a piece
of land to build a house?” I said, “As you know the house I’m living in
is a garage, see.” I said, “You probably know that I went to try to buy
a house here, you wouldn’t sell me the land, so I can’t build a house. I
went to Walnut Grove across the river and tried to buy a house. I saw
three houses for sale, and so I chose the one I wanted and asked the
owner if I can buy the house. So he asked me if I’m Chinese. He said,
‘Well, if you’re Chinese I can’t sell it to you.’”
So three months later I saw a sign on the highway it said, “Five-acre
farm for sale.” So I told my husband, I said, “Well, maybe we can buy
that ranch down there, and we’re quite a way from the white people,
maybe we can buy that ranch.”
So we went down there and I knock on the door and the man answered,
“What do you want?”
171
I said, “I saw your sign on the highway that this farm is for sale, and
we’re here to buy it.”
He said, “By any chance are you Chinese?”
And I know I lost it already. So when I come back my father asked
me, he said, “Well, did you get it?”
I said, “No.”
He said, “Well, I tell you what, I give you my three-car garage.”
This is part of the three-car garage.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really, the room we’re sitting in here?
KING:
Yes. So we built this. I had the washroom and a toilet in this room
and this become a family room, and then we add the kitchen, and then
we add a little dinette and we add the living room. My father-in-law
used to be the slot machine king, he owned all the slot machines up on
the Delta and then he used to store the slot machines upstairs. So I
convert that into two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. I’ve been
here since— Well, fifty-eight years now.
ETTINGER:
That story you just told me of looking for the farm was that around
1950 or ’51 or when?
KING:
’49, ’50.
ETTINGER:
Right when you got here?
172
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Yes. Wow. I just want to drift back a little bit more to your parents
and growing up, it’s very interesting. It sounds like it was a difficult
transition moving here. Did your father get to the point where he
learned English?
KING:
He spoke a little English and then he got a job as a cook in the
[unclear]. And then my mother work in the cannery. In those days
they get very cheap wages, the Chinese get 25 cents an hour, the white
people get 35 cents an hour. So I start to work in the cannery also,
besides working with the Filipino family, and I got a job working in
the cannery also.
ETTINGER:
In Isleton?
KING:
In Isleton.
ETTINGER:
In Isleton, yes. Isleton also had a sort of Chinese section to it, right, a
Chinatown like Walnut Grove.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What was that compared to Locke? What was Isleton’s Chinese
community like? Were there grocery stores?
KING:
Oh, yes, they have grocery store and restaurant. In fact, the Chinatown
in Isleton is more open than Locke, see.
173
ETTINGER:
Open how?
KING:
The street is, you know, that Chinatown, they have a Japanese town
and a Chinese town. It’s more or less controlled by Mr. Gardner.
ETTINGER:
Okay.
KING:
So it’s clean and it’s always, they have different restaurant, they have
grocery store, and they have other shops, you know. I think there’s,
let’s see, one, two, about four restaurant in Chinatown, and then
Japanese also have a restaurant in the Japanese town. We get along
real well.
In fact, when we were kids we can’t go to school with the white
children, we have to go to a segregated school. The Filipino, the black
children, the Japanese, and the Chinese go to one school and across the
way is the white school, see. It’s a beautiful school. I think it’s still
standing in Isleton right now. It’s a big building, very, very beautiful
with shrubs and lawn. And Oriental school, we call it Oriental school,
nothing but a gray building and no lawn, but gravel ground. We have
the same teacher as the one that teach the white children. We were
treated very good, but we didn’t understand why we couldn’t go to
school with the white children, see. We couldn’t understand that
because we were too young to know the problem that the Chinese have
to, and the Japanese have to be segregated from the white kids.
174
But after school I play with the white children. That’s where I learned
to play tennis and we play touch football and all those things with the
children, but we weren’t treated badly, you know.
In fact, I used to go out and pick cucumbers and sell to the white
homes, five cents apiece, a cucumber, just to get a few cents to go
home and buy a loaf of bread to take home.
ETTINGER:
Right. You said you had the same teachers as—
KING:
As the white children.
ETTINGER:
Did they just have different sessions?
KING:
Yes, they come over to our school, see. And those teachers were very,
very good to us and I always remember them because they treat us
very, very nice, yes.
ETTINGER:
I meant to ask, and this is wonderful, by the way, everything you’re
telling me, and I’m hopping back and forth because I’m trying to catch
different things. When you were growing up your father and your
mother were traveling around, they were picking crops?
KING:
Well, they worked in Vallejo, they go out to sort fruits over there, or
my father go and work in the farm pruning trees and picking fruits and
stuff like that.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Would they travel together or sometimes separately?
175
KING:
Well, they go together. Somebody from Vallejo come and pick them
up. See, my father and mother were not the only one, there were other
people that go with them, see.
ETTINGER:
Right. So a contractor would come and take them to a job?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
But they would be gone for weeks at a time sometimes?
KING:
Yes, weeks. Until the season over, but my mother worry about us, so
she get to come home once a month.
ETTINGER:
Were either one of your parents religious, did they practice religion in
your household when you were growing up?
KING:
Well, my father and my mother always so busy they never get to go to
church or anything like that, see. And I think most of the parents in
those days, because of depression, they all have to go to work,
otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to buy food with. They all have
a rough time. Yes, it’s very, very sad time.
Sometimes the missionary from the Locke church go down to Isleton
and they use my mother’s downstairs, my mother and father have a
two-story building, and they used the downstairs to teach us how to
read a Bible in those days. I still remember the first one, Ms. Skip
[phonetic] and she was the first one down there and she helped us a lot.
And then we met Ms. Joyce [phonetic]. Ms. Joyce is the one that got
176
all of the children in Isleton, in fact on the Delta, out [unclear] and they
all have their tonsils removed. Ms. Joyce took us to the county
hospital and we all have our tonsils removed. Now we found that we
shouldn’t have removed those tonsils that the tonsils are supposed to
protect us in some ways.
ETTINGER:
So she was doing that, she was a missionary, but she was also—
KING:
Yes. And then she get clothes for us, you know, from—I don’t know
where she get it from, but anyway whenever she come over once a
month she’d bring us clothes, and she’d bring us flour and rice and
things for us to cook with, you know, and vegetables and stuff like
that.
ETTINGER:
Sometimes she would stop by when your parents were gone?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Was she trying to Christianize your parents or were they already
Christian?
KING:
No, because my mother when they speak English is very hard for her
to understand. But I did learn to read a Bible and then later on I help
her teach the younger one to read a Bible and things like that. Then
when I move up here my two children joined the church, the Locke
church. By that time I met several missionaries already and they were
very, very good to us, very good to us.
177
ETTINGER:
Was the Isleton Chinese community all from the same region of China,
was it a dialect—
KING:
Yes, they all come from South China. In fact, some of them come
from the same village. My mother have a friend that she grew up in
China, when they came to United States they both end up in Isleton. It
was just like a homecoming for them, you know.
ETTINGER:
I know that there was a difference between the Walnut Grove Chinese
community and the Locke one, and I was wondering was Isleton—
KING:
We don’t have that.
ETTINGER:
No.
KING:
No.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Was Isleton, Locke of course, and we’ll talk about Locke in a
few minutes, had gambling halls and a lot of attractions for the
itinerant workers.
KING:
Well, it’s more or less it’s a recreation place for the Chinese that were
on the farm.
ETTINGER:
Right.
KING:
See, it’s just like the Chinese who built the levee they have to go to
work early in the morning and they come back late at night and they
178
try to get some food, and that’s why there’s so many restaurants open
[unclear]. In those days you can buy a dinner for fifty cents, see.
ETTINGER:
I guess my question is was Isleton, was the Chinese community in
Isleton like Locke, did it have gambling, did it have those sorts of
activities, or was it not like Locke?
KING:
No, they have gambling houses and then Locke also have it, but it’s
more like a recreation place for the men that come home from work
something to occupy them, to give them a little pleasure. They gamble
just for pleasure and in those days to play was very, very cheap, you
know.
ETTINGER:
And a distraction from a hard life.
KING:
Yes. And then most of the gambling houses have a couple of men that
read letters for the workers and then help them write letters to send
back to China. If they have extra money they can send money back
there. They’re the ones that helped them, see. So it’s more like a
recreation place for them than a gambling house, but it’s more a place
for them to read the newspaper and play music.
ETTINGER:
To gather.
KING:
And then write letters and then also have a game to entertain
themselves.
ETTINGER:
And have tea and share news.
179
KING:
Have tea, yes.
ETTINGER:
Yes. It sounds like it was really kind of— And my question is, was
that also in Isleton?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
There were places like that in Isleton?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
There were places like that in Walnut Grove?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And in Locke?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
As a sort of social center. Because did Isleton have a lot of bachelors?
KING:
Oh, yes, most of the bachelors that—The Chinese that come over here
to work for the levee or a planter, start the agriculture in California,
they all bachelors because they cannot bring their wives over in those
days. Until 1922, that’s when my mother came over, because she can’t
come over before that, see.
ETTINGER:
And so that community down there, your family was a little unusual in
the sense that your mother, that you were a family and that your
mother was here and had children.
180
KING:
But there’s other family that done this same thing as my parents. They
all came from the village in China and they end up in Isleton, end up in
Walnut Grove, and Locke and Courtland, see. In other words, the
bachelor can go home and bring their wives over, see. Yes. But when
they built the railroad it’s all young men and they worked real hard
building the railroad. A lot of them died from the way I heard that
5,000 Chinese men died building it, that railroad.
ETTINGER:
Yes, I know the death rates in the mountains were really, really high
for the Chinese.
Did your siblings, you had a brother that was working in Sacramento in
the restaurant, were your siblings also working?
KING:
Yes, they start to work early, too. My brother Bill, William, he was a
waiter to put himself through college, see. By that time my older
brother got older and he got married and he started a business up in
Grass Valley and Nevada City, see, and he pass away 1998. He passed
away in 1998.
ETTINGER:
Now, you said that your father, that you lived in Isleton and then he
came down near Locke and worked on a ranch for a while, and then he
worked as a sharecropper or started his own farm?
KING:
He started a farm himself across the river.
ETTINGER:
From Locke?
181
KING:
Yes, from here.
ETTINGER:
But he still had the house in Isleton?
KING:
Well, after the depression is over I said he had to borrow money to Mr.
Gardner—
ETTINGER:
To build?
KING:
—to get the lumber to rebuild the house and he died in Isleton.
ETTINGER:
Okay.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Okay. And how long did your parents live?
KING:
My father lived to be eighty-eight and my mother lived to be sixtyeight. My mother worked in the cannery packing all her life.
ETTINGER:
What do you remember about the cannery packing when you were
[unclear]?
KING:
Well, the cannery that we worked was run by Chinese and so the
Chinese women, all the immigrant mothers, women all worked in the
cannery. That’s the only job they can get because they don’t speak
English. So they worked in the cannery year after year, year after year.
They have a spring season and the summer season and then they have a
fall season and they all work together. This is the only way they can
support and raise the family.
182
ETTINGER:
And you did that work some seasons as well?
KING:
I work. I got a pretty good job because I speak English, and I sort out
things, like they bring the asparagus in and I sort out the asparagus and
discard the bad ones.
ETTINGER:
The better grades and the lesser grades?
KING:
Yes, that’s true. Then I work in the lab testing the tomato to make sure
the tomato has no bugs in it. They send me to Stockton to the college
to learn how to do that. I went to school for two weeks to learn how to
tell, you know, they give you things to do to test it.
ETTINGER:
When was that around, in the thirties, depression, or the forties? Or
how old were you?
KING:
No, that’s in the forties.
ETTINGER:
When you’d gotten more high school aged?
KING:
I didn’t finish high school because I was working in a restaurant and
the Chinese custom is to— My mother believed in the Chinese custom
to arrange a marriage for me, and I was only sixteen years old. My
boss that run the restaurant he told my mother that he’ll help my family
if she let me marry him, see. So I told my mother, I said, “I’ve got to
finish high school.” But war is coming and the guy was afraid that he
might have to go to war, so he wanted to get married right away. So I
didn’t have any choice, I have to listen to my mother, see. So I got
183
married and then he didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He said he
would help my mother raise my brothers and sister. After we got
married he moved me down to Los Angeles.
ETTINGER:
Let me just flip this tape over.
He moved you down to Los Angeles?
KING:
Yes, and then he was a very jealous person. He was twenty years older
than I was. I’m a very friendly person to everybody. If I talk to a man,
our next door neighbor, he thinks there’s something going on. So I get
abused very badly. I left him three times, but my mother said, “You
have to go back, you have to go back.”
And then I got pregnant with my daughter and then my mother said,
“The little girl need a father, you have to go back.” Finally after six
years I couldn’t take any more beating up, so finally I told my mother
that I can’t go back. So my daughter was only about two years old,
two or three years old, so I divorce him. I was the laugh of the town. I
was pointed at and laughed at because I was first Chinese woman to
get a divorce on the Delta. I was really laughed at, but I just kept on
going and then a few years later I met Tom. I knew Tom when we
were kids, because I live in Locke for a couple of years.
ETTINGER:
Right.
KING:
So I married him in 1949 and move up to Locke.
184
ETTINGER:
Wow, you were sixteen when you got married and moved to Los
Angeles. That must have been very hard.
KING:
Very hard because I don‘t know anybody, I don’t know what to do. I
just go to movie every day.
ETTINGER:
Did you live in the Chinatown of Los Angeles?
KING:
No, he got an apartment near the white people. So there’s no Chinese
near me. So anyway, after five or six years of beating up I can’t take it
anymore.
ETTINGER:
Did he run a restaurant down there?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
So you came back up here with your daughter. Your family was still in
Isleton?
KING:
Yes, and then I start working at different places to support and raise
my daughter.
ETTINGER:
You were about twenty-two or twenty-three years old?
KING:
Yes, something like that.
ETTINGER:
So did cannery work, restaurant work?
KING:
Yes, I did that. I even worked in the cleaning, the dry goods, ironing.
In the shop they have a place to clean clothes, dry clean clothes shop, I
worked there for a while.
185
ETTINGER:
This must have been during World War II?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What do you remember about the Japanese internment in Isleton?
KING:
It was very sad. I was there to see them all when the bus came to pick
up the Japanese people and here they’re selling their things, an icebox
you can buy for $10. The other things, you know, they sell $5, things
like that. And the houses they sell real cheap just to get some money
to leave the town. It was very sad and everybody was crying, we all
cried for them, and we just hate to see them go. It was very, very sad.
So when they leave we all start waving our hands and crying, and some
of them came back after the war. I was very happy to see them.
ETTINGER:
You had some friends, Japanese friends?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
I also know that during this time, of course, in the 1930s Japan has
invaded China, so there was tension between Chinese and Japanese.
KING:
Yes, but us kids we don’t know the difference, we still play with the
Japanese kids. In fact, I have a friend, a Japanese girl that I invite her
to stay overnight with us and I go and stay overnight with her and she
learned to taste Chinese food and I learned to taste Japanese food. We
were friends up to in our thirties, see. Because we didn’t know the
186
difference, just because there’s a war in China that doesn’t [unclear] it
doesn’t affect us at all, see.
ETTINGER:
You mentioned, I just wanted to say a few more things about your
childhood because it’s interesting and then move up to your adulthood
in Locke.
What do you remember doing for fun? You worked so hard as a young
girl, but kind of pastimes or hobbies?
KING:
Well, I think the only thing that I got [unclear] when I was young is go
to a movie, ten cents to go to a movie. You know we paid ten cents.
ETTINGER:
In Isleton there was a—
KING:
Yes, there was a movie house and we go to a movie. Not often, but my
girlfriend and I we always go in the daytime, ten cents to get in there. I
love to play tennis. I do a lot of knitting, in those days my mother knit,
so I learned to knit, and I do like that. I never learned to dance. I
never date anybody. After my divorce I never date anybody. I didn’t
date anybody even before I marry my first husband, because we were
very restricted about those things.
ETTINGER:
Your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to date?
KING:
Yes, yes.
ETTINGER:
You might have wanted to date, but—
187
KING:
Well, I never think about it. I never think about it, see.
ETTINGER:
And your parents were very open about who you could play with in
terms of other children, though?
KING:
Yes, we have no problem. I learn to play to jacks and I learned to play
tennis, and we played touch football with the boys, and I go fishing
with the boys. We go look for pollywogs back in the slough in back of
Locke and Isleton, and we look for frogs. In fact, I learned how to fry
frogs.
ETTINGER:
What about holidays? What holidays when you were growing up
were—
KING:
Well, holidays in those days my parents doesn’t observe Christmas
because they can’t afford it, of course. Observe Christmas or
Thanksgiving. I remember my cousin, one year he brought a turkey
home for us to have for Thanksgiving. My mother never cooked a
turkey before, so he cook it like chicken, he chopped the turkey up and
cook it like cooking a chicken, see. My first cousin when he gave us
the turkey he laughed like crazy, because he said, “You’re not
supposed to chop it, you’re supposed to roast it.” By the time I became
fourteen, fifteen years old I learned to roast a turkey, and then I learned
to make pies, pumpkin pies. Very simple, we just have yam and turkey
and, of course, rice, and we have Chinese rice stuffing for the turkey.
188
ETTINGER:
New Year’s, was Chinese New Year’s—
KING:
New Year my mother celebrate New Year and Chinese custom is first
thing we do when we get up is to serve our parents a cup of tea and to
wish them happy New Year. My mother she gave us a red envelope
with money in it, fifty cents, twenty-five cents, in those days. Then we
treasure those money for a while, we don’t know how to spend it yet,
because we never get money to go out to the store to buy things.
ETTINGER:
Right. Did your parents socialize much? On New Year’s would they
go see friends?
KING:
Yes, they always do, they always do. We visit each other and then we
bring food, candy or something to visit friends. And then friends
would come and visit us, you know.
Yes, I remember when my father was sick all of the ladies that all
became widows, they all came and sit with my mother when my father
was dying. They all come and try to keep my mother company and all
that, see.
ETTINGER:
Your father got ill early on?
KING:
Yes, yes.
ETTINGER:
What did he have?
189
KING:
Either heart problem or stomach problem, I forgot. I was there to take
care of him and the doctor was very nice, every time I call him up and
he will come and check my father. He said, “Now, what I want you to
do is this, to do this, to help him,” and I follow the instructions. I did a
lot of things like that to help the elderly, to take them to a doctor and to
dentist, and then I help them write letters and translate for them. Even
up here I took care of my father-in-law, my mother-in-law. My fatherin-law had a stroke and I even bathe him and take care of him. And
then some of the bachelors are getting older, they said, “You know,
you took care of your father, your mother-in-law, if I get sick will you
take care of me?”
I said, “Sure.”
So I did, I took care of quite a few bachelors here and when they die I
just out and ask for money and have him buried down in Rio Vista. I
get them a plot of land, bargain with Mr. Stewart [phonetic] to sell me
either a coffin or a plot of land. So I did that. Even to this day I still
go around there and put flowers on them. I think I’m probably the only
one that remembers some of those men that die and I bring flowers to
them on Father’s Day, then Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I
take flowers to all of them. I think I have thirty-five people to put
flowers on.
190
ETTINGER:
In Rio Vista?
KING:
In Rio Vista.
ETTINGER:
That’s where most— That’s where the Chinese are—
KING:
That includes my parents, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my
brother-in-law. I have two brothers-in-law down there. I bury all of
them, all of them. Then I have neighbors and I put flowers on them
also, you know. It’s amazing that this Chinese lady and my mother
was born and raised in the same village in China, they end up in
Isleton, and when they bury they’re only two feet apart of each other.
ETTINGER:
Oh, that’s nice.
KING:
Yes. And so her daughter come and put flowers on my mother and her
mother, and I also do the same thing for her mother and her children. I
love to do those things to help people.
ETTINGER:
Yes. You were a sophomore or junior in high school when you had to
leave?
KING:
I’m supposed to finish a senior year, and I didn’t get to go to senior
year, I didn’t finish.
ETTINGER:
So you made it through your junior year before you were married?
KING:
Yes.
191
ETTINGER:
Tell me about how you met Tom and how you guys ended up getting
married.
KING:
Tom is, I said, I used to Locke and I knew the family and I knew his
father real well. His father is the one that have all the slot machine and
whenever he go into different restaurant or grocery store or bar he go
and open up the slot machine and count the money and he’d ask me to
go help him wrap the money. So that’s how he know me real well.
Maybe his father was the one that talked to Tom anyway. He asked me
for a date and I went out with him and then later on, three years later,
because I wasn’t sure about getting married again after the first
marriage. I was frightened to get married again. So it took me three
years to make up my mind. So I marry him in 1949.
ETTINGER:
Had he been in the service?
KING:
Yes, he came back from the service and not too long after that he asked
me for a date.
ETTINGER:
So your daughter then was about ten?
KING:
My daughter was five, I think, five or six. Then my son was from
Tom.
ETTINGER:
The depression had been very hard in Isleton, very hard in Locke.
KING:
For everybody.
192
ETTINGER:
For everybody.
KING:
Everybody.
ETTINGER:
Let’s start talking about Locke a little bit, about when you— So you
moved back here to this house that we’re in now, or where did you stay
first before here?
KING:
When I came up to live in Locke after the Isleton, the Chinatown burn
down, we move up here. I show you the house later, it’s still there. It
belonged to my aunt, see.
ETTINGER:
And what street is that on?
KING:
It’s on K Street right across from the church.
ETTINGER:
Okay. That was in the twenties?
KING:
Yes, late twenties, early thirties.
ETTINGER:
Late twenties, yes. Now, when you came up and you got married
where did you first live?
KING:
Right here.
ETTINGER:
Okay, this was the first place.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And did you have a, with your second marriage, did you have a big
wedding or anybody—
193
KING:
No, we went up to Reno. My first husband I didn’t have a wedding
either. We couldn’t afford it for one thing, so we went to Reno. I
didn’t want a wedding on my second marriage because I don’t think
it’s right, you know, because it was my second marriage, so we went
up to Reno.
ETTINGER:
Was Tom about your age?
KING:
He’s nine years older.
ETTINGER:
Okay. And he had not been married before?
KING:
No.
ETTINGER:
And what was he doing for a living?
KING:
He worked for the government, he’s a radioman. He fixed radios for
the Army. He worked for the Army Depot in Sacramento.
ETTINGER:
Was his father still in the slot machine businesses when you married?
KING:
Well, he was in the slot machine until 1950 when the Governor Brown
shut down the slot machine and prostitution houses.
ETTINGER:
Yes.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Give me a picture real quickly of Locke in 1949, walking down the
street. It’s quieter than it was probably in the twenties and thirties,
194
some businesses have closed, there were fewer gambling halls. Tell
me about it right about the time you moved here.
KING:
Well, when I move here I was too young to notice, but I know that
there’s several restaurants and several grocery stores, and then there’s a
beauty shop, and there’s an herb store, and there’s a fish market, and
there’s an ice cream parlor, and pool hall. There’s, I think, four
grocery stores and four or five restaurants.
ETTINGER:
This is the first time, in the twenties?
KING:
Yes. I remember that part in the early thirties, see. I was too young in
the twenties, because I live at the ranch for awhile.
ETTINGER:
Okay, right. And several boarding houses?
KING:
Yes, I think, let’s see, I think, see, most of the buildings in Locke is
two-story, and most of the bachelors they rent the room upstairs, $2.50
a month to rent a room and live in the upstairs. And then there’s a big
boarding house, now the State Park bought the building, they’re going
to [unclear].
ETTINGER:
Sam’s [phonetic] Rooms, the Kuramoto family [phonetic].
KING:
Yes, they’re going to do a museum. See, downstairs was, I think that
building was built by Japanese people. Downstairs was a restaurant
and upstairs was the boarding house.
195
ETTINGER:
Oh, really.
KING:
And then there’s the Chinese school. As I said, every building in
Locke was open with some kind of business.
ETTINGER:
Did the boarding house, the Sam’s Rooms Boarding House, the
Kuramoto family one across the way there, did they cater to all kinds
of itinerant workers or were there mostly Japanese workers there or a
mix, do you remember?
KING:
I think they had both. I’m not quite sure, because I was too young to
understand those things, but probably there’s some Japanese men
living upstairs and also Chinese. But in the old days, if I remember
correctly, I was told that there were some Russian people who live
around here, see, around back Locke. That’s why Mr. Cowan
[phonetic] have a truck business back there. I think Mr. Cowan, O.K.
Cowan, he passed away and the son took over and I think he’s still
there.
ETTINGER:
And they were Russian?
KING:
I don’t know whether Mr. Cowan was Russian or not, but I was told
that there were Russian people living here. And there’s some Hindu
and some Filipino, too, see. They all looking for work, so they all
working for a farm, I guess, but I was too young to understand what
196
they’re doing, but anyway I heard that there were other kind of people
living behind Locke.
ETTINGER:
When your family lived on the ranch when would you visit Locke?
Would you come on Sundays?
KING:
Well, probably come on Sunday to visit my aunt and then also to buy
Chinese groceries.
ETTINGER:
And what kind of scene was that on a Sunday?
KING:
Well, you seen all the Chinese men sitting outside of the building, and
then there’s a lot of children playing around. It’s a very lively place,
very lively place, and everybody say hello to everybody and all the
kids playing out in the street. Even in Isleton we have the same thing,
you know, everybody’s a friend, and then there’s children playing with
each other and we don’t think of how poor our parents are. We never
realize how poor our parents going through during depression time, but
we know we don’t get enough food to eat and we don’t get enough
clothes. The missionaries bring us old clothes and we wear them, see.
ETTINGER:
Yes. Locke was almost entirely Chinese in the thirties?
KING:
Yes, I think there were a couple of Japanese families. I think one, the
boarding house was run by Japanese, and then a Japanese family have
a bakery and a restaurant.
ETTINGER:
Okay.
197
KING:
If I remember correctly. When I was a youngster we used to go in
there and get some biscuits, yes.
ETTINGER:
There’s a time in which, and maybe this is when you live here in the
late forties and fifties, when Locke becomes an attraction for sort of
whites that want to come for gambling or the prostitution. Do you
remember anything about that, the outsiders coming for gambling?
KING:
I think Japanese and Filipino they go to the gambling houses and the
prostitution houses, because I don’t know, because I mind my own
business. See, those are illegal things. So I was raising my children
and we go to church and we go to movies and things like that. So I’m
pretty sure some other people come, but I don’t pay much attention to
them.
ETTINGER:
Yes, the activity that was going on on the main street was a little
remote from where people were living back here?
KING:
No, we go out to main street, because all the stores are on the main
street, see.
ETTINGER:
Right.
KING:
There’s two or three grocery stores that we have to go shop up there
and then the ice cream parlor, we always go buy candy and ice cream,
and we go to the fish market to buy fish. We all go out on the main
street, but that doesn’t mean because there’s a gambling house and
198
prostitution, that doesn’t mean that we don’t go out there, see. We still
go out there, but we don’t pay much attention to it. It’s just like my
children, there’s a gambling house probably don’t even know
prostitution up there because they’re too young.
ETTINGER:
Right, right. And when you moved here in the forties there must have
been a lot of bachelors that were getting quite old.
KING:
Yes. Yes, that’s true, because they never get back to China, they can’t
bring their wives over here, so some of them even have children back
there. But they send money back home, they write letters back there,
see. Some of them don’t write, but other people, other men help them
write letters to go back to China.
ETTINGER:
It must have been very lonely for many of them.
KING:
Well, they learned to accept it. They have their own friends. They sit
out on the street on the benches and they talk. In fact, one of them that
I know real well, I took care of him for awhile, and then when he
passed away I called his son in San Francisco that his father pass away,
and then I went to the funeral. But I don’t know whether you believe
me or not, but do you believe in ghosts?
ETTINGER:
Yes.
KING:
Well, one night it was very hot and my husband already went to bed at
eleven o’clock and I decided to go out and take a walk, see. And that
199
gambling house is now called the museum right now, you’ve probably
seen it. And he was sitting there, see, and I walk up the street and then
there he was sitting there, he nod his head and I nod back, and I call his
name, but he didn’t say anything. I turned back and he got up and left.
I come home and told my husband, I woke him up, I said, “I just saw
Ho Ke [phonetic].”
He said, “What do you mean you just saw Ho Ke, he’s dead?”
I said, “That’s it, I just saw him.”
I see those things quite often. There’s an old man that used to, he draw
a Chinese word on the garden there, and one night, it was real hot that
day, so I watered the garden and that night I went out to shut the water
off, and I saw him doing—
ETTINGER:
Scribe or figures?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
He also had passed away?
KING:
Yes, he pass away way before I start the garden.
ETTINGER:
What was his name?
KING:
I forgot his name now, because it’s been too long.
ETTINGER:
Who else? Do you remember any others, because it’s kind of neat to
hear stories of these old, forgotten sort of, men that lived in this area?
200
KING:
And then I saw another man one time sitting on the porch next door,
and I forgot his name already. You know, my memory’s no good. As
you get older you lose the memory, see. And I just stand outside my
back door and I watch him, and he just look at me and I look at him
and we didn’t say anything to each other, but pretty soon I come back
into the house and then he got up and left.
I saw my mother and father several times in my house. First, I saw my
mother more often than my father. One time I talked to my mother, I
said, “How come you don’t come with Dad?” You know, I said, “Why
don’t you bring Pop sometime?” I said, “Go find him.” I said, “Go
find him.”
It took him two years. I was watching TV in the living room and here
come my mother and my father. I said, “Oh, my gosh, you two got
together, I’m very happy.”
I called my sister up and she says, “How come you always see those
things I don’t see?”
So I described the clothing they were wearing, see, and my sister said,
“Those are the clothes I bought for them, for Dad and Mom, for
Father’s Day and Mother’s Day,” and they were wearing it.
201
See, when they pass away, when they got buried they don’t wear their
clothes. We got them new clothes to be buried and here they come
back with the clothes they used to wear. See, it’s strange.
ETTINGER:
That’s fascinating. In the early fifties, when you were sitting here and
raising your own kids, how had Locke changed from, say, the 1930s,
what was different? They were starting to crack down on gambling
halls.
KING:
Well, the gambling hall didn’t close until 1950, but the children were
quite young yet. They all played together and all the family are very
cooperative, they help each other, and they celebrate all the holidays
and we have a lot of fun. I miss all that. See, there’s not many
Chinese here. There’s [unclear] Chinese here, but there are not many
that used to live here, see. And it seems strange that in the old days if
there’s a new baby born, to announce there’s a new baby born in the
home, the Chinese have a way of cooking something to celebrate the
birth, then we pass out to each family in town, see, and then the
parents, the mothers usually come over and see the new baby and then
they give you red envelopes with money in it and things like that. In
the old days we were one big family, we do things together, we work
together, we help each other together. Like a holiday we have a parade
and a lion dance and all the kids get involved in it. We don’t have that
anymore, we don’t have that anymore.
202
ETTINGER:
Did you belong to associations or cultural groups, organizations, in
Locke?
KING:
No, the only thing I belong to was the Baptist Church. I wasn’t
baptized as a Baptist. I was baptized as a Presbyterian, see. But I did
help a lot with the missionaries, they became friends instead of, you
know, I invite them to my house for dinner. In fact, one of them, I
don’t sleep until late, see, and then I saw her light on the church
upstairs and I call her and I said, “[unclear] how about having some
chow mein?” My gosh, she came over here with her bathrobe and
come over and we have chow mein at two o’clock in the morning. We
do things like that. I still have contact with her, she lives in New York.
ETTINGER:
Who is this?
KING:
Ms. Lanier [phonetic].
ETTINGER:
She’s a white missionary?
KING:
She’s a black lady, and I was very, very close to her. In fact, when my
son got married she came out and married my son.
ETTINGER:
When did you meet her?
KING:
When did I meet her? In the sixties, I think. Yes, in the sixties.
ETTINGER:
In the fifties when you were settling here were the residents still mostly
agricultural workers and packing house workers?
203
KING:
Well, most of the men, some of them pass away. We have quite a few
widows living here. And eventually the children grow up and they get
to buy land in 1952 and they start moving their parents out of here in
the sixties and the seventies. At that time I was still trying to get the
land from Mr. Locke, but he wouldn’t sell it to us.
But the day that, I think it was 2001, I heard that the town was being
condemned because we have sewer problem and water problem, and I
heard that, I said, “I’ve got to go to the board of supervisors and see
what’s going on.” So I went up there and talked to Donna Toley
[phonetic] and the board of supervisors and I said, “I heard a rumor
that the town of Locke was going to be condemned because of the
sewer problem. I know we have sewer problem. In fact, this morning
when I left home there’s no water and the sewer problem wasn’t
working, all plugged up.”
So they told me that that’s the reason they want to condemn the town
of Locke. And I told them, I said, “You cannot condemn the town of
Locke.” I said that “Locke is registered in Washington, D.C., it’s a
historical town. And I know we have problems here, but,” I said that,
“if you remember the Chinese helped build the railroad, the Chinese
built the levee, the Chinese start agriculture in California, and the
Chinese built the town of Locke. You cannot condemn the town of
Locke.” I said, “You have to save the town.”
204
And so Donna Toley asked me, “What do you want to do?”
“I want you to preserve the town of Locke in memory of all that the
Chinese did for California.”
So they voted. You should see me jumping up and down at the
building because I was so happy they finally decided to do it. So in
2004 they sell the land to us. I told Donna Toley that I’ve been
fighting for that for a long, long time. I’d like to buy this land before I
die, because I’ve been waiting too long, thirty years, see. So not thirty
years, over fifty years I’ve been fighting for the land. So in 2004,
December 11, I finally get to buy the land.
See the picture of me raising my hand. I was telling the Chinese
people that pass away, I told my husband to come down and help me
celebrate, because I said, “We finally got the land. We finally got the
land.”
ETTINGER:
That’s a beautiful picture. The early fifties brought some really big
changes to Locke because there was a crackdown on gambling and
prostitution, and then the change of— Was there a change of law that
allowed Chinese to buy land in California then?
KING:
Yes, 1952 they allow people to buy land, but Locke we couldn’t.
ETTINGER:
Not Locke, right, but elsewhere they could.
205
KING:
Not Locke. See, I talk to Mr. Locke several times because I help him
collect rent, see, so I said, “Why can’t you?”
He said, “Because this land is owned by the Locke family and the
family’s too big and not everybody agreed to sell.” So that’s what
happened.
ETTINGER:
Yes.
KING:
And then, of course, Clarence Chu [phonetic], he’s from Hong Kong,
and he bought the land from Mr. Locke in 1977.
ETTINGER:
This is great. Let me just switch my tape here. I hope my questions
aren’t hopping around too much, I’m just trying to—
KING:
Well, you know me, I talk from one thing to another.
ETTINGER:
That’s okay. Okay, you were talking about Clarence Chu.
KING:
So he bought the land in 1977 and he was going to make it like Hong
Kong, see, but the county doesn’t agree with that. See, the lot have to
stay the way it is and we cannot change it, see. He was going to build
different things in Locke to bring people into Locke, see. So he fight
for it for a couple years, but he didn’t get anywhere. So finally I talked
to him several times about getting the land, so finally he talked to the
county and so he sold the land to the county and the county sold the
land back to us. If it wasn’t for Clarence we wouldn’t have gotten the
land, see.
206
ETTINGER:
What did you think of his proposals when he first bought the land and
wanted to develop it, what did you think of it then, of his idea? Were
you favorable towards it?
KING:
Well, I didn’t say no and I didn’t yes, because I didn’t see the plans,
see, but I heard that they might improve the town of Locke. So I said it
might be a bad idea, but I didn’t know that he would fix it like
something like Hong Kong, see, I didn’t know that. But the county
told him that he cannot change Locke too much because it’s a
historical town, that’s why he couldn’t do anything. I know he was
disappointed and he fight a couple of years for it, but he didn’t get
anywhere. But anyway he stayed here and tried to manage the town as
best he can. So when I talked to him about buying the land, so finally
he sold the land to the county, so the county sold the land to us
December 11th, 2004.
ETTINGER:
The idea of having the town be sort of living history was a part of his
project I thought, that he wanted to preserve this, and that’s kind of a
curious thing for someone who’s living in a city, I guess, isn’t it, to be
living history? Maybe he liked the idea of it being recognized
historically, but it also can kind of trap the residents in an
underdeveloped area. Is that true?
207
KING:
See, by the time he sell the land to us there’s not many Chinese left
here to fight for the land, see, except me, because I want to get the land
under this house. It’s not the kind of a house I wanted, but I make it
into a home for fifty-odd years and I wanted to get the land under my
house before I die, because I’m getting older every day, see. So when
the county sold to us I was very, very happy. Nobody know how
happy I am, because that’s why—
ETTINGER:
We have a picture and you can tell it was really—
KING:
Somebody saw that in the newspaper in Hawaii. He had that made and
then sent it to me from Hawaii, the picture. He enlarged the picture
and put it in the frame and sent to me from Hawaii.
ETTINGER:
It’s a beautiful picture.
KING:
So I’ve been very, very happy that I finally got the land and that’s the
day I signed the deed.
ETTINGER:
Oh, there’s another picture over here.
KING:
Yes, I signed the deed. My granddaughter’s watching me sign the
deed to get my land. I was the first one to sign the deed.
ETTINGER:
Tell me for a second of going back, hopping back in time a little bit
here, when you were first married were you working? Tom was
working up in Sacramento. Were you working in the early fifties here
in—
208
KING:
I was helping my brother-in-law, I work in the grocery store, the
[unclear] market is still there. I also work at the restaurant for awhile,
too, see. And then later on I work in the grocery store. By that time I
my son is four, five years old, he started kindergarten and that’s when I
start working.
ETTINGER:
What’s your son’s name?
KING:
Kim.
ETTINGER:
Kim.
KING:
He work for the county right now, for the housing department.
ETTINGER:
So you had the daughter and then your son, and when he went to
school you started working part-time?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
When you moved to Locke there was a long tradition here of a
community garden, is that true?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
How was the land in the community garden managed? When you
moved here could you automatically go and claim something or did
you have to get a—
KING:
Well, when I married Tom, there used to be an old man’s home where
the garden is now, see. The building burnt down, so he went and clean
209
it up and then by that time he decided to retire and he didn’t know what
to do with himself, so I told him, “Why don’t you learn to start a
garden and go fishing,” because he’s a radioman. He was lost after he
retired from work, because he didn’t know what to do with himself.
In fact, when he first retired, two weeks later he went back to work
because he don’t know what to do with himself. So I told him to start a
garden and go fishing and things like that, so he did. So he start this
garden here and then after he passed away I took over.
ETTINGER:
About what year did he retire and start the garden?
KING:
Gee, you know, I can’t remember. He retire at sixty years old. I think
in the seventies, maybe. I don’t remember exactly.
ETTINGER:
So when you moved here in the fifties there wasn’t a community
garden? Did people garden?
KING:
Well, the Chinese women have a garden over here.
ETTINGER:
The Chinese, I’m sorry.
KING:
Chinese women, all the ladies start a garden there.
ETTINGER:
Okay, that’s different than the community garden?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Okay.
210
KING:
But it’s common ground. See, they can do what they want. In fact,
there’s quite a few ladies, and not only that some of the bachelors that
retire, they also garden back there. They have a beautiful garden. You
ought to see it now.
ETTINGER:
Yes, we should walk back there. I noticed it last time I was down here.
So when you moved here did you start using that garden?
KING:
No, because I was working then and then I was working for my
brother-in-law, my husband’s brother, see. And then George Mar
[phonetic] is the father of Dustin Mar that run the store now.
ETTINGER:
But the bachelors had, women and bachelors had gardened there for, I
guess, decades?
KING:
They have beautiful garden and a lot of people from the Bay Area, the
garden club, they come and take a look at the garden, and the last
couple of years they were very disappointed when they come there’s
no garden. The Chinese women they grow mostly Chinese vegetables
and some of them you can see them hanging or the trellis and
everything, and the plot is beautiful. I wish I had some pictures to
show you. I might have some pictures.
ETTINGER:
I’ve seen some pictures of it from the past. Just to sort of be more
concrete, what kind of vegetables were really common?
211
KING:
Mostly Chinese vegetables, mostly Chinese vegetables, Chinese winter
melon and things like that, see. A lot of people used to come here and
take pictures of the vegetable they grow. It’s very unusual kind of
vegetable they grow. They have winter melons the size of a
watermelon, see, and then they have bitter melon and they have
cucumber, they have Chinese long beans and Chinese broccoli and
Chinese bok choy and all kinds, and Chinese mustard greens, they have
all kinds of, and then of course there’s tomatoes and green pepper and
things like that. They have all kinds of vegetables. Everybody have a
plot and it’s very beautiful arranged, not just dump in there, everything
is— When you walk in there you can walk by admiring that place.
Everything is clean, no weeds, and all the kinds of vegetables grow and
every part is just beautiful.
ETTINGER:
Very orderly.
KING:
Yes, orderly, yes.
ETTINGER:
Where did your children go to school?
KING:
Well, first they start school in Walnut Grove and then they went to
high school in Courtland and later on they finish high school in
Clarksburg.
ETTINGER:
Was the Walnut Grove school integrated when your—
KING:
Yes, they have a mix.
212
ETTINGER:
It was no longer the Oriental school?
KING:
No, no segregated, no.
ETTINGER:
Not segregated, yes.
KING:
No, no.
ETTINGER:
I guess that had gone away during World War II, the segregated
school?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Because it had been segregated.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Were there other, I get the sense in the fifties and sixties and seventies
that what was happening is that the older residents were leaving, their
children were bring them to the city or elsewhere. Who were your
families that you were close to who stayed? Were there other people
raising children in the fifties, other Chinese families raising children
alongside you?
KING:
Well, some of the bachelors were allowed to go back to— Especially
after the war they can go back to get married and they bring their wives
over here. In fact, I help a brand-new baby born. The husband come
over and told me, he said, “My wife is in labor.” So I call the doctor
right away and I went over there and helped the doctor. She have a
213
tough, tough birth, the baby come out feet first and then she was
screaming at the top of her lungs, and there’s no way we can turn the
baby around to get the baby out, see, because her elbow was in the
way. Actually, it’s not here, it’s a him, it’s a boy.
So I told Dr. Barnes [phonetic], I said, “Dr. Barnes, do you believe in
Chinese way?”
He said, “What do you mean?”
I said, “My mother told me one time that there was a lady give birth
and the feet come first and the baby won’t come out and they use the
mother’s slippers and pat on the bottom of the feet and then the baby
would turn.”
He said, “You must be kidding.”
I said, “No, let’s try it.”
So I pick up her slippers and I slap both of the feet, pretty soon the
baby turned and the head come out first and it was a boy.
The doctor’s, “Wow.” He’s gone now, but he said, “Well, thank you
for doing that.” I said, “I just try, because I don’t know whether it will
work or not,” but it did work.
ETTINGER:
That’s a great story.
214
KING:
Yes, yes. So I watch that little kid grow up and then the father decide
to move to San Francisco, so he took the boy and the wife back to San
Francisco. That boy, it was a sad story, he grew up and then went to
college and then he got engaged to a girl and they went skiing and he
got killed coming down the hill, he hit a tree, and the father hasn’t been
the same since, but now he’s gone also. I feel real bad because I never
forget the day he was born.
ETTINGER:
Yes, that’s hard.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Was the doctor a white doctor?
KING:
Yes, a white doctor.
ETTINGER:
Was there a Chinese, any Chinese doctors or health practitioners in
town?
KING:
Right now, see, Dr. Barne been gone and then Dr. Steinman [phonetic]
from Isleton he’s also passed away, and then Dr. Premising [phonetic]
that was a doctor in Courtland and he pass away, but before he pass
away he have a Chinese doctor, Dr. Go [phonetic]. He’s still there.
Yes, I still go see him.
ETTINGER:
Was he one of the first Chinese doctors to come to the community?
215
KING:
As far as I know, because I don’t know some before, I don’t know
before my time, see.
ETTINGER:
Were herbalists, was herbal medicine—
KING:
No, it’s—
ETTINGER:
No, no, no, but I mean in the fifties herbalists—
KING:
Yes, they have an herbal store here and then the elderly Chinese
believe in that, they go there and buy herbs for sickness or anything.
Some of the people that run the herb store they cook, they fix the
medicine for them. See, certain kind of herb that you boil with water
and then you drink it, see. Some of them are not easy to drink, it’s
bitter.
ETTINGER:
Was that still the case when you were here in the fifties?
KING:
Now, no.
ETTINGER:
When you first got here?
KING:
When I came here not many, yes, not many.
ETTINGER:
Do you remember who the herbalists were?
KING:
Well, when I came here in 1949 I don’t think he was here anymore.
But I don’t remember.
ETTINGER:
But did the stores still sell herbs?
216
KING:
No, no, no.
ETTINGER:
Not by 1949.
KING:
No. In fact, somebody tried to start one, but never get to it, start a herb
store.
ETTINGER:
So that was more of a practice in the twenties and the thirties?
KING:
Yes, especially in the twenties and the thirties.
ETTINGER:
So these are people who were mostly born in China who came with
traditions of—
KING:
When you talk to Ping Lee [phonetic], I think his father is a herbalist. I
think his father, when they start the town in 1915 he have herbs, if I
remember correctly. Of course, I was too young then, but I heard Ping
Lee telling me about it.
ETTINGER:
I want to talk about another institution there on Main Street, the
Chinese school. Did your children attend it?
KING:
Yes, both of them. I went to Chinese school for four or five years in
Isleton. My father rent the downstairs to the Chinese schoolteacher to
teach us how to read and write. I was doing pretty good. I can even
write letter back to China to my grandmother, see. But you know, if
you don’t use it, you lose it. See, right now we speak English a lot, we
write letters in English and we have a typewriter, and now we have
217
computer. I lost about 90 percent of my Chinese. I can still read it, but
most of the time I don’t remember because I don’t use it that much.
Same thing with my daughter and my son, see, they live among the
Caucasians, they work in the Caucasians’ business, they lost all of it,
too. They can still write their Chinese name, but if you tell them to
write a letter they can’t do it.
ETTINGER:
Other characters they can’t.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Yes. Well, it’s a very difficult—
KING:
You have to get used to it. Ping Lee, he have a good memory, he still
reads and writes Chinese and then also speak English and write
English, because he make use it. He read the Chinese paper all the
time, which I don’t, see.
ETTINGER:
Yes. The Chinese school in Isleton that you went to for four or five
years, where was it located?
KING:
Right near, my father have a two-story building, they used the
downstairs.
ETTINGER:
Oh, they used the downstairs.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And did he pay someone to do it or was it the teachers?
218
KING:
No, we all paid $2.50 a month to go to Chinese school.
ETTINGER:
To support the materials?
KING:
And then my father worked real hard to put four of us through Chinese
school. And later on the Chinese school move across the street to a
bigger building, see.
ETTINGER:
It was very important to your father?
KING:
Oh, yes, because my father went to school only two years and he
remember every word that he learn, because like he said he have to in
order to write. When he came to the United States he have to write
letter back home, see.
ETTINGER:
When would you go to Chinese school, after school or on weekends,
when would you go?
KING:
We would go to English school from, I left the house at six o’clock to
work in the Filipino house, and then I go to school at 8:30, and then
sometimes I run home for lunch, sometimes I bring lunch, and then we
don’t get out of school until 3:30 or four o’clock and then we eat
dinner right away and go to Chinese school at five o’clock to eight
o’clock.
ETTINGER:
Oh, wow, every day?
219
KING:
Even Saturday. Every night Monday through Friday and then we have
half a day school in Chinese school on Saturday.
ETTINGER:
How did you feel about going to Chinese school after a long day at
school?
KING:
Well, I enjoy it, I never complain about it, but it’s too bad that I lost
everything I learned in the Chinese school. Yes, it’s too bad. I really
miss that, because now I have to ask Clarence Chu, “What does this
say?”
ETTINGER:
When your children, getting back to Locke for a second, when your
children went to the Chinese school was it similar, was it every day
after school?
KING:
Yes, every day after school.
ETTINGER:
And you paid?
KING:
We pay, I forgot how much we paid, but my husband paid for it, yes.
ETTINGER:
Who was the teacher?
KING:
Well, we have several teachers. The first one was a man and then a
woman and then a man again. Now, it’s been quite a few years since
the school close up, see.
ETTINGER:
About when did it close, in the eighties, seventies?
220
KING:
Well, when the Chinese parents start moving out here, by that time the
children all grown and going to college and get jobs in the city, not
many new kids come to Locke to go to Chinese school. In fact, we
have a little white girl, ten years old, want to learn to read and write
like Chinese. I think she continued on, I think she’s an interpreter for
the Caucasian now.
ETTINGER:
Thinking about your life here in the fifties and sixties when your kids
were going through school, your husband Tom worked in Sacramento,
so he drove up. What did a lot of the other residents do? About how
many were there would you say and what were they doing, was it a
mix of people like Tom who were starting to work out of town or were
there still a lot of people working in canneries? Can you give me some
sense of what the Chinese people were doing in the fifties and into the
sixties?
KING:
See, Tom’s age group not many, see. Now, Ping Lee he have his own
business in Walnut Grove. My brother-in-law have a business in
Locke. And most of the people that were in farm are elderly people.
ETTINGER:
Were elderly?
KING:
Elderly.
ETTINGER:
Old farm workers, old cannery workers?
221
KING:
Yes, they continue working there until they can’t work no more, see. I
even help them to get on the social security and I signed them up to
vote and things like that, see. So not many men Tom’s age, see,
because some of them already left for college, they don’t come back
here. They get a job in the city. That’s [unclear], see, he’s an
inspector he works in the city. I think he’s retired by now, I think.
ETTINGER:
Yes, we have a woman that grew up here, Lily Chan [phonetic]. Do
you know Lily?
KING:
She’s a lawyer now isn’t she?
ETTINGER:
Yes. I know her because she’s married to one of my colleagues in the
history department. But her life was kind of typical then of that
generation was born here, they left town.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
There must have been a great deal of—The elderly population in the
fifties must have been rather poor, because they had lost—they would
have been iterant workers, from what I’ve read about a lot of that was
hard life and they weren’t getting paid very much. They weren’t able
to save. Was there some sort of benevolent association that took care
of them? There must have been a lot of very poor elderly residents.
KING:
I know, but one thing about Chinese they have pride, they don’t beg. I
remember my father when he first got a job, a dollar a day. A dollar
222
that doesn’t stretch, even though ten cents a pound of weenies, but we
don’t beg for things. So they have pride, they manage, we all live and
we all grow up.
One thing about the Chinese people, I don’t think anybody in town
would ask the county for money or anything like that. See, they have
pride not to beg for things. Even though they need things they don’t
ask for it. Because one day I asked the lady across, where she live
across me, and she says she have no money. I said, “Do you want me
to get you on the county so you can get some money?”
She said, “No, no. I’d rather go hungry than do that,” because they
have pride not to beg for things.
ETTINGER:
How large do you think the population of residents was in the fifties,
’49, ’50? About how many would you guess?
KING:
Well, I would say the children were still home by then, maybe four to
five hundred. In the old days when all the kids are growing up, at that
time maybe seven hundred. I don’t know, because that’s what I heard.
See, I was too young then. But there were a lot of people. You know,
we all worked together, we have fun together, we have celebration
together, and there were a lot of children. In fact, one family have
twelve kids. A lot of people have six, seven children. So you can
imagine all this, every building is occupied, so there’s a lot of children.
223
ETTINGER:
And that’s when you were raising your children, that was how it was?
KING:
Well, that’s before I raised my children.
ETTINGER:
Oh, before you raised your children?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
When you moved here in ’49 which grocery stores were still in
business?
KING:
Ming Chow [phonetic] Market. That’s when I worked there.
ETTINGER:
That was the only left?
KING:
That’s a Chinese grocery store. It’s over here in [unclear]. They sell
mostly Chinese grocery.
ETTINGER:
So there were just two when you moved?
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And there was still—
KING:
Ping have a store down in Walnut Grove called The Big Store and
some people shop down there, because if Ming Chow don’t have it,
they go down to Big Store.
ETTINGER:
So the Chinese school was still here and lively in the fifties, the two
grocery stores—
224
KING:
Well, they close up the Chinese school when World War II started,
because all the kids have left home, see, and then they restarted it in
1952 for my children’s generation.
ETTINGER:
Okay. What other businesses were open still? Because part of the
story, of course, is that gradually a number of these businesses were—
KING:
Well, when the owner of the building start moving out, they sell the
building, Clarence [phonetic] owned quite a few buildings, see, and he
had his store there and then he have another store across the street and
he have the bookstore.
ETTINGER:
What was his store? Which one was Clarence’s?
KING:
I can’t remember.
ETTINGER:
Is it a grocery store?
KING:
No, he sell things from China, furnitures and stuff like that.
ETTINGER:
Oh, okay.
KING:
And then there’s more gallery now, there’s about four or five gallery
right now. In the old days, fifteen ladies and myself start a gallery in
Locke, that’s the gallery right on the Main Street, and we sold it in
1998, because we all got older and a lot of people were dying so we
sold it. Then she still operates that. Now I can see there’s about three
or four other gallery open in Locke now.
225
Clarence owned The Big Store. My memory’s no good. As you get
older you forget names. I remember phone numbers, but I don’t
remember names. That’s why I call you Hubert or whatever.
ETTINGER:
Well, I’ll be delighted if I’m as sharp as you are when I’m eighty-four
years old, I’ll tell you that. I’d love to have your mind.
I’m still trying to ask questions that give us a sense of Locke in the
fifties and the sixties. Was Sunday still a day where the town got
crowded, where people came to town on Sundays? Was that still the
case in the—
KING:
Well, in the old days at that time there were a lot of Chinese farmers,
that’s the day they come up and visit people here. Then most of the
young kids here would go to church here, see. So we go to church here
and then we have Thanksgiving dinner and we have Christmas dinner.
That’s when I become Santa Claus. Then we have Easter eggs and we
have Halloween party. So, you know, the fifties it was still very alive,
but once the Chinese people start moving out of here in the sixties and
the seventies things changed, because we have hippies coming in here.
We have non-Chinese coming in here, see.
See, right now we only have eighty people here in Locke right now,
there’s only twelve Chinese and only two original. And I came here in
1949 and I’ve been here fifty-eight years, I’m the oldest one here and
226
I’ve lived here the longest. The two boys, Dustin Mar [phonetic] and
Evan Lee [phonetic], they bought here. They’re both around fifty-four,
fifty-five years old. They’re not married, they’re still here, see. So
there’s twelve Chinese and then all the rest is non-Chinese. There’s
white, there’s Filipino, and there’s Mexicans.
ETTINGER:
How did that feel in the sixties and seventies when that was changing?
Was it a source of tension? Did the oldest Chinese residents, how did
they feel when the hippies moved in, or how did they feel when
Mexicans or other groups started coming in? It must have been a hard
time.
KING:
Well, at that time the hippies started coming in. In fact, I help a lot of
those kids when they came here because they don’t have money, and I
loaned them money a lot of times. A lot of them don’t pay me back.
But I was more than happy to help them, but at that time the Chinese
parents were getting older, and then they were happy that the children
can buy a home and move them up there to live with them. See, one
thing about the Chinese custom is when your parents raise you, when
your parents get older you’re supposed to take care of your parents,
which the Chinese always do, see.
ETTINGER:
So that generation that was getting pulled out of Locke out of a family
tradition of taking care?
227
KING:
And then the non-Chinese start coming here. My husband wanted to
move out of here several times, but I said, “No.” I said, “I’ve got to
get the land under my house yet.” Even though I sell my house I still
want to get the land under my house. That’s what I was hoping for,
see.
Then before he died he told me, “Connie, when I leave here, please
move out of here and sell your house and move out of here. I don’t
think you’ll ever get the land.”
I didn’t want to upset him, but I said, “I’ll try.” That’s what I told him.
So after he left I still try to get the land and finally I did get it in 2004.
ETTINGER:
What year did Tom die?
KING:
He’s been gone ten years now, so you count back, 1997.
ETTINGER:
So you and he and a few other old-timers were kind of the holdouts?
KING:
Yes, Ping Lee moved out of here probably thirteen or fourteen years
already. He moved to Walnut Grove, because he have a business in
Walnut Grove. So he can see that Locke has been changing and so he
decided to buy a house in Walnut Grove and then his son helped him
run the store, see. I think he sold the store maybe four or five years
ago. He still help the lady that do the bookkeeping down at the store.
He’s ninety. You look at him, you think he’s sixty years old, he’s very
lively and he remember a lot of things.
228
ETTINGER:
That’s what I hear. Yes, my colleague’s going to talk to him later.
What about the people that were moving in, besides the sort of
hippies or people coming from the Bay Area, were there just other
people coming in renting? Were they agricultural workers?
KING:
No, they’re not agricultural, because most of the hippies are artists.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Besides them were there other—
KING:
See, just like today you met Chris Spencer [phonetic].
ETTINGER:
Right.
KING:
Yes, he came here that long ago and he stay here because he loves
Locke. He stay here.
ETTINGER:
In addition to the artists that started to come in and get involved, were
there also other groups that came in or is it just— Were there other
ethnic groups that moved in or—
KING:
No, not many.
ETTINGER:
Mostly just artists?
KING:
Yes. I’d say the hippies started coming in here and then just nonChinese, Mexicans and white moving in here, see.
ETTINGER:
And what were they— They were moving here, they just rent and work
outside of town or work in the area?
229
KING:
Some work and some stay here. The majority of them are either artists
or writers. Some of them come here to learn about Locke and to write
books about Locke and things like that. James Marlow [phonetic] stay
here ten years to talk to all the Chinese before he started the book.
ETTINGER:
Yes. Yes, I remember I read his—
KING:
And then Jeff [unclear] is the writer and then James is the
photographer. I think you read his book.
ETTINGER:
Yes, yes. Locke doesn’t have a city council or any kind of
governmental—
KING:
Well, in the old days Ping Lee and my husband and [unclear] and Chin,
Myrtle Yang [phonetic] and quite a few others we have a little, not a
club, but some kind of a board.
ETTINGER:
We’re going to talk more about that in a second. This is great, Connie,
I think we’re getting a lot of really—
Okay, you were talking about the board you formed.
KING:
Yes, we have a board we formed to help people and to run the town in
a certain way, see, and those Chinese people they listen. See, it’s just
like when I go collect rent and I explain to them that Clarence Chu is
owning the town now and then he’s the one to collect rent, I introduce
Clarence to all the homeowners. They were all Chinese at that time.
So they cooperate and they work together and we never have any
230
problem, see. Then once the non-Chinese start moving in we have a
little problem, they don’t do things like the Chinese used to do. We
keep the town clean, we have no garbage outside the doors, and things
like that, but nowadays it’s different, see. So that’s why we have a
town manager to make sure this town is clean. It’s not easy, but we’re
getting there.
ETTINGER:
So I meant to ask you this, when the Locke family still owned the land
in the fifties and sixties, they sold it in the early seventies to Chu, were
you especially appointed by him then to be the rent collector for the
whole town or how did that work?
KING:
Well, he come and collect my rent and he said, “Connie, can you work
for me?”
I said, “What do you mean work for you?”
“I want you to help me collect rent,” because I don’t speak—See, he’s
the son of the original George Locke. He said, “I don’t understand
Chinese and it’s hard for me to go collect rent. If you’ll collect rent I’ll
pay you.”
I said, “How much is that?”
“I won’t charge you rent,” seven dollars and fifty cents a month.
So anyway, I did it for him and then finally the water company said
that I do that, so the water company told me to collect water money for
231
them. So I get free water. And then the garbage man, the same thing.
So I collect garbage money for the garbage man, then I get free
garbage. I don’t mind helping them. It’s not the money that I wanted,
but I wanted to help them the best way I can so the Chinese can live
here peacefully without any problem here.
ETTINGER:
Because you spoke the language and you could be the intermediary?
KING:
Yes. So then when Clarence took over then I introduced Clarence, but
I think the garbage and the water we pay all ourselves now, they don’t
collect. See, Clarence have somebody collect the water bill. They
send us a bill and then we pay the bill, see.
ETTINGER:
Did conflicts come up in town between residents of the community that
you wished there was a mayor or a political organization to deal with?
KING:
Well, when Ping Lee was here they all call him the mayor, and when
he left they called me a mayor, which I’m not, see, but like Ping Lee
told that reporter that he hand me his job. But I don’t boss people
around, see, but if there’s anything not right I go and talk to the board,
if something has to be done. I’m not a complainer, because I don’t
want to hurt anybody’s feelings, see, because that’s what we have a
problem is communication among the homeowners around here. Some
of them listen to you and some don’t, so it’s very hard.
232
ETTINGER:
Well, it must have been a hard transition from being an all-Chinese
town to being a more diverse town.
KING:
See, in the old days we don’t have to tell the Chinese to clean up. All
the old men, you know, they sweep the leaves out of the Main Street
and then they wash the sidewalk and they keep the town clean and in
their spare time they go fishing. Then the garden, they keep the garden
clean and you don’t see any garbage outside, you don’t see any junk
outside, but now it’s different. People, we have different kinds of
nationality here, and they do what they want and if we say too much
we get a problem here.
ETTINGER:
The sheriff patrolled Locke in the fifties and sixties?
KING:
Yes, they do, they do.
ETTINGER:
I mean back when you first moved here, fifties and sixties, was it much
of a presence? I mean, there was no law enforcement in town they just
relied on the sheriff?
KING:
Well, we don’t have people breaking into homes and we don’t have a
problem fighting each other, but if we do we just call the sheriff and
they come. Not many, we don’t have much problem in the old days.
ETTINGER:
Was there a bank in Locke?
KING:
In Walnut Grove.
233
ETTINGER:
In Walnut Grove.
KING:
A bank in Walnut Grove and a post office. We used to have a post
office here, but since the Chinese move out there’s not many people so
they move, the state thinks that Locke is too small a town to have a
post office. See, they have one up next to the restaurant and then they
move it to [unclear] market upstairs and then the postmistress she die
and then finally they said they decided to close it so we get our mail in
Walnut Grove.
ETTINGER:
When was that?
KING:
In the seventies.
ETTINGER:
So there were a lot of sort of milestones of the town shrinking and that
must have been an important one, the school closing, the post office.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
But then other milestones like getting the land finally in 2004.
KING:
Yes. That was the biggest day of my life to get the land.
ETTINGER:
I forgot to ask you something about Sam’s Rooms, the boarding house
across the road, because you know the state has acquired that. I know
that, because I interviewed some of the children from that family, that
when that family was interned during World War II the boarding house
234
closed. I’m unclear on when it next opened or reopened. Do you
remember in ’49 when you moved here if it was open?
KING:
No, in the fifties there was a guy that was supposed to open a
restaurant, he bought that, and then it didn’t work out, so he sold it. I
think it sold three or four times. I think Dick Lawstran [phonetic] then
he own it for a while.
ETTINGER:
A Chinese man or an outsider?
KING:
A white man. He still live here. He knows a lot about Locke, too.
ETTINGER:
Who is that?
KING:
Dick Lawstran. Yes. So anyway, and then I think that building has
been sold three or four times and then Clarence got it. Now Clarence
sold it to the state park.
ETTINGER:
Yes. Did it operate as a hotel at some point, do you recall, in the
sixties or seventies? I went through it and it looked like it had been
operated.
KING:
Well, they had a store running downstairs selling things. I remember
that I used to go there and shop. Maybe she was living upstairs, I don’t
know, see.
ETTINGER:
What kind of store, grocery or hardware?
235
KING:
No, no, it sells different things. I even forgot what she was selling
when she had the store. Probably Clarence will remember what they
were selling.
ETTINGER:
But that would have been in the fifties or sixties?
KING:
Even the seventies, maybe even eighties.
ETTINGER:
I feel like there’s a lot we didn’t talk about. I always feel that way.
What else should we talk about, about Locke? I’m trying to, you
know, the purpose of this interview, as you know, is to help people in
the future understand what was here and so much of that past is not
written down, doesn’t survive, so we’re relying on you to help me
think about what are the important stories of Locke.
KING:
I wish that there were more stores open in the main street to bring
people into Locke. It’s too bad there’s so many buildings that is closed
up, see. But it’s getting better now, the art gallery is opening up, and
there’s a new bookstore opening up, and it’s getting a little bit better.
ETTINGER:
Now that people can buy land, I guess.
KING:
Well, you cannot come in and buy land. See, we bought the land.
There’s no land to sell. A lot of people right after we got the land I
have people walk around my house and say, “I think I’d like to buy this
house because it’s no neighbor around. There is a big yard back there
and everything.” They said, “Can I buy it?”
236
I said, “No, I finally got to buy the land, I can’t sell it to you.”
That’s why people misunderstood that, the newspapers. They think, a
lot of people from Los Angeles and San Francisco come in and want to
buy land here from the Chinese. They thought the land is for sale to
everybody, but it’s not, only to the homeowner here.
ETTINGER:
Yes. Well, who owns the stores downtown, Clarence still?
KING:
He owns quite a few buildings here, I think.
ETTINGER:
But somebody could try and buy one if he wanted to sell?
KING:
If he want to sell, see.
ETTINGER:
Yes.
KING:
I don’t push it, but if he wanted to sell he would sell, but at least he
have, at least one, two, three, he have three stores. Three stores and
then he rent a couple out for people that are going to open up the art
gallery.
ETTINGER:
Before we started taping today you were telling me the story of the
park that you created, and I’m wondering if you could just really
quickly talk about it on tape, your vision of having this memorial park
to the Chinese. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
KING:
Yes. Because over thirty years ago my father-in-law’s father, actually
my grandfather-in-law, he work on the levee and he got drown in the
237
Isletons. I said, you know, nothing has been written about the railroad,
so finally a guy from Los Angeles he wrote a book about the railroad.
I should let you read it. I bought a copy. I said nobody knows how the
levee was built. How did they get the water out here to build the
levee? How many Chinese have been drowned building the levee?
The Chinese started agriculture in California and nothing has been
written about them. I said it’s not fair.
So I want a park in memory of those people that work so hard for
California. I said, “California is the richest state in the whole United
States because of agriculture in California.” I said that, “The railroad
was built by Chinese and the levee is built by Chinese and the
agriculture started by Chinese, all the trees as you come down on the
levees all planted by Chinese.” I said, “The town was also built by
Chinese, but nothing’s been written about them. I’d like a memorial in
memory of those people.” See, before I die I want to see that happen.
So I work real hard, it took me a long time.
ETTINGER:
Was that a vacant lot?
KING:
Yes, it used to be a house there and it was rent out to some Mexican
and the parents went out to work in the field, they left the kids at home
and they start cooking dinner and they decide to play football out in the
main street and then before you know it a fire got started and then it
238
burned that hotel. And Yen Chow [phonetic] got scorched pretty bad,
and then this building also scorched pretty bad from the fire. But one
thing about the fire department around here, I really give them a lot of
credit, once there’s a phone call, there’s a fire in Locke, the Isleton Fire
Department come, Courtland Fire Department come, and Walnut
Grove Fire Department come, and even Sacramento Fire Department
come to save the town.
And then when the boathouse caught on fire, it’s the same thing, the
spark pop all the way over here. My husband went on top of the roof
to spray the roof because the spark come all the way here. But, see, I
really, really give a lot of credit to all those fire departments that help
us, see.
ETTINGER:
The boathouse was that, did that used to be the cannery or is that
separate?
KING:
There used to be a packing shed and the SP built that, see. Then they
ship vegetables and fruit by boat in the old days, see, and later on by
train, see. So then it was sold and then it became a boathouse and now
it’s still a boathouse. I think it sold two or three times already.
ETTINGER:
When you moved here in 1949 was that packing shed still in business,
were people working there still?
239
KING:
Yes, I think so, because I remember I took my son up there to watch a
train to pick up the stuff.
ETTINGER:
But then it went out of business or it closed?
KING:
It closed and then somebody bought it and built it into a boathouse.
The people that bought it still live in Walnut Grove.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really.
KING:
Yes, they still live in Walnut Grove. The father pass away, but the
mother’s still there and the two sons still live in Walnut Grove.
ETTINGER:
I interrupted your story about the memorial, though. So after that
house burned down, the land was vacant—
KING:
Well, I was still talking about it, still talking about it, so I finally I
asked the county if can have the lot [unclear] and he said it’s up to you
people, see, because it belongs to the Locke Management now. So
they okayed it and then I told Clarence that we have to raise money for
it, because we don’t money, I don’t have any money to get started. So
that’s how we start to raise money for it. I think we raised money three
times. It took us three years to get enough to get started.
People have been very, very kind to me because a lot of those people
that lived in our town, even over in Hawaii, they heard about me
wanting a park and they donate money to the park, because I wanted it
so bad, see. People have been very, very generous. They donate $50,
240
$100, $200, $500. One person donated $1,000 to help me get started
and I really, really, if it wasn’t for those people the park would never
have started. I really don’t know how to thank them.
ETTINGER:
Do people that, your old friends, your peers that moved out, whose
children took them to Sacramento or San Francisco, do they come back
to visit?
KING:
Yes, we had a reunion two years ago. 2005 we have a reunion. But I
was going to tell you be sure to have Lily Chin give me her address. I
couldn’t get her family to come to the reunion, nobody know where
they live.
ETTINGER:
The Sen family? Who?
KING:
No, Lily Chin.
ETTINGER:
Oh, Lily Chin, okay. I’ll tell her.
KING:
See, I try to get Elizabeth, the sister, and the two brothers, nobody
know where they live and I tried to get them to come to the reunion
two years ago, but I couldn’t get a hold of them.
ETTINGER:
I’ll give you Lily’s phone number and address.
KING:
Okay.
ETTINGER:
I’ll mail it to you.
241
KING:
Okay. Then so we thinking, Clarence and I are thinking of having a
reunion again, maybe Courtland, Locke, Walnut Grove, and Isleton all
combined, four towns to have a reunion in town. The only worry I
have is the parking. I wish somebody would help us build a parking lot
around here. See, last time we just barely make it.
ETTINGER:
I bet, yes, because there’s just this lot down here where I parked on the
north side.
KING:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
So you’re planning another reunion maybe in a year or two?
KING:
This year. We’re thinking about it, Clarence and I are thinking about
it. We just talk about it the other day, let’s start a reunion again to get
all the Chinese together. But I wish somebody would buy a couple
rows of land from Clarence from the orchard and start a parking lot. I
know that we can get grant for it, but I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
The Chinese residents of Courtland and Locke, there’s Walnut Grove
and Isleton, it’s all sort of one larger community?
KING:
We all know each other in other words. See, it’s all the parents that
they farm together, they work together. The parents and grandparents
are all immigrants from the same area in China and they all end up in
the same delta, see.
242
ETTINGER:
And many of them ended up in the same cemetery in Rio Vista, I
guess.
KING:
Yes, well, most, a majority they’re buried in Sacramento, but when I
take care of it will end up in Rio Vista.
ETTINGER:
That would be a neat thing to see a reunion of all the— Are any
descendents of these original Chinese, have any of them become
farmers in this area, farm owners?
KING:
Yes, I think he retired. I think he have bone cancer and I think he
retired.
ETTINGER:
Who is this?
KING:
Let’s see.
ETTINGER:
I’m going to make you think of a name again, I’m sorry.
KING:
The last name is Lee. I have to ask Dustin. I don’t remember names.
ETTINGER:
That’s okay.
KING:
Yes, there’s quite a few. Lincoln Chen’s [phonetic] son, Lincoln’s son
is retired, he’s old, he’s in the nineties. The son took over all. He own
several farm around here, see, and now he’s farming the Locke Ranch
also.
ETTINGER:
Who is this now?
KING:
Lincoln Chen’s son.
243
ETTINGER:
Lincoln Chen’s son.
KING:
Let’s see, what’s his name? I forgot his name. I don’t
remember names. That’s a bad thing. You know, I’ll tell you
something funny. My great granddaughter came to see me, my son-inlaw took the two great grandchildren to see me. I talked to the boy
because I remember his name, I talk to him for quite a while, and the
little girl said, “Aren’t you going to say hello to me?” She’s three
years old.
I said, “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”
She said, “What? You forgot my name?”
Now I have to memorize her name because even the other day when I
saw her on New Year’s Day I completely—I tried to think fast to think
of her name.
ETTINGER:
Where did your children move out of Locke?
KING:
My son lives in Sacramento, my daughter also moved to Sacramento.
She have children and grandchildren. She have a daughter and two
sons. The daughter die when she was twenty-five years old from lupus
sickness, lupus. Then the two boys, one of them teach at Davis and the
other one is a brain doctor down in Los Angeles. There’s a name for it.
ETTINGER:
Neurosurgeon, neurologist?
244
KING:
Yes, something like that.
ETTINGER:
Wow.
KING:
They both young, not even forty yet, I don’t think.
ETTINGER:
Well, thank you so much for your time. I’m sure as soon as I turn the
tape recorder off and we go have lunch—
KING:
Did I say enough about Locke?
ETTINGER:
Well, I would love to hear you go on and on. I’m trying to think of
things we haven’t talked about. Is there anything that you can think of
that we should have talked about? I tried to talk about the people and
what they were doing and stores and the community life.
KING:
I didn’t say anything about the building, the beginning of the town of
Locke, because I figured that Ping Lee would tell the story because his
father was the one that started Locke.
ETTINGER:
Yes, and that’s a very important story, obviously, but, yes, I really
wanted to focus in an interview with you about your own life, because
that’s what you know best. And the story of the founding of Locke we
do know about.
KING:
When you read this you’ll read more about me.
ETTINGER:
Oh, good. Can I have a copy of this or is this—
KING:
This is for you.
245
ETTINGER:
Oh, it is. I’m talking about a copy of Asian Week magazine from
March of 2005 that has a feature of Connie King on her eighty-second
birthday. That’s what we’re looking at right now. I will take that and I
see here’s a picture of you and Tom in 1994.
KING:
Yes. That’s what I look like when the Isleton Chinatown burn down,
that’s where we live on the ranch.
ETTINGER:
Oh, wow, a picture of you. You were about three or four?
KING:
I was three and he was two. We grew up, we’ve always been pals
together, even now. This was taken right after he came out of the
service, we had a party for him.
ETTINGER:
For Bill Tom. Is your brother Bill still alive?
KING:
My brother Bill is still alive.
ETTINGER:
Where does he live?
KING:
San Francisco. Yes. He’s a medic, is that what you call it?
ETTINGER:
A paramedic?
KING:
Yes, in the service.
ETTINGER:
When did he leave the area? When did he move to San Francisco, after
the war?
KING:
When he went to college. He went to college in San Francisco, I think,
he went to medical school back then.
246
ETTINGER:
Okay. Well, this has been great and when I think of more questions
I’m going to drive back down and make you talk to me again, but I
really appreciate your time. So I’m going to go ahead and turn this
stuff off.
[End of interview]
247
Oral History Interview with
Mr. Sam Kuramoto
For California State Parks
By Patrick Ettinger
Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer/Editor:
Patrick Ettinger
Professor of History, CSU Sacramento
Co-Director, Oral History Program, CSU Sacramento
B.A., Rice University, Houston, Texas
M.A., University of Houston
Ph.D., University of Houston
Interview Time and Place:
The interview session took place on March 23, 2006 at the home of Mr. Sam Kuramoto
in San Jose, California.
Transcribing/Editing:
TechnyType transcribed the interview audiotapes. Ms. Beneli checked the verbatim
manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for punctuation,
paragraphing, and spelling.
Tape and Interview Records:
The original tape recording of the interview was submitted to California State Parks.
248
Interview with Sam Kuramoto
Interviewed by Patrick Ettinger
[Session 1, March 23, 2006]
[Begin File 1]
ETTINGER:
Today is Thursday, March 23rd, 2006. My name is Patrick Ettinger, and I am
sitting in the San Jose home of Sam Kuramoto, to talk about the Locke
Boarding House Project, State Parks Project.
Sam, thank you again for agreeing to participate in this set of interviews
about your family’s experiences in Locke. Maybe the best place to begin is if
you just tell me your name and when you were born.
KURAMOTO: My name is Sam Setsuo Kuramoto. I was born on April 29, 1928.
ETTINGER:
I want to talk about your parents first. Tell me a little bit about your father.
When and where was he born?
KURAMOTO:
He was born in Yamaguchi [phonetic] prefecture in Japan in 18, sorry. Gee, I
don’t remember his—
ETTINGER:
Well, roughly.
KURAMOTO:
Let’s see. My mother was 1888, so my father I’m sure was about 1878, ten
years difference.
249
ETTINGER:
Okay. What was his family background? Were they farmers?
KURAMOTO:
They were farmers in Japan, in the Yamaguchi prefecture. Really, it’s a real
farming community. I’ve been there once. It’s really a remote area.
ETTINGER:
Oh, it is.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What level of education did your father achieve growing up there?
KURAMOTO:
I believe he finished—no, he didn’t finish high school, Japanese equivalent to
high school. He didn’t finish high school.
ETTINGER:
Was he from a large family or a small family?
KURAMOTO:
Pretty good size family. I don’t know how many siblings he had.
ETTINGER:
At what age did he leave and come to the United States?
KURAMOTO:
Both my parents were married at that time. They came to the United States in
1918.
ETTINGER:
Okay. So they were about in their thirties?
KURAMOTO:
They were about thirties, yes.
ETTINGER:
Tell me, then, about your mother, before we get to him from the United States
then. Where was she born, and what was her family’s background?
250
KURAMOTO:
She was born in the same village as my father. I believe they had the regular
picture marriage; I don’t know what you want to call it. So she was born in
1888, I remember that.
ETTINGER:
By picture marriage you mean what, exactly? Arranged?
KURAMOTO:
It’s arranged marriage, not picture, arranged marriage.
ETTINGER:
Did they initially then, as a young married couple, farm as well?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Would they have worked on their families’ farms, or had their own, do you
know?
KURAMOTO:
After they got married, my mother worked on the Kuramoto family farm.
ETTINGER:
Okay, on his family farm.
KURAMOTO:
That’s right.
ETTINGER:
What were the opportunities for education for her at that time in Japan?
KURAMOTO:
I don’t think she even went to Japanese equivalent of high school. I believe
she finished elementary school.
ETTINGER:
Tell me again the year they came to the United States?
KURAMOTO:
1918, if I remember correctly. I think in 1918. It’s either 1918 or 1915.
251
ETTINGER:
Okay. What was the story behind their coming, do you know?
KURAMOTO:
They heard that, typical, that the United States, everything is paved in gold,
like a road, so they thought they could make quick money and then go back to
Japan.
ETTINGER:
Oh, they did.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, yes.
ETTINGER:
A lot of immigrants were doing that same thing at that time.
KURAMOTO:
Same thing.
ETTINGER:
So their initial plans were to come and to make quick money farming, or as
merchants? What was—
KURAMOTO:
As farming, either itinerant farmworker or to be able to lease farmland.
ETTINGER:
Do you know if anybody in their family had come first, or friends that kind of
pulled them?
KURAMOTO:
The first one to come here was, I believe, was my father’s brother, who was
younger than my father. He settled in the same town, Locke. But my father’s
brother owned, he had a small restaurant in Locke, right in Chinatown.
ETTINGER:
What was that called?
KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember.
252
ETTINGER:
So he came first, then, to Locke.
KURAMOTO:
Right, and a year or two later my father and my mother followed.
ETTINGER:
What was the younger brother’s name, do you know?
KURAMOTO:
I remember his last name was Kanechika, K-a-n-e-c-h-i-k-a. So he adopted the
wife’s name.
ETTINGER:
Oh, okay. Was that common?
KURAMOTO:
Common, especially if the other family doesn’t have any sons.
ETTINGER:
That’s interesting. So then your father perhaps heard from him of the
opportunities in Locke and he followed.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, they came here, I think into the United States.
ETTINGER:
And came right to Locke.
KURAMOTO:
They came right to Locke, yes. [Subsequently, I learned from my sisters that
they resettled in Locke later.]
ETTINGER:
Did your parents ever, when you were growing up, talk to you about how that
move felt? Certainly for both of them it must have been a real—
KURAMOTO:
I think it was a little traumatic, coming to a strange land where they knew
nobody. The only group of people that really helped my parents were, I think it
253
was Mormons. Some Christian group really helped my parents, so my parents
both converted to Christianity.
ETTINGER:
In the States?
KURAMOTO:
In the States. They were Buddhists in Japan.
ETTINGER:
And what did they become in the United States, what denomination?
KURAMOTO:
Methodist.
ETTINGER:
Did they have any children yet, when they emigrated? Had they started the
family?
KURAMOTO:
When they emigrated, yes. My two oldest sisters were born, and then my late
older brother, he was born on the ship on the way to the United States.120
ETTINGER:
And your two oldest sisters are Matsue---
KURAMOTO:
Matsue and Kikue.
ETTINGER:
Kikue; so they were both born in Japan.
KURAMOTO:
Right. I take it back. Wait a minute. Were they born in Japan or born in the
United States? I believe they were born in Japan.
ETTINGER:
120
Well, we can ask.
On a later date, Mr. Kuramoto stated that his brother was in fact born in Japan, not on the ship.
254
KURAMOTO:
Because my brother, he was a alien, because he was born on the ship, outside
the United States. Well, back then it was how many, a hundred miles
offshore.121
ETTINGER:
Right. And so he was always considered an alien?
KURAMOTO:
Alien, yes. He’s naturalized.
ETTINGER:
He naturalized, but your sisters were you think also—you’re not sure.
KURAMOTO:
I’m not sure.
ETTINGER:
Your brother is the very oldest?
KURAMOTO:
No. My brother was ten years older than me, and my sisters, my oldest sister is
ninety-one now, and Kikue next to her is eighty-nine.
ETTINGER:
Is that the whole family, the four? Are there other siblings?
KURAMOTO:
It’s Matsue, the oldest, Kikue, and then my brother, the late brother Eimi.
Then my next late sister is Haruko, and then myself.
ETTINGER:
Now, when they first came to Locke, and I know this is before you were born,
so the questions get easier when we start talking about your own experiences.
It’s harder when you’re trying to remember your parents’. When they first
came to Locke, where did they stay or settle in?
121
This statement was also later corrected by Mr. Kuramoto; his brother’s birthplace was in fact Japan.
255
KURAMOTO:
See, I’m trying to remember. I know they bought their property here; no, not
bought. They leased it—
ETTINGER:
The Locke Boarding House.
KURAMOTO:
—in 1921. That’s where my late sister was born.
ETTINGER:
So not long after they arrived, a few years after they arrived.
KURAMOTO:
That’s true.
ETTINGER:
Did they come over with a little bit of savings?
KURAMOTO:
A little savings, that’s true.
ETTINGER:
A little savings, yes, because you would think to acquire that.
KURAMOTO:
If I recall, I think they stayed with some family for a couple, three or four
years, until they acquired this. Well, I think this building belonged to my
parents, but the land was leased.
ETTINGER:
Of course, right, like all the Locke land, right.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, yes.
ETTINGER:
So they stayed with some friends, perhaps, or somebody, maybe boarded
themselves for a couple of years.
256
KURAMOTO:
That’s true, yes. I don’t know where they stayed, but I know they came to
Locke in 1921, because they bought this building.
ETTINGER:
And were they then doing, would both of them, to your knowledge, have been
doing agricultural labor?
KURAMOTO:
Oh, agricultural labor, yes. Itinerant farmers, both my parents. Yes, they go
from here and here. They went to Lodi to pick grapes during the season. They
went to Stockton in some season, and they went up north. They went all over
the place. They’d pick strawberries, grapes in Lodi, strawberries in, I think,
Watsonville. Of course, long ago they picked pears during the pear season,
Bartlett pears. They did a lot of work in the vegetable field there, too, like
tomatoes, picking tomatoes, the table tomatoes, not the canning tomatoes.
ETTINGER:
And would your brother, oldest brother, at this point have been working in the
fields with them, do you think?
KURAMOTO:
He finished high school in Cortland, Cortland High School, and he wanted to
go to college, but unfortunately my parents were poor, so my parents forced
him to work on a farm, so that’s what he did. You notice across the street in
their lot there’s, right now is the old marina?
ETTINGER:
Yes, across the—
KURAMOTO:
Used to be a packing shed.
257
ETTINGER:
I wondered about that.
KURAMOTO:
It’s a huge packing shed. During the summer they packed for shipment to back
East the pears, and during the spring I believe they packed asparagus, and
celery, too, celery, asparagus, and pears, and a few—I think they had some
plums, too. They packed plums, too. And even though I was young, I used to
help my mother especially, packing especially asparagus and pears.
ETTINGER:
You remember doing that?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. The old-fashioned way. It was manual machinery. You’d put the
asparagus into this manual machine, into a round pile like this. You curled it
tightly and you tied it with string.
ETTINGER:
Oh yes, sort of making the little crimped bundles.
KURAMOTO:
Right. And then, of course, at the end it was all different sized, so it went
through the conveyor belt to the next machine, where the person just cut the
stem off to make it even, then it went through the conveyor and then they
stacked into—see, back then it was moss, wet moss in a crate. Everything was
done manually. They hammered the—
ETTINGER:
Crate lid on?
KURAMOTO:
—crate lid on, and then they packed it into, there was—see, right now you
can’t see it, but it used to be a railroad track. I think it was two lines. And the
258
reefer [phonetic] used to come there, and then we’d load the asparagus or
whatever, the pears into that reefer, and then the trains came. After everything
was all loaded, I don’t know how many cars. There were quite a few. Then
the locomotive came, and I used to enjoy hearing the locomotives.
ETTINGER:
Little kids always like the train, yes.
KURAMOTO:
You know, steam locomotive? It’s really, I miss that sound even today.
ETTINGER:
That was every day, probably, you heard it, right?
KURAMOTO:
Every day in the season.
ETTINGER:
And so the packing sheds in Locke were a source of employment part of the
year?
KURAMOTO:
During the year for, in fact, the entire family.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really.
KURAMOTO:
My brother’s in it and my sisters, except the late sister, and my late brother
helped provide income for the family.
ETTINGER:
The boardinghouse, your parents, you know that they bought it in 1921.
KURAMOTO:
1921.
ETTINGER:
And, of course, the land was leased by the Locke—did they buy it themselves,
do you know? Did they borrow? Did they buy it outright?
259
KURAMOTO:
My understanding is that they were able to purchase that from their own
money. I can’t remember, I think a couple of the uncles helped them
financially, if I remember right.
ETTINGER:
You had at least one uncle that was in Locke that you mentioned. There was
another?
KURAMOTO:
He was also, see, the uncle’s last name was Suehiro is his last name, S-u-e-h-ir-o. He was a single fellow so he had some money. I’m sure he loaned my
parents some money.
ETTINGER:
He was on your mother’s side?
KURAMOTO:
Father’s side. I think it’s father’s side.
ETTINGER:
You were born in 1928, right.
KURAMOTO:
’28.
ETTINGER:
Where were you born, at home?
KURAMOTO:
See, it was midwife. I think it’s at somebody’s home. But my birth certificate
says, Sacramento, California.
ETTINGER:
It doesn’t say Locke, it says Sacramento.
KURAMOTO:
It doesn’t say Locke, it says Sacramento, and it’s signed by some doctor, but I
was told it was a midwife.
260
ETTINGER:
Maybe your sisters will remember that.
KURAMOTO:
I think my sisters remember that much better than I do.
ETTINGER:
Yes, of course. Who remembers their own birth? We’ll talk more later today
or next time about the boardinghouse itself, because we talked about that. But
I want to ask just now a little bit about how your parents ran the
boardinghouse. About how many boarders could it accommodate, and how
much time did it take them kind of running the boardinghouse, in addition to
their work?
KURAMOTO:
I remember during the peak season of packing fruits and vegetables the rooms
were all full. See, the boardinghouse was only upstairs. Downstairs was our
living quarters. Yes, that’s right.
ETTINGER:
So maybe how many boarders at a time in busy season, a dozen, or twenty?
KURAMOTO:
I think they had a dozen.
ETTINGER:
I’m just trying to think about how much work was involved for your parents in
the boardinghouse in terms of, did they provide meals?
KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
Or linen, laundry?
KURAMOTO:
They provided linen. Well, laundry is to wash their linens, blankets is provided
by them.
261
ETTINGER:
So for your parents, on a daily basis, taking care of the boardinghouse didn’t
involve a lot of daily?
KURAMOTO:
No, no, very little, because usually the boarders all paid rent in advance, which
was very cheap, I remember.122
ETTINGER:
About what was it?
KURAMOTO:
It was a dollar and a half per week, or something like that. I’m not sure it was
a dollar and a half per week; maybe it’s a dollar per week, somewhere around
there.
ETTINGER:
Did either your mother or your father take more of a hand in running the
business?
KURAMOTO:
My mother did.
ETTINGER:
So she would have advertised rooms or taken money, handled the money when
people made arrangements.
KURAMOTO:
She didn’t have to do much advertising because it’s by word of mouth, people
come. Mostly there were a couple or three Caucasian men. One man stayed all
year round, I remember. My sister remembered the guy’s name. I forgot.
Nice man, I remember. He stayed at the front room overlooking the main
street all year round.
122
Mr. Kuramoto later noted this statement was an error. Rather, his mother and Matsue both made the bed
and cleaned the rooms everyday.
262
ETTINGER:
For several years?
KURAMOTO:
For several years.
ETTINGER:
And that was the Caucasian?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. What he did I don’t remember, but I remember my mother said he always
paid rent, never missed paying rent. But the rest was all either Japanese, you
know, isseis [first generation], or Filipino, itinerant workers.
ETTINGER:
Did the boardinghouse generate just a little extra income for the family.
KURAMOTO:
Very little, very little. You know, a lot of people maybe don’t know, but I was
home alone most of the time, because, well, my father died in 19—he died
young. He died in—I think I was nine years old, or eight years old—1936 or
’37, so my mother, naturally, became a widow, so that’s why she had to go
look for seasonal work some other town, and I was left alone. See, I was home
alone most of the time, during the peak season.
ETTINGER:
Were your older siblings also off with her?
KURAMOTO:
They were helping out, yes.
ETTINGER:
So as a seven, eight, or nine years old, you might be by yourself in the
boarding, by yourself at home?
KURAMOTO:
I take it back. I think my sister, she was born in 1921, she helped take care of
me until she finished high school.
263
ETTINGER:
Which sister was that?
KURAMOTO:
Haruko.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Before your father died in the early 1930s, both of them were also doing
this seasonal work and [unclear] work.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And after your father died your mother just continued, or she had to work even
more?
KURAMOTO:
She had to work even more.
ETTINGER:
How old were you when you were old enough to go and be taken along on a
work trip?
KURAMOTO:
I never went on work trip, no, never. I remember going out across the street to
the packing shed; that’s about it.
ETTINGER:
But some of your older siblings would have gone out and done some picking?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. Oh, I did a little picking, too, especially on Walnut Grove area. I
remember picking especially tomato. I helped my mother pick tomatoes,
because that’s what you get paid by the crate or bucket, I forgot.
ETTINGER:
I know the crops sort of changed a little bit over time, but when did the busy
season begin, what month?
264
KURAMOTO:
I would say April, and then through September, because my father was busy in
September pruning the pear orchard. I still remember that. And my mother, I
think she was off to like Lodi to pick grapes, that’s late summer. Lodi was
known at that time—I don’t know today, but at that time known as tokay wine
country, tokay grape country. So other than that I was left alone, home alone.
ETTINGER:
That’s very interesting. What would you do? This is when you were at school
age, so perhaps you—
KURAMOTO:
I remember packing my own lunch and going off to school Usually it’s a
peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich, and either a banana or apple or orange. At
school we were able to buy a carton of—not carton; at that time it was
bottled—milk or chocolate milk. I forget how much that was, a penny or
something. It was real cheap, a nickel maybe.
ETTINGER:
Can you say a few words about what you remember about your older brother or
older sisters as youth, as young, when you were young? What were they like?
KURAMOTO:
We weren’t too close. We weren’t too close at all, because I guess the age
difference. So like my brother, I felt like he was almost a stranger to me, until
lately, you know, after the war. I was more close to my sister Haruko.
ETTINGER:
Haruko, the one who kind of helped raise you a little bit.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
265
ETTINGER:
And she was about seven or eight years older than you?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What was she like?
KURAMOTO:
She was nice. I really never remember anything, her scolding me, even though
I was a brat. One thing I remember real good was that she took me to see—
see, Walnut Grove had a movie house at that time. I went to see Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs when they first came out, 1937 or ’38.
ETTINGER:
And Haruko took you to that?
KURAMOTO:
I still remember that, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
ETTINGER:
How old were you when you began school?
KURAMOTO:
Six years old.
ETTINGER:
Would it have been the equivalent of first grade that you went to?
KURAMOTO:
Equivalent of first grade. We didn’t have kindergarten. I don’t remember
kindergarten back then.
ETTINGER:
At that time they had an oriental school in Walnut Grove, is that true?
266
KURAMOTO:
That’s what it was, yes. It was the Walnut Grove Oriental School.123
ETTINGER:
Was that the closest school, or it was the school you were required to go to?
KURAMOTO:
I was required to go there.
ETTINGER:
Was there one in Locke, or the Walnut Grove was the closest?
KURAMOTO:
No, Walnut Grove was the closest.
ETTINGER:
About how far was it from your house?
KURAMOTO:
From my house to that school was less than a mile. I think it’s about threequarters of a mile.
ETTINGER:
And that was a state-funded school, or the taxpayer-funded.
KURAMOTO:
It’s state-funded school, yes.
ETTINGER:
Tell me about the ethnic background of those students there. Was it Filipino,
Japanese?
KURAMOTO:
Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, and if you’re, see, if you have a Caucasian mother
or father, and a Chinese, Japanese mother or father, then you would have to
attend Walnut Grove Oriental School. I believe that’s right. Even if you’re 5
percent Caucasian, you still have to attend the oriental school. I remember I
123
Mr. Kuramoto later recalls this school was a large one-room school, where first through eighth graders
learned together. He believes this school was where he attended when he became a third grader.
267
used to feel strange, because I’d see, you know, there were Caucasian kids
sitting near me.
ETTINGER:
But they were partially—
KURAMOTO:
They were partially Asian.
ETTINGER:
And so that meant that they had to go to that school as well.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Tell me a little bit about that school, or the teachers. Were the teachers also
Asian or Asian American?
KURAMOTO:
No, they were all Caucasian teachers. One I remember real good is Miss Pryor,
P-r-y-o-r. Boy, she was strict. See, at that time teacher hit you, but you know,
I guess that’s allowed back then. You can’t do it today, but they’re allowed
back then. [imitates voice] “Stick out your hand.” The ruler used to hit.
ETTINGER:
And that was an elementary school teacher?
KURAMOTO:
Elementary school teacher. And then stand in the corner is nothing. You
would have to stand in the corner for, you know, couple of hours if you’re bad,
naturally.
ETTINGER:
Did the teachers, any of your teachers do you remember at that school, did they
seem to want to be at that school, or did they seem to have sort of—
268
KURAMOTO:
If I remember correctly, they really want to teach us. They were strict, but they
weren’t discriminatory.124
ETTINGER:
That’s what I was asking. What kind of student did you prove to be?
KURAMOTO:
About average. There were a lot of smart kids, but I was average. I liked
playing around. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
A little bit of mischief?
KURAMOTO:
Mischief.
ETTINGER:
Did you have other activities at school, after school?
KURAMOTO:
Oh, we had recess, and they encouraged intramural teams like baseball,
football, basketball.
ETTINGER:
Did you do those?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did you enjoy that?
KURAMOTO:
I really enjoyed that, especially baseball.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really.
124
Mr. Kuramoto later adds that he is uncertain about the teacher’s lack of discrimination.
269
KURAMOTO:
I was too short for basketball. They were all taller guys than me. I really
enjoyed baseball. I was too small for football, too.
ETTINGER:
Did they have a team at the oriental school, a baseball team?
KURAMOTO:
Just intramural.
ETTINGER:
Meaning playing other schools?
KURAMOTO:
No, just within our school.
ETTINGER:
Did you ever get a chance to play the equivalent of league baseball?
KURAMOTO:
No. You know, back then there was no such thing as, what do you call that
thing today, pony league or—
ETTINGER:
Right. Your parents were both working, your older siblings were working.
Did you have much free time, say, after school or on the weekends?
KURAMOTO:
Since my parents weren’t home I used to spend a lot of time in Walnut Grove.
If I remember that, I used to go home when it was dark, but back then I never
heard much about crime.
ETTINGER:
Right. So let’s say you’d walk to school in the morning.
KURAMOTO:
Walk to school in the morning. The grammar school finished at three o’clock
in the afternoon. Then we had one hour to spend time, we’d just spend time in
270
Walnut Grove, the town, Japantown at that time, and then, maybe more than an
hour. Then I was forced to go to a Japanese school.
ETTINGER:
Tell me about that.
KURAMOTO:
Let’s see. Japanese school started at four. Yes, we had one hour of free time,
and at that time Japanese school was from four to six.
ETTINGER:
After your other school day.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, two hours of Japanese, Japanese class, strict, really strict. I remember
they had the textbook from Japan, really pro-Japan stuff, you know, 1930s and
‘40s. I mean, mid-to-late thirties they were really pro-Japanese textbooks.
You read about the so-called famous Japanese generals and admirals and stuff,
and their kids and stuff. I still remember that.
ETTINGER:
Now, you said you were forced to go to Japanese school, so I mean, that means
your parents, right?
KURAMOTO:
They paid for the monthly tuition.
ETTINGER:
And how many students; was it organized by grade level?
KURAMOTO:
Organized by grade level. We had quite a few. The class I attended had fifteen
kids.
ETTINGER:
Oh, wow. And there were different grade levels as well.
271
KURAMOTO:
Different grade level in different classroom.
ETTINGER:
So there were about, then, fifteen Japanese students in your grade at the
oriental school, and the rest were a mix of Chinese.
KURAMOTO:
No, no Chinese came to our Japanese school.
ETTINGER:
I meant at your—I know at Japanese school. At the oriental school, the
Japanese students would go after school to the Japanese school, and there were
about fifteen of them.
KURAMOTO:
Right, right.
ETTINGER:
Do you remember any teachers from the Japanese school?
KURAMOTO:
One that I remember is Dr. Mesoterami [phonetic]. Oh, they were strict, didn’t
hesitate to rap you on the head with a stick, those pointer sticks. It hurt. I
remember it hurt.125
ETTINGER:
And they themselves were probably immigrants.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, yes.
ETTINGER:
You said earlier that your parents, when they first moved, had this idea of
making money and maybe going back to Japan. Was that idea already gone by
the time you were born? They’d been here ten years.
Mr. Kuramoto adds to this list of teachers Mrs. Terami and “one other Japanese lady” whose name he
cannot recall.
125
272
KURAMOTO:
Yes, gone. That’s right, it’s gone.
ETTINGER:
Do you remember your mom or your dad talking about that feeling of deciding
not to go back to Japan, and making that decision to stay?
KURAMOTO:
Only thing I remember was that they were sending whatever they can save, the
money to a bank in Japan. I think it was the Sumitomo Bank, or something
like that.
ETTINGER:
They sent some of their savings back?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. But after the war they had about 2,000 or 3,000 yen. Two or three
thousand yen was nothing, not in 1945, maybe worth about ten dollars.
ETTINGER:
Why do you think they were sending money back if they weren’t certain they
were going to go back?
KURAMOTO:
I don’t know why. I remember they still kept on sending back money until
Pearl Harbor.
ETTINGER:
How did they stay in touch, or did they stay in touch with their families?
KURAMOTO:
By mail.
ETTINGER:
Was that very common? Was your mother always thinking and writing them
back in Japan, or your father?
273
KURAMOTO:
I remember my mother did at least once a month, used to correspond with her, I
think, sister.
ETTINGER:
Well, you went to school, then you went to Japanese school, and then you came
home at six o’clock. If your mother was there she would have prepared a
meal?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
If not?
KURAMOTO:
Then my sister prepared it for me. But then, you know, summer it was light
until about eight o’clock at night, or maybe eight-thirty, so I stayed and played
with the kids at Walnut Grove. Then I walked home at dark. Then, of course,
my sister got mad, but she still cooked me food.
ETTINGER:
Who were some of your friends that you played with at Walnut Grove?
KURAMOTO:
They were Kuwamura brothers, Yagi [phonetic] brothers, and a couple of
others I used to play regularly with. We were all crazy about baseball. We
formed a team.
ETTINGER:
And you’d just play after school?
KURAMOTO:
After school, yes. I really enjoyed baseball. That’s why even today I’m crazy
about baseball.
ETTINGER:
It’s a great sport.
274
KURAMOTO:
It is.
ETTINGER:
What else did you do as a child for fun? Did you fish? Were you allowed to
swim in the river?
KURAMOTO:
We went fishing. I wasn’t a swimmer. I couldn’t swim. I swim like a rock.
But I went fishing, together with the boy that lived in a cottage. His name was
George. Used to go fishing maybe two or three times a week. You could fish
for catfish.
ETTINGER:
You were pointing to this picture here of a cottage, and he’s talking about the
cottages underneath the front porch of the boardinghouse.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, this cottage here.
ETTINGER:
And you said these were some family friends that lived there?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Was George close in age to you?
KURAMOTO:
The same age as me.
ETTINGER:
So he also went to the school with you?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And also Japanese?
275
KURAMOTO:
Japanese.
ETTINGER:
So in some ways would you say you had a fair amount of freedom as a child?
KURAMOTO:
Lots of freedom.
ETTINGER:
To get your homework done and be ready for school—
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
—and Haruko managed you quite a bit during the school year.
KURAMOTO:
I remember she made me study, do homework.
ETTINGER:
One of the reasons that the Town of Locke and the Delta is really fascinating is
because there were so many different groups there, the Chinese, the Japanese,
and Filipinos, Caucasians. Can you give me a sense for what, if any,
interactions happened between the different ethnic groups of children? For
instance, would you play or not play with the Chinese?
KURAMOTO:
None at all with Chinese or Filipinos, because especially after 1937, Japan
invaded China, we were not close. In fact, we were pretty cold.
ETTINGER:
Yes. If you weren’t close before then, I can imagine it got very cold after.
KURAMOTO:
Chilly.
ETTINGER:
But even before that there wasn’t a lot of crossing, with the Filipinos, the kids?
276
KURAMOTO:
No, not at all.
ETTINGER:
So at the oriental school you might sit near them, but at recess or lunch you—
KURAMOTO:
Went separate groups, yes. The Chinese had their own group, and we got our
own group. In fact, there were a lot of fights between us.
ETTINGER:
I was just going to ask that.
KURAMOTO:
There were a lot of fistfights.
ETTINGER:
A lot of schoolyard fights?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. Of course, if you get caught by teacher or principal, you have to report to
the principal’s office and then we’d get a spanking, and then stand in the
corner. I don’t remember anybody being expelled, though. It wasn’t that
serious, just fistfight.
ETTINGER:
Just over the usual stuff, insults or name calling?
KURAMOTO:
Insults.
ETTINGER:
In terms of the children there at oriental school, was the Chinese population
larger?
KURAMOTO:
Larger.
ETTINGER:
By quite a bit than the Japanese or Filipino?
277
KURAMOTO:
By quite a bit.
ETTINGER:
Did your family have, for you or for your siblings, any rules about interacting
with other children?
KURAMOTO:
None at all, none at all. I don’t remember my mother encouraging me to
associate with Chinese boys or girls.
ETTINGER:
You don’t remember her encouraging or discouraging, which?
KURAMOTO:
Encouraging me. I remember she never discouraged me from going to that
Chinatown of Locke. I avoided that.
ETTINGER:
You avoided that?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Wouldn’t walk through on your way home?
KURAMOTO:
No, no, never did.
ETTINGER:
You stayed up on the river road?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I tried to avoid going to the main street of Locke, because there was a lot
of gambling houses, opium houses, house of prostitution, several of them.
ETTINGER:
So as a youth you just had a sense that that would be trouble?
KURAMOTO:
Trouble.
278
ETTINGER:
What about, would other children have harassed you? I mean, as a child would
you be worried about that?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, we used to get harassed by the Chinese people at our home there. In fact,
since a lot of times I was home alone—see, we never locked our doors. So the
Chinese would come to look, and steal our furniture.
ETTINGER:
Downstairs in the family house?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Why was the family house left unlocked?
KURAMOTO:
I guess my parents never believed in locking the door.
ETTINGER:
Now, upstairs, the boarders, did they enter the boardinghouse separately
upstairs?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, that ramp—
ETTINGER:
That ramp in the front.
KURAMOTO:
—and then in the back of the house there was a stair that led up to their
boarding room. See, right now it’s wide open, but I remember during my time
it was, see, upstairs you can go from the back porch to go up the stairs in that
way. But there was a door that remained locked, I remember that. But if you
open the door, that’s our living area. I remember that was locked.
279
ETTINGER:
The boardinghouse, of course, sits literally across the street from Locke, but it
was not considered part of Locke, is that true? I think somebody told me that
the Sam’s Boarding House was considered not in Locke, but is that not true?
KURAMOTO:
It’s not true, because our address was P.O. Box 11, Locke, California.
ETTINGER:
But that street was in other ways kind of a divide?
KURAMOTO:
Divide.
ETTINGER:
I mean officially you were in Locke, but unofficially—
KURAMOTO:
Unofficially, right.
ETTINGER:
But you did have some Chinese boarders, true?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, we could have Chinese boarders, a nice man. Don’t only associate with
Chinese in Chinatown. You remember Locke, on the road there’s our old
house, there’s a road that goes down to Chinatown, and there’s an old Chinese
school building?
ETTINGER:
Yes.
KURAMOTO:
Next to that is a grocery store, Yuen Chong I think they called it. We used to
go there quite a bit. My mother did shop there for groceries.
ETTINGER:
I was wondering where she—that was the main grocery store?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
280
ETTINGER:
And so she had good relations with the shops?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, we got along real good with that proprietor of the Chinese grocery store,
and, of course, my mother wanted to buy real Japanese food. She used to walk
to Walnut Grove.
ETTINGER:
There was a merchant in Walnut Grove?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
A Japanese store?
KURAMOTO:
Japanese store.
ETTINGER:
What was that called?
KURAMOTO:
The name is still in the building, but it’s not operated by them. I forgot the
name.
ETTINGER:
And they were the main providers?
KURAMOTO:
Main source for Japanese food.
ETTINGER:
Well, let’s talk a little bit about food that your mother liked to cook. What did
your family eat? You mentioned peanut butter and jelly on the way to school,
but—
KURAMOTO:
Well, once in a while I had a baloney sandwich. My mother was real good at
making stew, beef stew. She was good at making, naturally, a lot of Japanese
281
food, you know, those—I call it slop suey, that she mixed vegetables with
either a slice of beef or pork or something, and vegetables.
ETTINGER:
Boiled or fried?
KURAMOTO:
That’s stir fried. But she was good in making stew, pot roast; I’m sorry, not
pot roast. She could make spaghetti, stew, spaghetti, and meatloaf.
ETTINGER:
So not always traditionally Japanese meals, in a sense.
KURAMOTO:
Except for eating rice. [laughs] If I think about it, too, it’s funny because
she’d cook spaghetti and then she gives me rice, stars and stripes.
ETTINGER:
Every meal needed to have some rice, I guess.
KURAMOTO:
Every meal had rice.
ETTINGER:
What did she cherish? What did she really like to buy that she could only get
at that Japanese store?
KURAMOTO:
Raw fish, and those pressed fish, what do you call that thing, you know, the top
is round, you’d slice it? I’ve forgotten—to buy that, and raw fish, naturally.
Fish was best in the Japanese grocery store.126
ETTINGER:
126
This is great. You were saying the fish was best in the Japanese store.
Mr. Kuramoto later recalls the food is named Kamaboko.
282
KURAMOTO:
Fish was best in the Japanese grocery stores, fresh, and then Japanese pickles,
Umeboshi they call it. That’s those—it comes in a jar, very sour.
ETTINGER:
So some imported items.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, yes.
ETTINGER:
As a child, did your family go up to Sacramento ever, or often, or?
KURAMOTO:
My mother used to take me to Sacramento for shopping at least four or six
times a year, and for longer trips, I remember her taking me to Yosemite
National Park. I remember spending a winter there, I mean, I don’t know how
long. Maybe it’s a one-day trip, but I remember fun playing in the snow.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really. Your family had one car?
KURAMOTO:
We had one car, a Model T or Model A, I forgot now. It was cramped tight.127
ETTINGER:
What about your father? He died when you were pretty young, but do you
remember him going with you, taking you to Sacramento?
KURAMOTO:
No, he never did. See, my uncle and my mother took me to Sacramento, even
Yosemite. I remember my father went to Yosemite. I think my uncle and his
wife, and my mother and myself, and I think my sister went along, too.
127
Mr. Kuramoto later recalls the car they owned was a Star.
283
ETTINGER:
When you think about your father being around when you’re young, is it at
home? When you think about or remember your father, what do you see him
doing?
KURAMOTO:
At home, doing not much of anything. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
He worked hard?
KURAMOTO:
If I remember correctly, I think he didn’t do much of anything. He was, to me,
pretty lazy. That’s why mother had to work pretty hard.
ETTINGER:
He oversaw the boardinghouse, but he did some seasonal work?
KURAMOTO:
He did some seasonal work, too.
ETTINGER:
But your mother carried the burden of the household?
KURAMOTO:
My mother carried a major burden, yes.
ETTINGER:
You’d go up to Sacramento to shop. Would that be sort of school clothing,
school supplies? What would you need in Sacramento?
KURAMOTO:
Well, school supplies and clothing, and once my mother gave me permission to
buy a couple of toys.
ETTINGER:
When you went to Sacramento would you shop in the Japantown there, or
where?
284
KURAMOTO:
My mother’s favorite—well, Japantown some, but my mother’s favorite store
was, not Woolworth but similar to that, Weinstein something? Weinstock or
Weinstein? Maybe it’s gone now. It’s a—
ETTINGER:
General merchandise?
KURAMOTO:
—general merchandise, dollar store I think they call it.
ETTINGER:
And where was that, kind of?
KURAMOTO:
I forgot.
ETTINGER:
But near downtown?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, near downtown.
ETTINGER:
And your sister would go with you, so it was a chance for—was that something
you would look forward to?
KURAMOTO:
I always looked forward to it, because then usually we’d end up going to the
zoo in Sacramento. I’ve forgot the name of the park, but we went to the—
ETTINGER:
Land Park?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, that’s it.
ETTINGER:
That seemed like a little bit of a journey to go up to Sacramento.
KURAMOTO:
That’s true.
285
ETTINGER:
Did your mother have close friends?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, among the Christian family—I’ve forgot their name—because my mother
used to belong to this Christian women’s fellowship. They’d get together and
do sewing and have tea together, and things like that.
ETTINGER:
Where did they gather, in Walnut Grove?
KURAMOTO:
At Walnut Grove, at the Methodist church, which is a building still standing,
but it’s unoccupied.
ETTINGER:
Now, was the Methodist church in Walnut Grove a Japanese Methodist?
KURAMOTO:
Japanese.
ETTINGER:
You’d mentioned when they first came over that they were helped by
Methodist missionaries or some church?
KURAMOTO:
I think—I remember I still have my mother’s Bible. I thought for sure it was a
Mormon couple that helped her, helped them.
ETTINGER:
Let’s stick with your childhood just a little bit longer; it’s interesting. What
about chores, daily chores, either that you had or your siblings had? Was there
a family garden or any regular chores that you remember?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, we had a garden. We had a pretty nice garden. Of course now you can’t
tell, because it’s all overgrown and weeds.
286
ETTINGER:
Right back to the east, behind the house?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, next to the house and behind, and this side, too. It was all—
ETTINGER:
On the north side.
KURAMOTO:
You know, from the road, everything was terraced. We planted vegetables and
mostly, this side was mostly flowers. I remember we had a lot of snapdragons,
I remember that, and daisies and snapdragons. On the side of the house we had
a vegetable garden.
ETTINGER:
What kind of things do you remember growing?
KURAMOTO:
Daikon radish. You know, they’re long, you don’t get a black, dark—Japanese
call it Gobo. We had some tomatoes for our own table, and then we had
[unclear]. I remember we had a blackberry patch, too, right by the road. It’s
probably all gone now.
ETTINGER:
A little overgrown.
KURAMOTO:
They’re all overgrown.
ETTINGER:
And working in that garden, was that something that your father took charge
of, your mother, the children?
287
KURAMOTO:
My mother took charge of it, and my uncle did, too. He’s the one that used to
play with me, you know. Like since I loved baseball, we used to pitch, throw
balls to each other.128
ETTINGER:
Was this the bachelor uncle?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.129
ETTINGER:
And what was his name?
KURAMOTO:
Suehiro is the name.130
ETTINGER:
Okay, that’s right. And about, was he your father’s age, or older, younger?
KURAMOTO:
Younger.
ETTINGER:
So he was maybe in his thirties or so.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
He’s the one that also went up to Sacramento those trips?
KURAMOTO:
That’s true, yes.131
ETTINGER:
Where did he live?
Mr. Kuramoto later recalls this man was not his uncle, rather his mother’s friend.
This answer is later changed to No.
130
Mr. Kuramoto has since recognized that Suehiro may not be the correct name.
131
Mr. Kuramoto adds this was true “once in a while.”
128
129
288
KURAMOTO:
He lived in Walnut Grove, but then he used to come to our house quite often,
especially weekends.
ETTINGER:
So on a weekend you might be playing catch with him.
KURAMOTO:
I played catch with him quite a bit, because he knew I loved baseball. Oh, and
once in a while he used to take me fishing. See, he had a car, so we went to, I
remember going to Isleton quite a bit to fish for striped bass. I don’t remember
catching anything, though. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
Fishing from the shore?
KURAMOTO:
Fishing from the shore, yes.
ETTINGER:
Catfish are a little easier from the shore.
KURAMOTO:
Catfish easier. I remember one year we went fishing and we forgot to bring
lunch. I remember, then, see, he brought a real fresh sardine for bait. It’s
fresh, so we cooked it. It was real good.
ETTINGER:
Very resourceful. Just made a little fire there on the bank?
KURAMOTO:
Little fire on the bank, and we fried it, you know, naturally, gutted the fish. We
cooked it and it tasted real good.
ETTINGER:
Were there any other Japanese families in Locke?
289
KURAMOTO:
There was one right in Chinatown that they owned a restaurant. That was my
uncle, Kanechika, his last name. He operated a restaurant. I’ve forgotten the
name of the restaurant.
ETTINGER:
Was it Japanese food?
KURAMOTO:
No, it’s predominantly American food. It’s like a café.
ETTINGER:
So he was really the only Japanese merchant in Locke?
KURAMOTO:
In Locke.
ETTINGER:
But he made that work somehow?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, he did pretty good, especially the itinerant workers. They used to go eat
at his restaurant.
ETTINGER:
A lot of the ones that stayed with you would, perhaps—
KURAMOTO:
They’d go over there, yes.
ETTINGER:
Did you guys go down to that restaurant much?
KURAMOTO:
I did. Yes, we did, both my sister and I, we did. I remember as a little kid, I
remember helping them set the table.
ETTINGER:
Where is it in relation to that grocery store in Locke? Is it farther down or
[unclear]?
290
KURAMOTO:
It’s almost in the—see, there’s a grocery store, another shop, then shop, and
then that fourth one. They came in the restaurant by the road, and you walked
down a stair, or from the street.
ETTINGER:
So it served, as you said, a lot of itinerant laborers?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And Locke had a lot of those, right?
KURAMOTO:
A lot of them.
ETTINGER:
As you got older in school, and I guess after your father died, is it after eighth
grade that you would have gone to the high school?
KURAMOTO:
See, I was thirteen when the war started.
ETTINGER:
So that—and we’ll talk about internment in the camps maybe next time, but
that was before you went to high school, then?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Your older siblings went to the high school before the war?
KURAMOTO:
My late brother and my late sister, they both graduated from—at that time it
was Cortland High School. It’s gone now.
ETTINGER:
And that was integrated, so to speak. There was no oriental high school.
291
KURAMOTO:
Right. Right.
ETTINGER:
Do you remember them talking about the experience of going to that high
school? Was it something they looked forward to?
KURAMOTO:
Oh, they looked forward to going to school, especially my brother, because he
was pretty smart. He graduated from Cortland High School, I don’t think as
valedictorian. What’s the next one, salutatorian?
ETTINGER:
Salutatorian.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Oh, wow. About what year would he have finished high school?
KURAMOTO:
Boy.
ETTINGER:
About the time that your father died?
KURAMOTO:
About the time my father died, early thirties, I believe.
ETTINGER:
And he’s the one who would have liked to have gone to college.
KURAMOTO:
He wanted to go to college real bad. He wanted to become a chemist, I
remember. I remember he was really interested in chemistry, but
unfortunately, my mother says, “You’ve got to help out with the family
finances,” so.
ETTINGER:
Instead he did what, then? What did he do right after high school?
292
KURAMOTO:
He became an itinerant farmworker. I remember he hated that.
ETTINGER:
When he was doing that kind of work was it work that you went for the day
and came back, or is it work sometimes where you went away for several
weeks?
KURAMOTO:
Sometimes he went for several weeks.
ETTINGER:
And he would come back and give her the money, or most of the money to
your mother?
KURAMOTO:
Most of the money to my mother, yes.
ETTINGER:
How did your brother die? [unclear]
KURAMOTO:
He was living up in Kensington, up by Berkeley. He died of pancreatic cancer.
ETTINGER:
I guess before the war, I guess you were probably still too young then yourself
to have thought about what you wanted to do necessarily. But as a boy, do you
have memories of thinking about what you’d like to do when you got older?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I wanted to become a baseball player. But I also wanted to learn how to
fly airplanes.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really?
293
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I wanted to become an air force, well, at that time U.S. Army Air pilot. I
remember I used to enjoy—not enjoy, I never flew, but my dream was to
become a pilot.
ETTINGER:
How do you think that started?
KURAMOTO:
You know, since I was a little kid I always used to fly, you know those rubberband airplanes?
ETTINGER:
Oh yes, balsa wood?
KURAMOTO:
Balsa wood, almost every day during the spring and summer, from up on the
porch, throw it down.
ETTINGER:
If you weren’t playing baseball you were playing with the airplane.
KURAMOTO:
Right.
ETTINGER:
The boardinghouse, as a child—your dad named it Sam’s Boarding House, is
that true?
KURAMOTO:
He named it Sam’s Boarding House, why I don’t know. And then I understand
that he loved the name Sam so much that he named me Sam.
ETTINGER:
But he named the boardinghouse first, I guess, maybe.
KURAMOTO:
I guess so, yes. Never named me Samuel, just plain Sam.
ETTINGER:
Oh, is that right? Did you guys have any pets, or animals, growing up?
294
KURAMOTO:
No. We had stray cats, which the other people used to feed the cat. We didn’t
have any dogs, though.
ETTINGER:
And your early childhood was the depression, during the depression. Were you
aware of it as a particularly, did people talk about it as a particularly difficult
time?
KURAMOTO:
No. Only thing I remember, my father was saying something about it. He was
working for, was it a dollar a day, or a dollar a week, or something like that
during the depression. That’s the only thing I remember. I think it was a dollar
a day; fifty cents a day, that’s what it was, fifty cents a day.
ETTINGER:
I want to broaden out for a second—this is really fascinating—broaden out and
talk just about Locke a little bit. I’ve gotten some impressions of it, in terms of
stores and the way you wouldn’t walk through it on the way home necessarily.
Tell me a little bit about the residents of Locke in the 1930s. Mostly there are
some merchants, there are some bakeries—
KURAMOTO:
There’s some merchants. Like I said, there’s some gift shops, but since I
avoided the main street—I know there was an opium den and at least a couple
of houses of prostitution, gambling houses. Oh, the gambling house, that’s
where the issei itinerant workers used to go. They played this keno, Chinese
keno. You can tell when they’re ready to give out the winning number,
because they threw out the firecracker on a string [imitates sound]. Then all
those isseis to run to that place.
295
ETTINGER:
So Locke had a lot of what we’d say sort of vice industry.
KURAMOTO:
Vice, that’s right.
ETTINGER:
The residents of the town, certainly they weren’t all working as merchants or in
these places. Were they working in the packing sheds? Were they also
itinerant—
KURAMOTO:
They were also working in the packing shed, or they’re itinerant farmworkers.
ETTINGER:
So, similar.
KURAMOTO:
Similar.
ETTINGER:
And you or your siblings, or your mother might work alongside some of them
in the packing sheds, or in the fields?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What was the most commonly spoken language on the street of Locke?
KURAMOTO:
Locke was predominantly Chinese. I think it’s predominantly Cantonese, not
Mandarin, Cantonese.
ETTINGER:
And someone like your uncle, who ran the restaurant, would he know a little
Cantonese?
KURAMOTO:
He knew a little Chinese, yes, Cantonese.
296
ETTINGER:
And was that common? Did you know any?
KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
Or your parents?
KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
Didn’t need it for the business?
KURAMOTO:
Didn’t need it for the business.
ETTINGER:
Filipinos spoke English?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
At home what language was spoken?
KURAMOTO:
Japanese. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
You kind of laugh because?
KURAMOTO:
Because it’s funny, because, see, in grammar school we spoke English,
naturally, and [unclear] class ended they would walk out together and they
would start speaking Japanese, and from then it’s all Japanese.
ETTINGER:
Until seven-thirty or eight in the morning the next day.
KURAMOTO:
Right.
ETTINGER:
Would you get in trouble at school to speak Japanese?
297
KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
But you were permitted to, just among your friends at recess, for instance?
KURAMOTO:
No, I don’t think we were permitted to, but [unclear] in Japanese. No, I think if
you spoke loudly in Japanese there, you’re in trouble. Even though, you know,
school was segregated, we had a pretty good school. I mean, all the textbooks
and paper and stuff were all new. Teachers were real good. I remember the
physical education teacher was real nice, the man.132
ETTINGER:
Did Haruko like school?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, she liked school.
ETTINGER:
She was about five years older than you, or five grades ahead, or less?
KURAMOTO:
Five grades ahead, so since she finished, she graduated high school in
Cortland, so, see, I was thirteen when the war started. No, she’s seven years
older than I am, so she graduated when she was eighteen or nineteen.
ETTINGER:
Did your father spend time in Locke? Did he gamble or—
KURAMOTO:
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but somebody said he loved gambling. That’s
what I heard.
ETTINGER:
132
Well, it’d be a very tempting place to live if you loved to gamble, wouldn’t it?
Mr. Kuramoto adds this was true prior to Pearl Harbor.
298
KURAMOTO:
Yes, especially three or four gambling houses in Chinatown.
ETTINGER:
You could throw a rock and hit them from your house. And your mother just
went into Locke to shop?
KURAMOTO:
Right, at that Chinese grocery store.
ETTINGER:
The more convenient shopping. She didn’t have time to go to Walnut Grove.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And they would drive to Walnut Grove when they needed to go there?
KURAMOTO:
We walked there.
ETTINGER:
Oh, you walked there. Even if you were going to go grocery shopping, you
would walk.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, because if you had a fresh fish to bring home, the proprietor used to pack
it in ice for us, so you walk home and this fish is still cold.
ETTINGER:
I’m jumping around a little bit here, but I am thinking about several things at
once. Did your mother acquire much English?
KURAMOTO:
Very little, very little.
ETTINGER:
Enough to get by.
KURAMOTO:
Enough to get by.
299
ETTINGER:
To negotiate with a boarder or at the store.
KURAMOTO:
Yes. If ever you do meet my both sisters, they’re very little in English, too.
ETTINGER:
Even though they attended school, all their schooling in the States, they spoke
so much Japanese at home that that was—
KURAMOTO:
That’s true.
ETTINGER:
Which language did you feel most comfortable in?
KURAMOTO:
English. But since my friends spoke Japanese I had to go along.
ETTINGER:
And your sisters somehow ended up getting more comfortable with Japanese?
KURAMOTO:
Japanese, yes.
ETTINGER:
I wonder why the difference.
KURAMOTO:
Gee, I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
What about your brother?
KURAMOTO:
My brother, when he spoke to us he spoke in English. My sister did, too, at
home. But when they speak to their friends it’s all in Japanese, but to me it
was all in English.
ETTINGER:
Your sisters? At home?
300
KURAMOTO:
Yes, especially my sister, “Well, what do you want to eat tonight?” is what she
used to say.
ETTINGER:
Now, would that change if your father was in the room, or your mother was in
the room?
KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
So there wasn’t a real parental pressure to speak only Japanese.
KURAMOTO:
No, no, no.
ETTINGER:
But by and large, when you said a minute ago it was mostly Japanese at home,
but on occasion the children would speak to each other in English.
KURAMOTO:
English.
ETTINGER:
But you spoke to your mother in Japanese.
KURAMOTO:
Japanese, yes.
ETTINGER:
Your father, then, didn’t make much progress in English either?
KURAMOTO:
No, none at all. Very little.
ETTINGER:
What about other elements of sort of Japanese tradition in their marriage or in
the family life? We talked about food a little bit. We talked about language.
Were there holidays?
301
KURAMOTO:
They really observed Japanese holidays.
ETTINGER:
Tell me about some.
KURAMOTO:
Like was it February or March, there’s a Girls’ Day, used to decorate those
Japanese dolls in tiers. On top was the emperor or empress, and down here was
all those, their courts, whatever you call it, and on the bottom hill was their
soldiers, samurais. Used to decorate that, the Girls’ Day.
ETTINGER:
It’s called Girls’ Day?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. They call it Children’s Day now. Then the Boys’ Day was in May. We
used to fly those paper kites, paper, they’re koi, carp.
ETTINGER:
Like a carp kite.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
So Children’s Day, or Boys’ Day and Girls’ Day. What else?
KURAMOTO:
Well, New Year’s Day we took, every year tradition was—you know those
mochi rice things? They used to stack two and then they put orange on that’s
the tradition. That’s to bring good luck. My mother used to cook Japanese
food for New Year’s, for people to come to our house to eat, and then we’d go
to the other people’s house to eat, you know, sushis and all the stuff. That’s
New Year’s.
302
See, we didn’t do too much about other Family’s Day, when they had
the—not our family, but other Family’s Day, when they had the emperor’s
birthday they used to celebrate that, April 29th. Not us, though.
ETTINGER:
Why not, do you think?
KURAMOTO:
I don’t think my parents cared too much about emperors by then. But other
holidays I don’t remember. I mean, we had Christmas. That’s not Japanese.
ETTINGER:
And your parents were converts to Christianity.
KURAMOTO:
Christianity, yes.
ETTINGER:
Were they both equally active in the church?
KURAMOTO:
My mother was active, not my father.
ETTINGER:
And she went to church every Sunday?
KURAMOTO:
She went to church every Sunday. She read the Bible every day. I don’t know
where her Bible is, but boy, she had all the writings in there on every page.
ETTINGER:
Did she bring the children with her to church on Sundays?
KURAMOTO:
Well, I remember my sister used to bring me to church, to the Sunday school,
but not my brother, though. My sisters did, my sister did, yes.
ETTINGER:
And so religion was very important to your mom?
303
KURAMOTO:
Very important. My two older sisters, they were Buddhists, so they didn’t go
to Christian church.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really. When they came to the United States as very, very young, and their
parents Christianized, how were they able to maintain their own?
KURAMOTO:
I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
They just emerged from their childhoods as Buddhists?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, because how they met their future husbands I don’t know, but the future
husbands were both Buddhists, even though, you know, they weren’t active in
the church, but when it came to contribution they always contributed to the
Buddhist churches.
ETTINGER:
But your mother wasn’t pushing the children to join the church, necessarily?
KURAMOTO:
No, no.
ETTINGER:
Staying for a minute on the issue of Japanese traditions, is there anything in
your mother’s dress or your father’s dress that they maintained as traditional
Japanese, or that they might wear on a Japanese holiday, or did they sort of
have Westernized?
KURAMOTO:
No, always Westernized. I don’t remember my mother wearing any kimonos.
ETTINGER:
Did she sew or make clothing?
304
KURAMOTO:
Yes, she did.
ETTINGER:
And would make clothing in a Western fashion?
KURAMOTO:
Western fashion.
ETTINGER:
For you and for your siblings?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Do you recall their social life? Did they socialize together with other Japanese
immigrants frequently, say every weekend?
KURAMOTO:
They were too busy being itinerant workers to socialize with other families,
except New Year’s.
ETTINGER:
Now, would they sometimes travel, let’s say if they were going to go to Lodi or
Stockton, they would drive?
KURAMOTO:
We did that. Yes, they would drive, or they were driven to that place.
ETTINGER:
Was there another family or two that you remember them, say, working a lot
alongside?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, but I’ve forgot their names.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Were there other Japanese immigrant families from the same part of
Japan, or from their same village, or was that an issue?
305
KURAMOTO:
No, not same village. Same part of Yamaguchi prefecture, and there was a lot
of Hiroshima prefecture.
ETTINGER:
Looking back, do you think it was important to your mom or your father to
instill Japanese values or traditions in their children?
KURAMOTO:
No, not my mother. My mother said, “Be a good citizen.”
ETTINGER:
And your father just wasn’t much of a—
KURAMOTO:
He wasn’t much of a talker.
ETTINGER:
What about your uncle? Did he have a strong sense of maintaining Japanese—
KURAMOTO:
Yes, he sure did, sure did.
ETTINGER:
In what way? What form did that take?
KURAMOTO:
Oh, like, you know, that we should look toward Japan as a mother country,
which never interested me.
ETTINGER:
And he was in his thirties or so, right?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
So he had very strong sort of nationalist feelings towards Japan.
KURAMOTO:
Toward Japan, yes.
ETTINGER:
Do you think he wanted to go back?
306
KURAMOTO:
In fact, two of them went back from Tule Lake, you know, when they were in
Tule Camp. They were repatriated in the exchange. I think maybe two or
three; I know two went back to Japan.
ETTINGER:
Two people you knew from Walnut Grove.
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I met them after, when I was in the U.S. Army in 1949. I went to visit
them, and they said they regretted coming back to Japan. He said we were
lucky we didn’t come to Japan. They really suffered, he said. They were
ostracized by Japanese.
ETTINGER:
They went back in the middle of the war, basically?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. They said, “What did you come back for? We’re short of food.” They
said, “Go back to the U.S.”
ETTINGER:
Interesting. And they had gone back out of a sense of their longing, right?
KURAMOTO:
Right. Right.
ETTINGER:
Your uncle wasn’t one of those that went back, or was he?
KURAMOTO:
He went back to Japan before the war.
ETTINGER:
Oh, he did.
307
KURAMOTO:
Yes. If I remember correctly, he had to take over the land in Japan, because,
see, he adopted the wife’s last name. I think wife’s parents passed away before
the war, so they had to take over the land, or raise the rice crop.
ETTINGER:
You mentioned earlier the Japanese invasion of China in ’37. Was your uncle
somewhat sort of approving of the Japanese activity?
KURAMOTO:
He sure did.
ETTINGER:
Enthusiastic?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, enthusiastic.
ETTINGER:
That explains in part maybe why he went back?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I can’t remember, one of the relatives, I don’t remember if it was uncle or
whatever, we were in camp 1943, ’44. He eventually went to Japan, but then
you know in ’44 Japan was losing war. You know, their navy was [unclear]
sunk, but I remember the uncle never believed that. He said, “Japan’s winning.
Japan’s winning.”
ETTINGER:
He was in the camp, some camp?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. But there was the big navy battle where Japan lost three or four aircraft
carriers. I’ve forgotten, that’s—
ETTINGER:
Midway?
308
KURAMOTO:
Midway, yes, battle of Midway. He said, “No, I don’t believe that, Japan; it’s
the other way around.” [laughs]
ETTINGER:
So your uncle and your parents just didn’t share that politics, really.
KURAMOTO:
No, no.
ETTINGER:
Your father seems like he would have been kind of indifferent to it?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, he’s indifferent to that.
ETTINGER:
And your mother as well?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Was there sort of an ethnic association in Walnut Grove, or a Buddhist church,
or where, were there community organizations for Japanese Americans in
Walnut Grove?
KURAMOTO:
There were. There were.
ETTINGER:
And your family didn’t belong, or did?
KURAMOTO:
My mother belonged to the Christian group. So, yes, at that time, I think the
theater burned down, but we had a theater, I believe the size of a 500-seat
theater, and Christian group used to have, during Christmas we had a play and
all that stuff on the stage. And the Buddhist group, they did likewise at
different times.
309
ETTINGER:
Were they putting on Japanese-language performances?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did they have visiting groups from—
KURAMOTO:
Other towns? Yes.
ETTINGER:
So, traveling theater groups.
KURAMOTO:
I remember, in fact, we had plays from the Japanese school, too.
ETTINGER:
And that would take place at this little theater there?
KURAMOTO:
In the theater there.
ETTINGER:
What about any Japanese-American political associations?
KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
Your older siblings and you growing up, obviously you loved baseball and for
dressing, western, but it wasn’t for your parents, seeing their children being
American culturally, did they ever talk about that? Sometimes in families it’s a
source of tension, right?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. Well, my mother used to tell me that, “Oh, you’re born in the United
States. You’re American, so be proud to be American.” I remember her telling
me that. Whether she told that to my other siblings I don’t know.
310
ETTINGER:
Were there, of your siblings, one of them sort of a rebel or causing your parents
a little more trouble than—
KURAMOTO:
No. We were all very quiet. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
What about your sisters? This is going great, I think. Your sisters were in high
school before the war. What do you recall about their ability to date or to see
boys or to go out?
KURAMOTO:
My late sister never went out. She didn’t have a boyfriend at all.
ETTINGER:
Haruko?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. And my brother Eimi, he never had a girlfriend either. But the two oldest
sisters, no, they didn’t finish high school. They just went to grammar school.
They met the guys and they got married.
ETTINGER:
They never went to Cortland High School?
KURAMOTO:
No, my two older sisters, no. They [unclear] to Cortland High School.
ETTINGER:
But Haruko went to Cortland?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
But you don’t remember her dating?
KURAMOTO:
No. I don’t think she ever dated. I don’t think she had a boyfriend.
311
ETTINGER:
How old was Matsue, how much older than you?
KURAMOTO:
She’s ninety-one and I’m seventy-seven; fourteen years.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Do you remember, how old was she when she got married?
KURAMOTO:
Real young. Gee. When she got married my father was still alive, so 1934,
1935, somewhere around there.
ETTINGER:
Where was her husband from?
KURAMOTO:
From Japan. He had leased the land near Walnut Grove. They raised
asparagus. He had a pear orchard, open land. He had tomato plants. In fact,
he was ten or twelve years older than my sister. Yes, they got married in—
ETTINGER:
Okay. So he was an immigrant, came, and then he married your sister.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, yes. Same thing my second sister, too. She married the guy. My oldest
sister, I think she got married in a Christian church. Maybe that’s to appease
my mother, I guess. I don’t know. But my second sister, I think they eloped if
I remember right.
ETTINGER:
Was her husband also a Japanese immigrant?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And older?
312
KURAMOTO:
He was close to her age, I believe. She’s eighty-nine now. I think he was
about a couple or three years older than her.
ETTINGER:
How old do you think she was, roughly, when she eloped?
KURAMOTO:
Before the war, so 1938, ’37 or ’38.
ETTINGER:
So Matsue and Kikue, they did not finish Oriental school, don’t go to high
school.
KURAMOTO:
They went to grammar school a little bit, a couple of years I think.
ETTINGER:
Okay, and then just worked for a number of years before they married?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And they would have been going out with your mother, or working at the
cannery?
KURAMOTO:
That’s true.
ETTINGER:
Well, they must have been having a chance to socialize with boys, one way or
another I guess, to have met—
KURAMOTO:
How they met their future husbands I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
Well, that’s a question for them, I guess.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
313
ETTINGER:
I want to talk again a little bit more about Locke, kind of go back and forth
with your family and Locke. It’s very interesting. Was there a physician in
Locke, or a medical professional there?
KURAMOTO:
No. No.
ETTINGER:
When you guys, as children did you see doctors?
KURAMOTO:
Infrequent. Only one I went to see quite a bit was the dentist in Walnut Grove.
ETTINGER:
Japanese?
KURAMOTO:
The dentist was Korean, Korean-American. See, we had a Japanese doctor I
used to go see for checkup. I’ve forgot his name. He’s in Walnut Grove.
ETTINGER:
The residents of Locke probably had a Chinese—
KURAMOTO:
They had a Chinese doctor. Now, whether they’re M.D. I don’t know. I know
they did acupuncture.
ETTINGER:
When you go to Locke today it’s kind of quiet.
KURAMOTO:
Very quiet.
ETTINGER:
When you were growing up it must have been almost the opposite.
KURAMOTO:
It was opposite.
ETTINGER:
And maybe a town that didn’t really go to sleep either, busy.
314
KURAMOTO:
Yes. You know, the sidewalk by the street, it’s all wood, because you can’t go
there. It’s dangerous now. In fact, it’s blocked off. See, today there’s a
Chinese restaurant on the corner, and then two houses down used to be a post
office. It’s gone now.
ETTINGER:
But when you were a boy in the thirties, on a Friday night or a Saturday night,
and the boardinghouse is close to Locke, would you hear sounds from town?
Was it lively in that sort of way?
KURAMOTO:
It was fairly lively, not that noisy, but fairly lively, especially among the house
of prostitution.
ETTINGER:
Right. And what about the boarders? I mean, did your parents ever have
problems with sort of loud boarders? I mean, here they were, they were above
the family residence.
KURAMOTO:
No. Fortunately they were very quiet, very quiet.
ETTINGER:
And a lot of them used the rooms literally just to sleep at night?
KURAMOTO:
Sleep at night, yes.
ETTINGER:
And spent the day—their rooms are rather small.
KURAMOTO:
Small, small room. Only one bath upstairs.
ETTINGER:
And there was no common room for them, if a boarder wanted to sit and read
or?
315
KURAMOTO:
No. No.
ETTINGER:
You had your room, or you were outside.
KURAMOTO:
Right.
ETTINGER:
Did you ever, or your siblings ever kind of befriend any of the boarders?
KURAMOTO:
I was pretty friendly with that one Caucasian guy. I’ve forgot his name. I
think my sister knows his name. He was a real nice guy. Gee, I forgot his
name, a real nice fellow. He had the biggest room upstairs.
ETTINGER:
You don’t know what he did for a living?
KURAMOTO:
I believe he was an itinerant farmworker. Gee, I’ve forgotten. I think my sister
knows. My guess is that maybe he was a foreman or something in that packing
shed, trying to remember, real nice guy I remember. Another nice person was,
you know, next to the boardinghouse was Jack Ross station, the garage.
ETTINGER:
It was a gas station or a garage?
KURAMOTO:
Gas station. He fixed cars, too.
ETTINGER:
Who ran that?
KURAMOTO:
A person named Jack Ross, R-o-s-s. In fact, I used to go to his gas station
almost every weekend.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really.
316
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What would you do?
KURAMOTO:
I’d go there in the office and I’d talk with Mr. Ross. He used to get those
baseball cards. Back then we had baseball cards, too, and he used to give me
the cards, and I used to collect those. I had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and all
those players. When the war started, boy, I had to leave them.
ETTINGER:
Are you doing okay? Can you go a little bit longer?
KURAMOTO:
Sure.
ETTINGER:
This is just really interesting. I’m trying not to say too much, because on the
tape, so if I’m nodding a lot, [unclear]. You were saying about the Jack Ross’
gas station.
KURAMOTO:
Gas station, and he used to get those baseball cards, and used to give me some
of those. I had a collection, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and I don’t know the other
players’ names, Phil Rizzuto; no, he was afterwards. And I used to take good
care of the cards. I’d wrap them in paper and put a rubber band around it, and
when the war started I don’t know what happened to it. Boy, if I kept that, if I
still had it I’d be rich today.
ETTINGER:
Oh yes you would, especially, yes, all those cards.
317
KURAMOTO:
Then he used to get, you know, for promotion I guess for the gas station, he
used to get University of California, Berkeley football schedules and pictures
of the players. I still remember that, and also Stanford.
ETTINGER:
So he was a sports fan like you.
KURAMOTO:
He was a sports fan, and he flew airplanes, too. He had his own airplane.
ETTINGER:
Was he Caucasian?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. A real nice man.
ETTINGER:
Had he been there as long as your family?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. My understanding was that when the war started we were—by Executive
Order 9066 we were forced to go to the camp—I heard that Jack Ross took
over the boardinghouse, for how long I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
And helped ensure its safety, or kept it running, do you think?
KURAMOTO:
I don’t know. I don’t know because, well, as far as U.S. government was
concerned, my mother abandoned the house, so it’s not hers anymore.
ETTINGER:
Let’s talk about the years leading up to internment. By the late 1930s and early
1940, was your family—you talked about the sort of tensions between the
Japanese and the Chinese in Locke—were there any instances of harassment or
of your family by Chinese residents?
318
KURAMOTO:
No. No, no, none at all, not that I recall.
ETTINGER:
What was the mood in the—you were in junior high? Yes, you were about
twelve or thirteen.
KURAMOTO:
Thirteen. I was an eighth grader.
ETTINGER:
Eighth grader at the Oriental school. How did the war affect you as an eighth
grader? Were you aware of it? Before the U.S. got involved were you kind of
aware of war in the Pacific? Was there a lot of talk about it? You were young,
but was it something that the Japanese community was really—
KURAMOTO:
Pearl Harbor Day, I think it was Sunday for us here in California; yes, Japan
was—I forgot.
ETTINGER:
It was a Sunday.
KURAMOTO:
I remember one of the very rare times we had breakfast together in the
morning, my brother and my sister and my mother, myself, four of us. I don’t
know why, my brother happened to turn on the radio. Then we heard “attack
on Pearl Harbor by Japanese Naval Air Force.” I remember we were shocked,
really shocked. I thought a small country like Japan could never attack a big
country like the U.S.
ETTINGER:
And then how did that day unfold? I mean, what did your mom do next? Did
they want to go into Walnut Grove and see other people to share the news?
319
KURAMOTO:
No, we stayed home. We tried to keep out of peoples’ way. See, at first we
tried to keep away from other people, but you know, then, let’s see, December
’41. Then in February ’42 we started hearing rumors about us going to camps,
and my mother panicked. She told me to burn everything Japanese. We had
Japanese records and this and that. We burned everything. I burned
everything.
ETTINGER:
In the fireplace, or out back?
KURAMOTO:
Out back. We had the Japanese-style bath, wood-burning bath, and we burned
everything in there.
ETTINGER:
What kind of things, so it was like birth records or legal documents?
KURAMOTO:
Anything to do with Japan. She had a small Japanese flag signed by her
relatives. We burned that. And my father had a revolver. I think it was a .32
or it was a .38. I snuck across the road and threw it into the Sacramento River.
ETTINGER:
Oh, wow. This is in February of ’42.
KURAMOTO:
February ’42 and March, and April we were forced to evacuate, April ’42.
ETTINGER:
Government agents were going into Japanese homes, I know.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Looking for things. Had that happened to your family?
320
KURAMOTO:
They came into our house, yes, the FBI.
ETTINGER:
Was it after that that your mom wanted to get rid of everything, or she was just
trying to prevent it?
KURAMOTO:
I think they came right after Pearl Harbor.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What do you remember them doing?
KURAMOTO:
Oh, they came into our house, you know, they rummaged through a lot of stuff,
but if they find anything Japanese they didn’t say anything.
ETTINGER:
And your brother at that point, was he still at home?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And he was in his twenties.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Then the FBI must have gone through the community of Walnut Grove,
because Walnut Grove is where the larger Japanese community was?
KURAMOTO:
Right.
321
ETTINGER:
Similar sort of thing? Do you remember anybody being arrested, or
temporarily detained?
KURAMOTO:
There were a few arrested, yes, especially if they were members of the
Japanese, let’s see, Nippon Jin-Kai, so that’s Japanese men’s club.
ETTINGER:
Did your uncle belong to that?
KURAMOTO:
One of them did. Yes, he got taken away. He went to some camp in Texas or
someplace, and he was released to the regular relocation center after about a
couple of months.
ETTINGER:
I know it’s a broad question, but what other kind of responses did the Japanese
community have in this period right before internment?
KURAMOTO:
The older generation, some of them were very happy. They were yelling,
“Banzai!” and all that. But for the younger generation, well, for me, I don’t
know what’s going on.
Like my brother, though, he was pretty sad, because he was saying,
“Now what’s going to happen to us?”
ETTINGER:
So you say some of the nationalists were excited about it.
KURAMOTO:
Excited about war, yes. They were really for it. I remember some of those
guys were really for it.
ETTINGER:
Did they think they would go back, or did they think—
322
KURAMOTO:
Well, some of them I’m sure believed that Japan was going to invade the
United States, and they’re going to be the, I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
On the ground floor.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, the ground floor of whatever. They’d maybe become a government
official or something, under Japanese rule. That’s what they thought, I guess.
ETTINGER:
It must have been really hard for your mother—
KURAMOTO:
It was hard for her.
ETTINGER:
—as a single mother of three, then.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And there must have been a lot of rumors, right?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
It’s easy when you look back you know what happens, but at the time—
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
—there was some real uncertainty about—how do you remember your family
first learning about the internment order? How was that news transmitted?
323
KURAMOTO:
We had a telephone pole near our house. They tacked on the EO 9066. We
read that and something about evacuation. And they also tacked it on a corner
of our house, too.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really? They knew Japanese lived in that, unfortunately.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Who would have been doing that, local federal officials?
KURAMOTO:
Federal officials, I think it was FBI agents.
ETTINGER:
Do you remember about how long a time you were given between the time that
that notice showed up and the time you had to go to a relocation center?
KURAMOTO:
I think we got three or four months. We were told we’ve got to be out of the
house by April, April 1st, 1942.
ETTINGER:
And what happened then? What did your mother, what kind of arrangements
did she try and do between finding out about internment and April 1st?
KURAMOTO:
Well, we were told that we can bring two bags per person, I think, so she
packed all the essentials, clothing, and then we—did an FBI truck take us to—
I’ve forgotten now—or did we walk? I think that truck came after us, then we
went to assemble in Walnut Grove, the town.
324
At that time the town had the railroad track right smack in the middle.
One side went to a different camp, the other side to a different camp. We got
loaded into a train—a train or was it bus—train.
ETTINGER:
At Walnut Grove?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, a train at Walnut Grove. Then we were taken to Turlock assembly center.
The other group went to a different assembly center, I’ve forgot where. I was
sad because most of my buddies were on the other side of the tracks.
ETTINGER:
[unclear] and so you knew they were all going to be—
KURAMOTO:
All together in a different camp. I said to myself, all those guys are lucky.
ETTINGER:
What was your mother like that day? Was she a strong person?
KURAMOTO:
She was pretty weak, emotionally. She was sad. I know she had tears in her
eyes.
ETTINGER:
Your sisters were married at this point.
KURAMOTO:
Two sisters were married. They were on their own.
ETTINGER:
Did your brother go with you and your mother—
KURAMOTO:
To the camp, yes.
ETTINGER:
—and your sister. Your sister was probably about almost twenty herself.
325
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did your sister have friends that were going to be going to the same camp, or
did your mother have—
KURAMOTO:
She had one friend that came to the same camp, Elsie, I’ve forgotten her last
name. But they were good friends and they were together in the camp most of
the time.
ETTINGER:
What camp did your family—
KURAMOTO:
We ended up in Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona.
ETTINGER:
How long were you at Turlock, the assembly center?
KURAMOTO:
Three or four months, I believe.
ETTINGER:
What kind of facility was that? Was it a fairgrounds or—
KURAMOTO:
I think it’s fairgrounds, the tarpaper shack and outhouses. There were
washrooms, shower rooms, washrooms, outhouses. The only running water
was for shower and washing clothes, laundry.
ETTINGER:
This was summer—
KURAMOTO:
Summer.
ETTINGER:
—so it was warm.
326
KURAMOTO:
Warm, especially Turlock is pretty warm.
ETTINGER:
Yes, Turlock’s warm. So you were there through May and June?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, and then we got on a railroad car, passengers in that, and they took us to
Arizona. It was really hot there.
ETTINGER:
How did people pass the time at Turlock? I mean what, literally, either adults
or children, how did you make sense of every day? What did you do?
KURAMOTO:
Nothing. We just wandered around, dazed. You know, a lot of people said,
“What’s going to happen to us?”
ETTINGER:
Because it wasn’t sure.
KURAMOTO:
Wasn’t sure.
ETTINGER:
Could you play ball? Could the children play?
KURAMOTO:
Well, I played catch with a couple of guys, and that’s about all. I was
youngest, right. I was enjoying it.
ETTINGER:
But your mother and your sister just passed the time talking and—
KURAMOTO:
Yes, worrying, yes, especially my mother. She was in a daze.
ETTINGER:
Slept a lot?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I don’t remember my mother associating with other Japanese.
327
ETTINGER:
Even at Turlock you mean?
KURAMOTO:
Yes, Turlock. Then we went to Gila, and then, well, we were in a daze at first,
but then eventually she joined the Christian women’s group.
ETTINGER:
At Gila?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And were there some other of the Christian women’s group from Walnut
Grove with her? She had a lot of friends through church. Did none of them go
to Gila?
KURAMOTO:
She had two other ladies from Walnut Grove. I think it was two other, two or
three other ladies, they all joined the Christian women’s fellowship, they called
it.
ETTINGER:
Was she worried about your older sisters? Where did they end up getting
interned?
KURAMOTO:
One went to Tule Lake, and the one came to Gila, too, but they eventually went
to Tule Lake.
ETTINGER:
Were you able to communicate with them before? They both had settled near
Walnut Grove, right?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. But, you know, I hardly communicated with those two sisters.
328
ETTINGER:
At that point. Because you were young and they were adults.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
But they were at the camps. How long was your family then at Gila?
KURAMOTO:
1942, ’43, ’44, ’45. Let’s see. We relocated to Minnesota about a month prior
to V-E Day.
ETTINGER:
You were relocated to Minnesota?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Why was that? I remember reading that in your—
KURAMOTO:
Because my sister was there already, so my mother wanted to join her.
ETTINGER:
Which sister?
KURAMOTO:
Haruko.
ETTINGER:
And why had she gone to Minnesota?
KURAMOTO:
She got a job there, applied for a job at camp and then she got accepted.
ETTINGER:
Okay, so in the internment camp you could apply for a war job.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, yes.
ETTINGER:
Outside of the evacuation zone.
329
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
In Minneapolis?
KURAMOTO:
Minneapolis. And my brother also applied for a job as a watch repairman,
because he was good at repairing watches by that time, so he got accepted at
some Jewish store in Kansas City, Missouri, so he went to Kansas City.
ETTINGER:
Do you recall how that worked? I mean, were there jobs posted inside the
camps that you could apply for, or how did your sister and he—
KURAMOTO:
How they found out I don’t remember. I think it was posted that the
opportunity to get a job, not in California but in the Midwest.
ETTINGER:
Did your brother think about joining the military?
KURAMOTO:
He couldn’t, because alien.
ETTINGER:
Oh yes, he was born in Japan. Yes, he wasn’t—
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What do you remember about the boys you played with or hung out with for
those three years? I mean, you were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. What
did you do in camp? Did they set up a school? What was the schedule?
330
KURAMOTO:
We had a regular elementary school and a high school. See, in 1945 I was a
sophomore. Then I went to Minnesota and I went to Wayzata High School as a
junior.
ETTINGER:
Your mother [unclear] to Minnesota. Did your older brother go to Minnesota,
too?
KURAMOTO:
No, he was in Kansas City.
ETTINGER:
Did he marry there?
KURAMOTO:
No, he got married late. He got married here in California.
ETTINGER:
How long did he stay in Kansas City?
KURAMOTO:
I think he was there for three, four years, maybe five years.
ETTINGER:
So he stayed several years after the war.
KURAMOTO:
Yes. Then he moved to Minnesota.
ETTINGER:
Okay. How long did you live in Minnesota?
KURAMOTO:
’45, 1945, ’46, ’47, ’48, part of ’49.
ETTINGER:
And then you joined the—
KURAMOTO:
Army.
331
ETTINGER:
When you got out—I just have a few more questions for you today, and then
we can wrap it up—I know you were just in high school at this time, but was
your mom trying to learn about the status of the boardinghouse while she was
still at Gila?
KURAMOTO:
No. I remember, she kind of gave up.
ETTINGER:
Had no interest in coming back to Locke?
KURAMOTO:
No. In I think 1950 or ’51 we passed by Walnut Grove and Locke. We
stopped in Walnut Grove, yes, to visit some friends she knew. Then we passed
by Locke and she just glanced at the house and didn’t say anything. Then we
went to visit my sister near Cortland. She and her husband had a farm there.
ETTINGER:
What year is that, you said, when you went back?
KURAMOTO:
I think that was 1952.
ETTINGER:
You must have been excited to see the boardinghouse?
KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
You were out of the army at that point, or still in?
KURAMOTO:
I was still in the army. I got discharged in 1953.
ETTINGER:
So you flew out to see your sister. Well, how did you feel going back to a
place you hadn’t been in since—
332
KURAMOTO:
Indifferent.
ETTINGER:
Really?
KURAMOTO:
Because most of my friends were gone. They moved to some other cities.
Some went to San Francisco, some to Sacramento. A few of them became
permanent residents of Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City.
ETTINGER:
So a lot of the family stories were like yours. From the internment camp they
took opportunities back in the Midwest or East.
KURAMOTO:
Yes. So then from then on, no young people want to go.
ETTINGER:
And the Japanese community was largely disbanded?
KURAMOTO:
Disbanded. So for quite a while, for many years the former Japantown long
ago was almost a ghost town. When I went to visit my sister I used to walk
there. It’s an eerie feeling because it’s so quiet, nobody around. But now there
are a lot of Mexicans living there and Filipinos living there.
ETTINGER:
Yes. But your sister and her husband moved back to Cortland.
KURAMOTO:
They went to Cortland, yes.
ETTINGER:
They came to Cortland back from the camp?
KURAMOTO:
From the camp.
ETTINGER:
Was that the sister that was at Tule Lake?
333
KURAMOTO:
Tule Lake, right. And they did pretty good financially doing that farming.
They made money. Those years the pear orchard made out pretty good, but
today they say it’s a losing proposition.
ETTINGER:
But they said they were able to establish a pretty successful farm.
KURAMOTO:
Pretty successful farm.
ETTINGER:
At that point were they able to buy land [unclear]?
KURAMOTO:
Never thought about buying land. Oh, they bought a house in Walnut Grove,
right near the Buddhist church, but the land was leased to them until recently.
So now they own the whole thing now. I mean, not they. My sister’s husband
died, oh, maybe twenty-five years ago.
ETTINGER:
Haruko didn’t marry?
KURAMOTO:
She married in Minnesota.
ETTINGER:
Oh, she did marry in Minnesota.
KURAMOTO:
Yes. She met her husband. He was a surgeon at [unclear], Minnesota. That’s
how she met him, through kind of a social club.133
ETTINGER:
Was he Caucasian?
Later, Mr. Kuramoto clarifies that Haruko’s husband was in the Army stationed at Ft. Snelling,
Minnesota.
133
334
KURAMOTO:
No, Japanese. He’s from Watsonville. So they got married eventually, and
then had two daughters and a son.
ETTINGER:
Did she stay in Minnesota?
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did your mother work in Minnesota? I mean, she’d worked so hard.
KURAMOTO:
No, she never, she didn’t work at all.
ETTINGER:
She lived with your sister.
KURAMOTO:
My sister and my brother-in-law.
ETTINGER:
Well, we covered a lot of stuff today. I think I’ll take a break and maybe next
time talk a little bit more about some of these things, but more about the
boardinghouse itself. Really interesting.
[Tape recorder turned off briefly.]
KURAMOTO:
No, I did mention to you, but see, I’m home alone most of the time, and, in
fact, I rented rooms by myself.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really. I want to put this back on. We were talking a little bit after the
interview, and Sam mentioned that when he was home alone he rented rooms,
so tell me about that.
335
KURAMOTO:
Well, I was home alone most of the time, so sometimes a couple comes and
says, “Do you have any room for us?”
I said, “Yeah. Upstairs we have one or two bedrooms open,” I said.
They asked me how much was it. I forgot what, fifty cents a night or
something like that.
So they say, “Well, let’s take a look at the room.” So I’d take them up
there and show them a room, and hey, they like it, so I’d collect the money and
gave them the key to the room, and that’s it.
ETTINGER:
Explained the situation—
KURAMOTO:
Yes, and I showed them the bathroom. I mean, of course, it’s pretty—it’s a
toilet and I don’t think there was a shower. I think it was a bathtub.
ETTINGER:
And then your mom would come home the next day, or a week later?
KURAMOTO:
No, she didn’t come home until a month or two later.
ETTINGER:
Oh. So between you and Haruko, you collected the rents.
KURAMOTO:
Yes. A lot of time it was by myself.
ETTINGER:
Did you have a lockbox or a safe in the house where you kept money?
KURAMOTO:
No. It was wide open. My mother had one of those money boxes made out of
a cigar box, in the kitchen cupboard.
336
ETTINGER:
In an unlocked house?
KURAMOTO:
Unlocked house. My mother didn’t care, because there was hardly any money
in there.
ETTINGER:
It wasn’t a big savings?
KURAMOTO:
So, you know, of course I didn’t tell my mother, but I used to take some money
out of that thing and I used to go down to Walnut Grove and buy candy and
play games with my friends, and baseball especially.
ETTINGER:
I’m sure.
KURAMOTO:
And come home at night, and my sister was there by then.
ETTINGER:
You kept yourself on the straight and narrow, apparently.
KURAMOTO:
Yes, it’s a funny thing I didn’t become a juvenile delinquent. [laughter]
ETTINGER:
That’s a lot of freedom for a nine-year-old.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
I mean, a lot of freedom. That’s a great story. So most of the boarders were
single men, though, but occasionally you would have a couple?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I remember this one particular couple, they were both, you know,
American Indians.
337
ETTINGER:
Oh, really.
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I remember I smelled alcohol on their breath, you know, especially the
woman. I used to hear about those Indians getting pretty wild when they’re
drunk, but you know, I rented them a room and they didn’t cause me any
problem.
ETTINGER:
How long did people typically stay, a boarder? Some people came for two
nights, some came for two months?
KURAMOTO:
Some came one night, some two nights, some for one week. The itinerant
farmworkers were there. They stayed there for the season, three, four months
maybe.
ETTINGER:
Were there other boardinghouses that people could use?
KURAMOTO:
I think in Chinatown there were boardinghouses, and Walnut Grove, I think
they had boardinghouses there, too.
ETTINGER:
So yours was one of several.
KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Were the other ones also probably multiethnic, the way yours was?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. I think some of the boardinghouses, is it Walnut Grove or Locke that had
the, downstairs they had a restaurant, so it was more handy for workers.
338
ETTINGER:
Although for your boarders it was just a hundred feet away or so, right?
KURAMOTO:
Yes. They can walk to Chinatown if they want to do it.
ETTINGER:
All right. We’re going to end the interview today now. One of the things
about oral history that always happens, as soon as you turn the recorder off
people start telling you other interesting things. Happens every single time. So
now—when I first started doing this I would just listen and say, gosh darn it.
And now I always, like, I’m going to turn this back on. [Kuramoto laughs.]
You never know when somebody’s going to tell you something really
interesting. It’s usually right after you turn off the machine. Let’s see if I
turned this off yet.
[End of interview]
339
Oral History Interview with
Mr. Sam Kuramoto, Ms. Kikue Okomoto, and Matsue Tao
For California State Parks
By Patrick Ettinger
Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer/Editor:
Patrick Ettinger
Professor of History, CSU Sacramento
Co-Director, Oral History Program, CSU Sacramento
B.A.,
M.A.,
Ph.D.,
Interview Time and Place:
The interview session took place on July 5, 2006 at the home of Ms. Kikue Okomoto in
Locke, California
Transcribing/Editing:
TechniType Transcripts transcribed the interview audiotapes. TechniType Transcripts
checked the verbatim manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for
punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling.
Tape and Interview Records:
The original tape recording of the interview was submitted to California State Parks.
340
Interview with Sam Kuramoto Ms. Kikue Okomoto, and Matsue Tao
Interviewed by Patrick Ettinger
[Session 1, July 5, 2006]
ETTINGER:
Today is Wednesday, July 5, 2006. My name is Patrick Ettinger. I am
a professor of history at California State University in Sacramento.
This morning I’m sitting in the home of Ms. Kikue Okomoto and with
me is her brother, Sam Kuramoto, and her sister, Matsue Tao.
We are here as part of the oral history project on the boarding house in
Locke. So I’m going to ask them some questions this morning, first
about their family, their early memories of growing up in Locke, and
then a little bit about the boarding house. Matsue, can you tell me
when and where you were born?
MATSUE:
[unclear] Berry Farm.
ETTINGER:
What year were you born?
MATSUE:
1914.
ETTINGER:
Kikue, what year and where were you born?
KIKUE:
1916, October 5.
ETTINGER:
Also around Locke?
341
KIKUE:
No. Sacramento, in the home of a midwife.
ETTINGER:
Can either of you tell me a little bit about your father? What do you
know about when your father came to the United States?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I think in 1900.134
ETTINGER:
What was his name again?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Sukeichi. [Phonetic]135
ETTINGER:
He came around 1900?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I think so. Sixteen years old, he was sixteen years old.
ETTINGER:
Did he come with relatives?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, he came with a group. Went to Seattle, Washington.
SAM KURAMOTO:
The boat landed in Seattle, Washington. I don’t know what the port is.
ETTINGER:
So they both landed in Washington in 1900.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I think so, yes.
ETTINGER:
He didn’t come with an uncle that you know of? Just came with a
group?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
134
No.
Because there were two female narrators present during this interview, it was difficult to discern who
was speaking.
135
Many names in this report have been spelled phonetically.
342
SAM KURAMOTO:
All they know, it’s a group of, I don’t know, men or the family. I don’t
know.
ETTINGER:
That was very common for men to come—so was your father married
at that time?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
He was single.
ETTINGER:
Do you know anything about his family in Japan? Were they farmers?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Farmer, yes.
ETTINGER:
From what prefecture or what area of Japan?
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear] Prefecture, Oshima County, and village of Yashiro.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Island.
SAM KURAMOTO:
It’s a small island.
ETTINGER:
Did he ever talk to you about why he emigrated, his reasons?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
He never explained that, but what I know about the history, they
wanted to come to the U.S., make money, go back home to Japan.
ETTINGER:
What about your mother? What was your mother’s name?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Nobu [Phonetic], maiden name, Kuhara.
ETTINGER:
Do you know what year she came to the United States?
343
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
It’s a picture marriage. My mother came to the U.S. as a picture bride.
If it was 1910, then he would have been twenty-six years old, the
father. So, yes, I guess—
ETTINGER:
Around 1910?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And about how old was she, do you think? Do you know what year
she was born?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I think she says her mother was about twenty-one years old. Papa was
twenty-six. Mama was twenty-one.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
At the time she was born in 1919?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were married young.
ETTINGER:
Do you know about your mother’s background? Was she from the
same village or region?
SAM KURAMOTO:
That I know. From same village.
ETTINGER:
So maybe her family knew his family, maybe?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I think so.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were close by, so she thinks they knew each other.
344
ETTINGER:
So she came, joined your father. When did your father first come to
the Walnut Grove, Locke area, do you know?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Never know, never asked him.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know. [Unclear] those things.
ETTINGER:
That’s okay. When we get farther into the interview, we’ll have lots
more things that will be familiar. This is hard because we’re talking
about your parents, not your life. So I just wanted to get whatever
information I could from your memories about your—when your
mother first came in 1910, did they come to this area?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She thinks that they both came here about 1913 or 1912 or 1913.
ETTINGER:
Right before you were born. As far as you know from your mother and
father, they were working the crops? They were farm workers during
this period of time?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Farming.
ETTINGER:
And moving around with the crops a little bit at this time?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were both living there and tending crops there.
ETTINGER:
In Walnut Grove?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Sixty percent went to the bosses, and he kept 40 percent of the profit.
ETTINGER:
They were sharecropping.
345
SAM KURAMOTO:
Sharecroppers. That’s what it is.
ETTINGER:
In Locke. Okay, good. This is before they bought the boarding house?
Before?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1921.
ETTINGER:
How did they acquire the boarding house in Locke, do you know?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Don’t know.
ETTINGER:
Is it possible they got a loan from a—you had uncles in the area?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
All I heard was that the late brother was born on a ship.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, ship.
SAM KURAMOTO:
He was alien.
ETTINGER:
Your oldest brother.
SAM KURAMOTO:
He got naturalized here. So that’s 1918. At that time the uncle came
in the same ship, and they worked in Oakley, the farm in Oakley, but
as far as financial backing, they said they don’t know anything about it.
They don’t know how they were able to acquire buying that place.
What year was that, her mother said that’s the year that the late sister
was born.
ETTINGER:
In 1920?
346
FEMALE SPEAKER:
’21.
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear] so couldn’t do any itinerant farming, so she said they wanted
to buy that place.
ETTINGER:
Remind me the order of children in the family. You were born first?
And you were born second, yes? And who is third?
SAM KURAMOTO:
The late brother, Ami [Phonetic].
ETTINGER:
And he was born 1918. Then Haruko [Phonetic]
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, 1921.
ETTINGER:
Then Sam.
SAM KURAMOTO:
1928.
ETTINGER:
But we do know this. By 1921 your family moved into the boarding
house and began to live there. Do you remember moving to the
boarding house?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were both in Japan then.
ETTINGER:
Oh, I didn’t know that. After they were born—
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were born here. When she was three years old—five years old,
they were sent to Japan.
ETTINGER:
I did not know that.
347
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Their grandparents raised them.
ETTINGER:
What year did you come back to the United States?
SAM KURAMOTO:
When she was seventeen years old. I don’t know what year it is.
ETTINGER:
So you came back in about 1933, ’34?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1935 to America.
ETTINGER:
What about you?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1931.
ETTINGER:
Why? Did your parents send you to come back at a certain age?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She wanted to see her parents. That’s why she came back to the
United States. She was joking.
ETTINGER:
You came back again what year?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1931, sixteen years old.
SAM KURAMOTO:
1935.
ETTINGER:
Since we want to talk about the boarding house, let’s talk a little bit
about—you get back in 1931. You’ve been raised by your
grandparents, then?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And certainly probably spoke no English.
348
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
ETTINGER:
And you hadn’t seen your mother or father in—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
You don’t know the time.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
ETTINGER:
You have other brothers and sisters that you hadn’t met, Sam and
Haruko, yes? You hadn’t met them before?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They knew my brother and sister when they came back here. She
came in 1931.
ETTINGER:
But I meant they had left before your brother and sister were born?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, they were both in Japan.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Sixteen years.
ETTINGER:
When Haruko was born.
SAM KURAMOTO:
And when Ami was born. So in other words, I don’t know anything
about my parents. That’s the thing. I think, in other words, they must
have gone back to Japan one more time. My mother was pregnant, and
Ami was born on a ship.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No. Japan.
349
SAM KURAMOTO:
I’m sorry. He was born in Japan, yes. So I guess—I’m sorry, I gave
you the wrong information. My late brother was born in Japan, in
May, and then Mother, two or three months later they came back to the
United States.
ETTINGER:
Did your father go back to Japan and your mother?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, they went back the same time. They were in Japan. Brother was
born in May 1918, and maybe July, August, and September they came
back to the United States and they went to Hutchinson [Phonetic]
Ranch.
ETTINGER:
Who came back in 1918, the brother?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
The baby.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They both came from Japan. [Unclear] wasn’t born yet.
ETTINGER:
That helps. Now I understand. Okay. When you were in Japan, did
you correspond with your mother? Did you write?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, they were almost forgotten, I think. Unfortunately, I mean.
ETTINGER:
Do you know why first you were brought in 1931? What did your
grandparents say to you about going to America? Why? Did they say?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She wants U.S. citizenship. That’s why she came back to the United
States.
350
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1932.
SAM KURAMOTO:
That’s right. They were both U.S. citizens, but in so many years they
might lose it, so that’s why they came back.
ETTINGER:
Before you were eighteen, probably. That makes sense. Tell me what
you remember about coming back in 1931. Did you travel by
yourself?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, a friend.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Hashimoto [Phonetic] family came together.
ETTINGER:
Sailed to San Francisco?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did you come through Angel Island?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No. My father comes.
ETTINGER:
Your father came and got you. Okay.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
[Unclear]
ETTINGER:
Just your father met you at the ship?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
How did that feel? How was that?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nothing. I don’t know.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No feelings?
351
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were practically strangers.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No father before.
ETTINGER:
He drove you to Walnut Grove?
SAM KURAMOTO:
A friend’s car, went after her in a friend’s car, to San Francisco and
they came back together.
ETTINGER:
And you met your mother then.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And you met Sam and Haruko.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, three years old.
ETTINGER:
He was a little boy.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, three years old.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I called her [unclear]. Means “auntie.” The other workers [unclear].
ETTINGER:
Like aunt or uncle.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What was your mother doing at that time in the boarding house?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Cleaning and changing sheet, cleaning.
ETTINGER:
Cleaning the house, changing the sheets.
352
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Everything. I helped too.
ETTINGER:
You helped with that.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did working in the boarding house take a lot of her time, or did she
also work in the fields?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, sometimes she works.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Seasonal work.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Packing shed.
ETTINGER:
The packing shed.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes. [Unclear]
SAM KURAMOTO:
That’s right. That was across the street.
ETTINGER:
So she worked there. Did you also work, either of you, in the packing
shed?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
You did. As soon as you arrived?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, she came in March and [unclear] packing shed.
ETTINGER:
Can you describe the boarding house for me?
SAM KURAMOTO:
In what way?
353
ETTINGER:
The family lived downstairs?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Where was the entrance for the family? Around the back?
SAM KURAMOTO:
The entrance from the street was a ramp [unclear] to the second floor,
which is gone now. The back, on the porch side, usually the guests
enter there. So they entered from the side. They’re laughing because
[unclear] Chinese, so they’re saying that the entrance to the house is on
the China side.
ETTINGER:
The downstairs, if you walked in downstairs, what would I see? How
many bedrooms were there downstairs? Your parents had a room?
How was it arranged downstairs?
SAM KURAMOTO:
There’s a [unclear] on the right side, and there was a wash basin so you
can wash your face. Then if you turn right, there’s a hallway. Left
side, you go in the kitchen or dining area, the family dining area. To
the right is the hallway. How many bedrooms there?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Two.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Two bedrooms on the right side. Three bedrooms and the left were
two or three?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
[Japanese]
354
SAM KURAMOTO:
Wait. You lost me. To go in the entryway, a short hallway, a wall. To
the right was a toilet and then next to the toilet was a wash basin. It’s
big enough to wash your face in. Then you turn around, there’s a
hallway this way, then this door to the kitchen or dining area, the short
hallway—how many bedrooms? One, two, three bedrooms?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
There was sister’s bedroom, one bedroom that is [unclear]. During the
season, there were some Japanese itinerant workers.
ETTINGER:
In the downstairs bedroom?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. Then there’s another bedroom that’s at the end, two small
bedrooms. There’s a stairway to go upstairs. There’s another room.
Yes, then a storage-room there, then there’s a stairway to go up there
like this, to the second floor. The small storage, then another room,
where the phonograph was.
ETTINGER:
A sitting room or a sitting room, sort of?
SAM KURAMOTO:
More a recreation room for me, because I used to love listening to
records. I don’t know how a brat like me operated the crank and the
[unclear]. I did all that myself, amazing. Anyhow, this room. Then
another empty bedroom until the seasonal worker rest in that place, and
then brother’s room.
ETTINGER:
And then upstairs is all what?
355
SAM KURAMOTO:
All rental.
ETTINGER:
How many rooms were there?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Four, five, six, seven, and eight.
SAM KURAMOTO:
The number’s still on the door, surprisingly.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nine, eight or nine.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I remember the end room by the street was always rented by one
person, Louie. They made the [unclear]. You will notice it tomorrow.
ETTINGER:
Six or seven rooms. Okay. When we go tomorrow, we can look more
at the house. We’ll have a camera and we can remember better. So
that’s fine.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know if there was a [unclear]. That’s something new.
ETTINGER:
You can help us. When we go to the building tomorrow, you can help
us about what’s new and what you remember. It will probably bring
back a lot of memories to see it.
SAM KURAMOTO:
The floor is weak.
ETTINGER:
We’ll be careful. Kikue, you came back to the United States in 1935?
KIKUE:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Was your father still alive?
356
KIKUE:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
How old were you when you came back?
KIKUE:
About seventeen.
ETTINGER:
What do you remember about coming back? Who met you in San
Francisco?
KIKUE:
My father.
ETTINGER:
You were looking forward to seeing your sister?
KIKUE:
Yes. Sure.
ETTINGER:
And you came then to Locke and saw your mother. What do you
remember about first coming to the boarding house at Locke? Do you
have any memories?
KIKUE:
Not very much.
ETTINGER:
Did you also begin to work then right away, like your sister?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She went into housework.
ETTINGER:
In Walnut Grove?
KIKUE:
Walnut Grove.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Berkeley?
ETTINGER:
Three hours?
SAM KURAMOTO:
When you were a schoolgirl for three years housework?
357
KIKUE:
Housework, yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
One year a schoolgirl, to learn English. That’s why she’s good.
ETTINGER:
I’m sorry, I’m going to switch back to Matsue for a minute. Matsue,
did you go to school when you first arrived?
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear]
ETTINGER:
And about what grade did you start?
MATSUE:
Fourth grade.
ETTINGER:
Because you were learning English.
SAM KURAMOTO:
As soon as school finished, she [unclear]. Remember, this was really,
really Japantown here. We all spoke Japanese.
ETTINGER:
In Walnut Grove.
MATSUE:
In Chinese, Chinese talking. Never English talk.
ETTINGER:
How many years did you go to school?
MATSUE:
I think one year.
ETTINGER:
Kikue, you went to school one year, too?
KIKUE:
One year schoolgirl.
ETTINGER:
You had gone to school in Japan.
KIKUE:
Japanese school.
358
ETTINGER:
In the United States, just one year each of school. When you arrived in
1935, you were working outside the house, in someone else’s house, is
that right?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Housework.
ETTINGER:
For someone else?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Saturday evening, both take me to my mother’s house.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She stayed at the house and on the weekend came back to Locke.
ETTINGER:
Where was the house?
SAM KURAMOTO:
N.C. Berry home. I don’t know where that is.
ETTINGER:
In the area?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Grand Island.
ETTINGER:
So you saw you family on the weekends.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
The weekend, yes.
ETTINGER:
But you were living in the boarding house and helping. How much
work was the boarding house? Was it a lot of work every day?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
There wasn’t much work off-season, because the rooms weren’t rented
that [unclear].
ETTINGER:
So in the winter is that off-season?
359
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, wintertime, yes.
ETTINGER:
So what did you do during the wintertime?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Eat and sleep. [Laughter]
FEMALE SPEAKER:
And sewing.
ETTINGER:
This is for either Kikue or Matsue. Tell me about your mother. What
kind of woman was she?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nice and quiet.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nice, nice.
ETTINGER:
Worked a lot?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh, yes she worked.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Had to work.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, take care of the farm.
ETTINGER:
Also worked in the shed sometimes?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Or harvesting?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I remember that too. Packed asparagus and packing pears for shipment
to back east.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
360
ETTINGER:
Where did she shop?
SAM KURAMOTO:
That Chinese grocery store, Yin Chong [Phonetic]. I remember once
in a while they went—I remember going to Sacramento.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Went to five-and-dime store. Woolworth or someplace. I remember
her taking me there.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Five and ten cent store.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Five and ten cent store, yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know how we went there.
ETTINGER:
Did the family have a car?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Used to be a car [unclear].
ETTINGER:
And your father owned one?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And he drove to—
SAM KURAMOTO:
To Sacramento.
ETTINGER:
Could your mother drive?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
361
ETTINGER:
Did your mother shop in Walnut Grove?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes. Japanese store.
ETTINGER:
Where did she do most of her shopping?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yin Chong.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Chinese.
ETTINGER:
Because it was closer?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, next door.
ETTINGER:
Next door?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Across the street right there.
ETTINGER:
Who managed renting rooms in the boarding house? Your father or
your mother or one of you? Who managed letting the rooms out,
managed the money?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Mostly my mother.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, that’s right.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Father died in 1936.
ETTINGER:
He died soon after you came.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
362
ETTINGER:
What do you remember about your father, Matsue? You lived with
him for three or four years before he died. Can you tell me a little bit
about your father?
MATSUE:
Nice to me.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Nice to you?
MATSUE:
Nice to me, my father and mother.
ETTINGER:
Was he around? Was he around much or did he also [unclear]?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, he was home, but then only thing I know is that he was pretty
lazy.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Father sick.
SAM KURAMOTO:
He was sick, yes.
ETTINGER:
What did he—
SAM KURAMOTO:
I think it was pancreatic cancer.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, no cancer.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Pancreatitis. (Sic), I don’t know.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Gallstones.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Gallstones?
ETTINGER:
So he was ill for a number of years before he died?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
363
ETTINGER:
So your mother—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Take care of him.
ETTINGER:
Was he stuck in bed for a while?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Toward the end, he was just bedridden. I don’t know. Only thing I
remember is that he ended up in some hospital in Sacramento. His
brother-in-law, her husband took him to the hospital in Sacramento
from Locke. [Unclear] because it was painful.
ETTINGER:
Who was saying that? Matsue?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
You used to [unclear]. And your brother, not Sam, but Ami, what was
he doing? He was about twelve or so when you came?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What did he do? Did he help around the boarding house? Did he work
the fields or did he just go to school?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nothing. He go to school, that’s all.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Study, study, study.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Is that because that’s what your parents wanted him to do?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
364
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I think so.
ETTINGER:
You don’t think so. What do you think Matsue? He just liked it?
MATSUE:
Only me working.
ETTINGER:
And he was allowed to not do as much work.
MATSUE:
No. Mostly he study.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I guess for him it’s important to study.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did you help take care of Sam or your other sister, Haruko[Phonetic]
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Take care of Haruko, yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Take care of me or Haruko?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Both.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They both took care of me.
ETTINGER:
Haruko—what do you remember about her? Tell me a little bit about
her. She was about ten years old when you came? Eleven?
SAM KURAMOTO:
1921, she was ten years old.
ETTINGER:
What was Haruko like?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She slept in the same bedroom.
ETTINGER:
What was she like? She also had to work hard? Did she go to school?
365
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She went to school.
ETTINGER:
She just went to school?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes. She studied so hard. Nighttime when everybody Japanese study.
SAM KURAMOTO:
The mother was teaching Japanese to Haruko. Me? I don’t remember
that. I was sitting in a chair, three, four, or five, and Mother was
teaching Japanese. I don’t remember that at all.
ETTINGER:
Teaching just to the family?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Study [unclear].
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Every day.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember at all.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
After school?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, nighttime.
ETTINGER:
Sam and Haruko spoke English at home or Japanese?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I spoke Japanese because my mother spoke Japanese.
ETTINGER:
You lived at the boarding house until you got married?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
366
ETTINGER:
I just asked Matsue if she lived in the boarding house till she got
married, and can you tell me about when and where you met your
husband?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She didn’t know the husband till the day she got married. Picture
marriage.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Just picture. Never saw.
ETTINGER:
Where was he living?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Stockton.
ETTINGER:
And he was Issei?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Issei.
ETTINGER:
What’s his name?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Tao [Phonetic] was the last name. First name was Yojiro [Phonetic].
ETTINGER:
How old were you when you got married?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Eighteen.
ETTINGER:
And how old was your husband?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Twenty-eight. A ten-year difference. So he must have been about
twenty-eight.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
367
ETTINGER:
Did your family have any kind of social life with the other Japanese
families in this area? Had you met other boys through school or
anything?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, no person. They didn’t mingle with other boys in this area. My
parents had few friends here.
ETTINGER:
Who were some of their friends?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Tanaka family, Yno family.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
That’s all, huh?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
People, Christian church.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Oh yes. They were a member of the Methodist church, so she knew a
lot of Christian people. Mr. and Mrs. Kamatsu [Phonetic], yes. They
knew quite a few.
ETTINGER:
What about when you were here? Did you have time to entertain
yourself? What did you do when you weren’t working or watching the
kids?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Sewing, handwork.
368
SAM KURAMOTO:
They did a lot of sewing and had time off.
ETTINGER:
Sewing for—was it work to sell or was it for your family?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Their own wear.
ETTINGER:
Your own clothing.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
For the family. Did either of you spend any time in Locke, other than
going to the store?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Sacramento, to K Street for shopping. That’s infrequent.
ETTINGER:
Once a month or—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Once a year.
ETTINGER:
So you were at home almost all the time?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And you were home on the weekends only.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Matsue, after you got married at eighteen, what year was this? What
year you got married? ’38?
MATSUE:
May 2000, seventy years old. No, eighteen. 1933.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She got married the same year that she came back to the United States.
369
MATSUE:
That’s right.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She got married in the Methodist church here. The reception was held
at the hotel in Redding.
ETTINGER:
And his family was in Stockton?
MATSUE:
No, his friends were in Stockton.
ETTINGER:
He didn’t’ have any family in Stockton?
MATSUE:
No.
ETTINGER:
He had come over by himself?
MATSUE:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What year had he come to the United States, do you know?
SAM KURAMOTO:
First he came to the United States in 1918. Then I don’t know how
many years passed, he went back to Japan. Came back to the U.S. in
1927. Went back to Japan again. Came back to the States permanently
in 1929.
ETTINGER:
Then you married him in 1933?
MATSUE:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Then where did you move with him? Where did you live?
MATSUE:
Stockton.
370
SAM KURAMOTO:
Stockton, then moved to Watsonville. They did a lot of traveling, I
guess, back then. Season work.
ETTINGER:
That’s what he did as well?
MATSUE:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
But you moved out of the boarding house after you got married?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Once in a while came back to Locke.
ETTINGER:
So you lived in Locke with your parents really for two years, ’31 to
’33.
MATSUE:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
That’s right, yes, only two years. She lived only two months? How
many?
MATSUE:
I don’t remember.
ETTINGER:
In 1935 your father was ill, your sister had already moved out.
KIKUE:
She made it already.
ETTINGER:
And you came. Did you get married soon after arriving?
KIKUE:
’39.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She got married in 1939.
ETTINGER:
You lived in the boarding house then with your family from ’35—
KIKUE:
No, I lived in Berkeley.
371
ETTINGER:
So you just visited on the weekends and holidays?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, weekends and holidays. She just stayed in Berkeley. She didn’t
come back.
ETTINGER:
When you say Berkeley, you mean the house?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She lived in a house with a family in Berkeley.
ETTINGER:
I thought the housework she was doing was in Grand Island.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, no, no.
ETTINGER:
First it was Grand Island and then Berkeley?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Okay. Where did you meet your husband?
KIKUE:
Love story.
ETTINGER:
Long story?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Love story.
ETTINGER:
She’s joking?
KIKUE:
Sure.
ETTINGER:
What was his name and when did you meet him?
KIKUE:
Okomoto [Phonetic].
ETTINGER:
And when did you meet him?
372
KIKUE:
1938.
ETTINGER:
Where?
KIKUE:
I worked at the N.C. Berry house and he worked there on the ranch.
SAM KURAMOTO:
When she did housework at the N.C. Berry house, he worked there on
the ranch.
ETTINGER:
Was he Japanese?
KIKUE:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Issei?
KIKUE:
Nisei.
SAM KURAMOTO:
He was Nisei.
ETTINGER:
How old were you when you met?
KIKUE:
’38.
ETTINGER:
So you were about twenty-two?
KIKUE:
I think eighteen. I don’t remember.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She says she doesn’t remember, but she thinks she was about nineteen
years old.
ETTINGER:
So you fell in love and decided to get married. Your father was dead.
Your mother was still alive?
KIKUE:
Yes.
373
ETTINGER:
Was your mother happy with your marriage and happy with this person
you met?
KIKUE:
I think so. I don’t know.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I think, if I remember, I think this was a true love marriage, so nothing
like a picture marriage or anything like that.
ETTINGER:
Where did you settle with your husband after you got married in 1939?
Where did you live?
[Unclear discussion]
ETTINGER:
And where did you live?
KIKUE:
[Unclear]
ETTINGER:
At the ranch?
KIKUE:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Over there by the [unclear]. They were there a long time. I remember
that place.
ETTINGER:
They lived on the ranch?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, and he was a foreman. She cooked for the itinerant workers. I
remember that.
ETTINGER:
This was after you got married, so 1938, ’39?
KIKUE:
Yes.
374
SAM KURAMOTO:
After the war started.
ETTINGER:
Did you have your own place to live, you and your husband, on the
ranch?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. They had a nice place over there. She says the first place they
lived was not so good, but then they eventually moved to the better—
ETTINGER:
On the ranch?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. According to them, a real nice place. They were introduced by—
named George Wilson. He really treated Japanese real good. He was a
very kind person, is my understanding.
ETTINGER:
He owned this ranch, Mr. Wilson?
SAM KURAMOTO:
He was supervisor for all the ranches, most of the ranches around here.
But then the owner was Turner, not Talmidge family. I’m sorry.
Turner family. Talmidge is old name. No Talmidge. Okay. I
understand now.
ETTINGER:
The workers on the ranch where you worked, were they all Japanese or
some Japanese, some Filipino? What were the workers?
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear]
ETTINGER:
Then came Filipino, then came Mexican. Were they all there at the
same time or not?
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear]
375
ETTINGER:
Different times. So when you first started there, it was all Japanese
workers. Okay. What about in the Walnut Grove area? At your
parents’ boarding house in 1932, ’33, ’34, who were the boarders?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Itinerant workers.
ETTINGER:
Mostly Caucasian?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. I think downstairs, first floor was Japanese season workers. Then
the season ended, the rooms were empty.
ETTINGER:
So on the first floor there was just one room for itinerant workers that
were Japanese?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Two rooms.
ETTINGER:
Near the family quarters?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Those were for Japanese?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
The second floor, you’re saying mostly Caucasian?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Do you remember any other ethnic groups?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember. One of the guys’ names was Ruby [?]. I don’t
remember any other [unclear]. I remember one time in 19—see, I was
376
home alone at that time, 1940, my mother was out working in Lodi,
picking grapes. When my mother came to—a room for one night was
Indian, American Indian couple. They weren’t too quiet that night.
[Laughs] Not supposed to drink, but boy.
ETTINGER:
Was it unusual for rooms to be rented to women?
SAM KURAMOTO:
It was all men except one time she said it was a Filipino couple.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Next day, all gone.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They took everything, bureau, mirror, and everything.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Everything. Bed, everything.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Bed, mattress. Next day they went up there, “Hey, what happened?”
Empty room.
ETTINGER:
Did that happen very often?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
First time.
ETTINGER:
Tell me about the rooms upstairs that you helped clean. In a typical
room, what was in it? How was it furnished?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Bureau.
ETTINGER:
What else?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Nothing on the wall, no picture, no nothing.
ETTINGER:
Painted walls?
377
SAM KURAMOTO:
Painted walls.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Shingle roof.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Shingles. That’s right. I remember that. A vertical wall. It’s a wood
shingle, one piece.
ETTINGER:
That run the length—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Together.
ETTINGER:
And that was the interior wall?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Interior wall.
ETTINGER:
And a single bed or a cot?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Single bed.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I think it was single beds.
ETTINGER:
What kind of material? The mattresses, were they futon?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Just a regular mattress, not futon.
ETTINGER:
Regular six inch.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
So, bureau, a mattress, that’s it?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, bedroom.
ETTINGER:
Mirror?
378
SAM KURAMOTO:
A metal bed, just a plain rounded metal bed.
ETTINGER:
Bed frame.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. I remember the mattress fit on top of the spring.
ETTINGER:
Would there be a mirror in the room?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
On the wall?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, on the bureau.
ETTINGER:
And your parents had acquired this furniture?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She thinks it was bought.
ETTINGER:
Do you know if it had been a boarding house before your parents
bought it?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She said it was a boarding house. She thinks the bed was in there
already. When they bought it, everything came with it; the bureau, the
bed, the mattress, everything.
ETTINGER:
So they only had to buy new ones when it was stolen.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
379
ETTINGER:
When I talked to Sam this spring, he mentioned an uncle or maybe one
or two that were in the area. Do you remember them at all? Was it
Suhiro [Phonetic]?
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear]
ETTINGER:
A family friend?
SAM KURAMOTO:
You’re talking about somebody that lived in this boarding house?
ETTINGER:
No, no, no, just an uncle that you spent time with growing up.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, Sam is mistaken. That is wrong. His name is [unclear]. He is the
one that played catch with me and took care of me.
ETTINGER:
Was he a relative?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No. So you can erase that [unclear].
ETTINGER:
That’s okay. We’ll just piece it all together. What were you saying,
Kikue?
KIKUE:
A husband’s friend.
ETTINGER:
A friend of her husband?
SAM KURAMOTO:
He was sure good at playing catch. He was good at a lot, because I
loved baseball. He took care of me.
ETTINGER:
So your mother had no relatives in Walnut Grove or Locke?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No.
380
ETTINGER:
No brothers, no sisters?
SAM KURAMOTO:
There was an uncle [unclear]. He went back to Japan way before the
war. Father’s brother was here, but then he went back to Japan in
1931.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
In August, back to Japan.
ETTINGER:
Was that a relative of your father’s?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, younger brother.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Next brother.
ETTINGER:
So were there any other brothers or sisters of your father that came?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
Either of you, when you were in your late teens working before you
got married, what did you expect to happen? Were you encouraged to
get married soon? What did you think, when you were seventeen,
eighteen and working, about what you would do?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nothing. Just get married. Nothing.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nothing.
ETTINGER:
Just working hard?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. Working hard on getting married.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
[unclear] money.
381
ETTINGER:
When you were working on the ranch, were you able to save money
before you were married?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No money.
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear]
ETTINGER:
When you were working on the ranch in Berkeley, you kept your own
money or did you share with your mother?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
One time I give. Spend all myself.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Good for you.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, not good for me.
ETTINGER:
What about you, the few years you lived at home, did you keep money
from working in the packing shed?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No. Give to parents. I work [unclear] 50 cents [unclear]. That’s all.
SAM KURAMOTO:
You’d get 50 cents.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes. [Unclear] One day, 50 cents, that’s all.
SAM KURAMOTO:
You could keep 50 cents per day.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
That’s all.
ETTINGER:
Matsue, were you homesick for Japan?
MATSUE:
No, no. Sometimes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Just sometimes.
382
MATSUE:
Just sometimes.
KIKUE:
Not homesick? I thought you cried.
MATSUE:
No, [unclear].
ETTINGER:
What about you, Kikue? Were you homesick for Japan after you came
in 1935?
KIKUE:
No. I like America much better.
ETTINGER:
Do you think your mother missed Japan or was she happy?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, she wanted to live here.
ETTINGER:
How did she talk about Japan, or did she?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She never talked to me much about Japan, so I don’t know.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t think so, no.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I didn’t know anything about Japan.
ETTINGER:
What about your father? Did he talk much about Japan?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No. He didn’t talk a lot. No, they said no.
ETTINGER:
They had no plans to go back, your father? Do you think they had
plans to ever go back?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They wanted to make money here.
383
FEMALE SPEAKER:
And go back to Japan.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Because I think they were depositing some money in the bank of—I’ve
forgotten. Some bank in Japan. Bank of—[unclear]. Bank of Japan,
which is defunct now.
ETTINGER:
So they were sending money back, but they weren’t talking about
Japan? I’m wondering when they decided they weren’t going to go
back. Before your father fell ill?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Because the kids were here, never thought about going back to Japan.
Mother didn’t like working [unclear]. Rice paddies in Japan, such
dirty work. See, before, you had to step in the mud. Oh, it’s a mess.
ETTINGER:
When you were living in the boarding house with Sam and your
mother and father, were there certain times when the family was all
together? Every night?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Your father and mother. For dinner?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What kind of foods did your parents like? American or traditional?
What did your mother cook?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Japan style.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She did her own style. She didn’t have much money, so—
384
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Maybe two, three months a year, one time.
ETTINGER:
Meat was not very common.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No. Depression.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Depression times.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, so hard.
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear] frying pan, mix some vegetables, put ketchup on it, and
that’s the main meal, plus we had rice.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No meat.
SAM KURAMOTO:
We had rice and Japanese pickles. That’s about it, I think. I remember
that, too.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Biscuit.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Oh yes, sometimes we had biscuit, yes. I remember her cooking me a
pancake. She made pancake?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t know.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, I don’t think so.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know, pancake or waffle. Bread didn’t last long, would mildew
right away after a couple of days.
ETTINGER:
Did she do all the cooking, your mother?
385
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
You don’t know how to cook?
ETTINGER:
But your mother would be gone sometimes for seasonal work?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
ETTINGER:
And Haruko and you would be home by yourselves?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Who did cooking for me? Who fed me? I don’t know who fed me. I
think it was [unclear]. Or maybe Nakamura. That’s right. The people
who lived in the—
ETTINGER:
Cottage?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Cottage is gone now, cottage on the side.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, I think so.
SAM KURAMOTO:
That’s right. The lady fed me. That’s right.
ETTINGER:
Yakamura?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Nakamura.
ETTINGER:
Husband, wife, and children?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Husband, wife, and one son.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Three children.
SAM KURAMOTO:
One son and two daughters.
386
ETTINGER:
They lived there a long time?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. The war started and, I don’t know, we got separated. I don’t
know what camp they went to.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Poston [Phonetic] camp.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They went to Poston camp. We went to [unclear]. We got separated.
ETTINGER:
They rented from your parents?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They might be getting a little money.
ETTINGER:
So when your mother was gone, they would watch the younger kids,
watch you?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. I don’t remember. They fed me. Other than that, I was home
alone. I don’t remember Ami, my brother. What did he do? I don’t
remember. See, I never got along with him. We weren’t close. I don’t
remember either. 1938, ’39, ’40, and the war started ’41. I don’t
remember. What did [unclear] do to me, do for me? Nothing.
Because Mother worked in Lodi and she went there and here and all
over the place, an itinerant worker. I was home alone. I don’t
remember my brother and sister being with me. I don’t remember at
all.
ETTINGER:
Your father died in 1936, right in the middle of the Depression.
387
SAM KURAMOTO:
June. She remembers the date, June 29, 1936.
ETTINGER:
He died of gallstones or pancreatic.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Gallstones. My niece, her daughter, got the death certificate from
[unclear]. I don’t have it. No pancreatic. I remember something about
pancreatic, though. I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
Was there a funeral?
SAM KURAMOTO:
At the Christian church.
ETTINGER:
The Methodist church?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
It must have been very hard for your mother.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know. All I remember was somebody told me I was laughing
away. I was playing around, [unclear].
ETTINGER:
What do you remember of the funeral? Do you remember anything?
KIKUE:
I cry, that’s all.
ETTINGER:
Matsue?
MATSUE:
Same.
ETTINGER:
And was he buried or cremated?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Cremated. Then I don’t know how many days, a month later, ashes got
shipped to Japan.
388
ETTINGER:
His parents were still alive?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
ETTINGER:
When you had been raised in Japan, you were with your mother’s
parents or your father’s parents?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Father’s parents.
ETTINGER:
He and your mom, they still corresponded with them in Japan? They
wrote letters?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Sent money and candy.
ETTINGER:
From Japan?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What do you remember about—since part of this project is the house in
your family’s life but also the community of Locke, what are your
memories of Locke, the little community near the boarding house?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They didn’t associate too much with the other—no social thing with
the Chinese. No entertainment, nothing.
ETTINGER:
So you never went into Locke? Did you ever walk into Locke?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember walking.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
To come to church.
389
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, every Sunday, go to church.
ETTINGER:
You walked to church?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, walking.
ETTINGER:
Did you walk through Locke?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, just highway.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Too many [unclear].
ETTINGER:
So you had to be careful.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Nice man. 1931, ’32.
SAM KURAMOTO:
[unclear] homeless.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, homeless.
ETTINGER:
Locke had a lot of vice; prostitution, gambling, etc.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Gambling.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Also ill repute. Vice. I also heard there was a house of—what did they
smoke? Not marijuana. [Unclear] I heard.
ETTINGER:
But your family didn’t associate much with the residents of Locke?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Just to come to church.
ETTINGER:
There was a Japanese man who ran a restaurant in Locke?
390
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, there was a person [unclear] that had the restaurant or café, I want
to call it.
ETTINGER:
Would you go there?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
There was Japanese living there in Locke, in town. Okay. [Unclear]
had a restaurant and across the street was a pool hall operated by who?
[Unclear] operated the pool hall and then up the street was [unclear].
Billiard room, yes. That’s the middle of Locke. It was a Japanese
family living there.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear] and my parents.
ETTINGER:
Were your parents friends with this family?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, they were friends.
ETTINGER:
When would they gather with other Japanese families? Were there
certain holidays?
SAM KURAMOTO:
New Year’s, they went around drinking and eating the food.
ETTINGER:
Tell me a little bit about that. So New Year’s Day, Japanese New
Year.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Tradition, I guess. Back then we went to say congratulations.
391
ETTINGER:
To all the difference—
SAM KURAMOTO:
I remember going to different families. I remember going across the
river, too, sometimes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
O_____ family, a lot of drinking, a lot of food. Yes, a lot of food.
ETTINGER:
Was this during the day or in the evening on New Years?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
All day.
SAM KURAMOTO:
All day. That’s right. She said it’s open house.
ETTINGER:
Would people come to visit your family at the boarding house?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember anybody coming to our place, you know.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember anybody coming to our place New Year’s Day.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t think so.
ETTINGER:
At other times would they come to your house? Would a friend of
your father’s come in the evening, or your mother’s visit the boarding
house?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I remember they used to bring Hershey Kisses chocolate for the family.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
A lot of candies.
392
ETTINGER:
So [unclear] might come to visit your mother or your father in the
evening? Would they visit your house or no?
SAM KURAMOTO:
During the noontime. No one came in the evening. Said they came
and listened to music and then they talked.
ETTINGER:
During the days?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
A woman would come to visit?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
A woman, yes.
ETTINGER:
Who were your mother’s friends? Was this one of your mother’s best
friends?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, my mother’s best friend.
ETTINGER:
What was her name again?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yno and Tanaka.
ETTINGER:
Around the house, in the boarding house—oh, I had another question
about holidays. Were there other holidays that they celebrated besides
New Year’s? Did they celebrate Emperor’s Day? Christian holidays?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Christmas. I remember the [unclear]. There used to be a program, a
Christian program.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes, Christmas. Oh yes.
393
SAM KURAMOTO:
Semi-circle seat and then stage, the curtain and all that. A lot of plays
and stuff; Singing Christmas song.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, Christmas song.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Manger scene and all that, singing Christmas songs.
ETTINGER:
Was this a Japanese hall or a church hall?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Japanese hall. It was right here, but it burned down, so it’s gone. The
only thing I remember was that at the end of the program, they used to
pass out this box of candy, walnuts and Christmas candy and all this
stuff in there.
ETTINGER:
Your mother was Methodist.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, Methodist.
ETTINGER:
Your father, yes, too?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know. He didn’t attend church too much.
ETTINGER:
In the Japanese community in this area, were some Christian, most
Christian, all?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Some. There were more Buddhists. First, she said it was more
Christians, but then eventually more Buddhists. I guess the way he
wasn’t that great, I guess, so a lot of people converted to Buddhism.
That was way back. I don’t remember this anyway.
394
ETTINGER:
Let me shift back for a second to—I’m probably tiring you out, but this
is interesting. Back to the boarding house a little bit. Do you know
about how much rooms cost to rent? Was it by the month or the week?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Fifty cents a day? One dollar? A dollar per night.
ETTINGER:
In the early thirties.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, dollar a night.
SAM KURAMOTO:
That was quite a bit back then. One month, thirty dollars? That’s
expensive. Maybe it was fifty cents. Ten or fifteen dollars per month,
I think.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Fifty cents a night.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Fifteen dollars per month, I guess.
ETTINGER:
The boarding house had electricity, right?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Were the rooms heated?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t think so.
ETTINGER:
The stove from the kitchen was the heat?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
The kitchen stove.
SAM KURAMOTO:
The wooden stove in the kitchen. I don’t remember this. No, there
was no individual heater in the room.
395
ETTINGER:
Did the house have hot water?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
So there was a water heater.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Gas.
SAM KURAMOTO:
But was it automatic? No, the hot water. Manually heated? You’ve
got to light the match. The gas or the automatic?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t know.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know.
ETTINGER:
A wood-burning stove?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Wood-burning stove; Hot here, but the back is cold. Oh, man. I
remember that.
ETTINGER:
Was the wood delivered or did you have to get wood?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Firewood. I don’t remember where they got the firewood from, but it
was a whole lot of firewood, and I remember you had to saw that, had
to chop it and all that. Somebody must have donated it or something. I
don’t know. I don’t remember.
ETTINGER:
Your parents had their own bedroom?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
396
ETTINGER:
And you shared a room with your brother?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No. I slept with my mother.
ETTINGER:
And what about Haruko?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Own room. She slept with her.
ETTINGER:
Matsue, you slept with Haruko. And you slept with—
SAM KURAMOTO:
My mother. Ami had his own room.
ETTINGER:
Where did your father sleep?
SAM KURAMOTO:
When Father was alive, the three of us.
ETTINGER:
The boarding rooms, did someone have to clean them every day?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, every day.
ETTINGER:
The boarders didn’t cook in the building?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
ETTINGER:
The boarders shared—how many bathrooms were upstairs?
SAM KURAMOTO:
One bath.
ETTINGER:
Did it have a bathtub?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Only toilet. There was no bath. The one you’re going to see
tomorrow, there’s a shower. That was done afterwards.
397
ETTINGER:
So upstairs was a toilet. A sink? In the common bathroom to wash
their face?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
But not in the rooms. The rooms did not—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, no, no.
ETTINGER:
So if the boarders wanted to take a bath, where would they have done
that?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They had to go to public bathrooms, bathhouse. Where? I don’t
remember. We didn’t have anything in Locke. One building had a
public bathhouse.
ETTINGER:
What about laundry? Did your parents do your own laundry?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, only pillowcases and sheets.
ETTINGER:
Linens. That’s all you did for the boarders was the sheets and the
linens?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They sent the sheets out to the Laundromat. Just washed their own
pillowcases. That’s it.
ETTINGER:
The linens were done once a week, once a month?
SAM KURAMOTO:
If a person stayed a long time, once a week.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Change the sheets.
398
ETTINGER:
In the family’s bedrooms, you also had beds. Were they similar to the
beds upstairs?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Had bureaus in the rooms?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Who did the laundry for your family? Your own personal laundry.
Your mother or a sibling? Who washed your clothes?
SAM KURAMOTO:
ETTINGER :
She did, too.
By hand?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, by hand.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I know that washboard.
ETTINGER:
Where would you do that? Outside or inside?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Inside.
ETTINGER:
In the kitchen?
SAM KURAMOTO:
The washroom.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
The washroom and bathroom, same room.
ETTINGER:
Did your family have a bathtub?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes. Japanese bath.
399
SAM KURAMOTO:
Japanese-style bath.
ETTINGER:
Where was that?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Kitchen. There’s a door that goes into the China side, [Laughs], The
back. You went out through the woodshed. Yes, I remember that.
ETTINGER:
Was it an outside or inside room?
SAM KURAMOTO:
China side. This side go to back side. There’s a woodshed and a
whole bunch of wood, and that’s [unclear]. Firewood for the bathtub.
ETTINGER:
So the bathtub’s inside, in the back corner of the house.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, the laundry room.
ETTINGER:
When you say it’s a traditional bathtub, can you describe it?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Rectangular.
ETTINGER:
Elevated?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Elevated, and you burn wood.
ETTINGER:
Did your parents build that bathtub after they bought it?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I think my mother had somebody build that for her.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Maybe so.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I forgot who it was. I remember it was a Japanese man. I don’t know
who it is.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t know.
400
ETTINGER:
How was it heated exactly? Fire?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Firewood.
ETTINGER:
Underneath?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
About how big was it?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Not that big.
ETTINGER:
Four feet long?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. Two little kids can get in there. [Laughs]
ETTINGER:
How often did it get used? On the weekends or nightly?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Every night.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Every night.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Almost every night.
ETTINGER:
What was it made out of? Wooden or porcelain?
SAM KURAMOTO:
The bathtub was made of wood. How come it didn’t leak? [Laughs] I
don’t know.
ETTINGER:
Was it traditional—
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, it had a wooden [unclear] that would fold up, and you had to step
on it for it to fold down. Otherwise, you step on the hot—you know.
401
FEMALE SPEAKER:
The bottom was tin.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Tin, yes.
ETTINGER
Of the tub was tin?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Did anyone besides the family use it, or that was just for the family?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Just family.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Just family, yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Nakamora shared that, too.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, I think so.
SAM KURAMOTO:
The next family.
ETTINGER:
The people in the cottage in the front used it too. In traveling, was the
only traveling, not work traveling, have been to go to Sacramento to
shop once a year? Did you ever go out for drives on the weekends?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember that at all. The only picture I remember seeing was a
picture of me at Yosemite National Park. How did I get a picture of
me standing by the—you know that rope to get into the park; there’s
kind of a rock thing. On the other side of the river. There’s a picture
of me. I remember I was sitting by the rock fence, whatever you want
to call it. It’s still there. Somebody took a picture of me, black and
white. So somebody took me there, I don’t know who it is.
402
ETTINGER:
But it wasn’t very common?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No. We stayed home most of the time.
ETTINGER:
Did you guys have a boat?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No. No, we had no boat.
ETTINGER:
Did your father like to fish?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, he didn’t like fishing.
ETTINGER:
But you did.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I liked fishing.
ETTINGER:
Should we take a break for a few minutes or keep going?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Now?
ETTINGER:
If you like, or keep going. I don’t want to—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Doesn’t matter.
ETTINGER:
Okay. We can just keep going, I guess. Did your father learn to read
English?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t think he—no. If I recall, I don’t think he knew a single word in
English.
ETTINGER:
To speak or to write?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
403
ETTINGER:
What about your mother?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
She not speak English too.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Little bit. Little bit. Like when she said “no good,” she said, “no
guru.” Instead of “all right,” she said, “all wite.”
ETTINGER:
Just enough to kind of talk to the boarders?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Or did the children talk to the boarders for her sometimes, you or your
sisters?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember. [Unclear] for a day, or how much the rent is. She
could communicate that.
ETTINGER:
So she’s saying she knew enough English to talk [unclear].
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And did they pick up a little Chinese? Did they know other languages?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, we didn’t communicate with the Chinese.
ETTINGER:
Did your mother sew?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She said she did a lot of sewing, knitting.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Everything.
ETTINGER:
Was some of it for pleasure or all work?
404
SAM KURAMOTO:
Family, yes. Family.
ETTINGER:
Making clothes?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
How did she decorate the family quarters? Were there things on the
walls?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember anything like that at all. The only thing I remember
is seeing the picture of the parents on the wall. I didn’t care for that.
ETTINGER:
Why is that?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Because wherever you go, the eyes turned toward you. [Laughs]
ETTINGER:
Was it their wedding picture or—
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know what it is, but I noticed it, boy, I didn’t realize that
Mother was such a good-looking woman. [Laughs] My father wasn’t
that bad either. [Laughs]
ETTINGER:
So their picture was on the wall.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, you know, like a football-shaped thing, Father and Mother.
ETTINGER:
And that was in the mail room?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember the parents’ bedroom. I don’t remember anything to
do with decorating the wall. They know more than I do. I don’t
remember anything.
405
ETTINGER:
Was there wallpaper on the walls or painted? What was in the room
with the phonograph?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I’ve got a picture of that, me listening to a record and the back, by the
wall, was a calendar. My mother loved calendar, a big, humungous
thing. No picture on the calendar, just plain, just number and month.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
That’s all, yes.
ETTINGER:
They must have had some keepsakes or things from Japan?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know anything about those things. Only [unclear] from
something that she bought here, even like remember a long time ago
that picture? What do you call that thing? It was in the movie Titanic.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Just like a postcard, same picture.
ETTINGER:
[Unclear]
SAM KURAMOTO:
Comes in almost like 3D.
ETTINGER:
And they bought that here.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
And shipped it to Japan.
ETTINGER:
Was it bought here and shipped to Japan?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
406
SAM KURAMOTO:
They took it to Japan when they went. I don’t remember my mother
having anything from Japan, though. I don’t remember.
ETTINGER:
Japanese books?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
She had a lot of clothes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
She had a lot of Japanese clothes. I don’t remember any Japanese
books. She had a lot of Japanese records that we destroyed. I don’t
remember anything, though.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Japanese kimono.
ETTINGER:
Several of them? Several kimono?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She got one that she made, which my late brother had. I don’t know
where it is now.
ETTINGER:
Would she ever wear a kimono?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, I don’t think. I didn’t see.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t think so. I don’t think so.
ETTINGER:
She dressed western or dressed like other women? Wore dresses?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No pants. In those days women never wore pants. A dress.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
An apron.
SAM KURAMOTO:
An apron, yes.
407
ETTINGER:
What about medical care for the children or for themselves? Did they
go to a doctor? Was there a Japanese doctor?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t remember medical—only time I remember was that I was sent
quite a few times to a Dr.—Korean.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Ree [Phonetic].
SAM KURAMOTO:
Ree. [Phonetic] A Korean doctor, yes.
ETTINGER:
Here in Walnut Grove?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Walnut Grove. That’s the only time I remember, maybe several times
came to see Dr. Ree, but I had bad teeth. Too much candy.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Mama had good health.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, Mother had good health. She got cancer in 1950, after the war.
Yes, she was a pretty healthy lady, I remember.
ETTINGER:
Besides Japanese language, were there other customs that your mother
or your father tried to convey to you? Japanese history?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I don’t think so.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No other customs.
ETTINGER:
Were there favorite foods that were imported or favorite things she
might buy at a Japanese store, imported things that your mother or
father really liked, missed?
408
SAM KURAMOTO:
You mean from Japan?
ETTINGER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Those things I don’t know. I don’t think my mother ever adopted other
countries’ customs or food.
ETTINGER:
Say that again?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Never adopting customs or food of other nationality.
ETTINGER:
Did she stay eating Japanese?
SAM KURAMOTO:
All Japanese.
ETTINGER:
When she cooked for you, did she cook traditional Japanese?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Chow mien?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, chow mien.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Egg fu yung.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Egg fu yung. She used to cook—oh, that’s right. I remember that.
ETTINGER:
So she [unclear] Chinese?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She cooked Chinese egg fu yung, not my favorite.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Chow mien. My mother never took me to Chinese restaurant. That’s
why. Never.
409
ETTINGER:
Do you think she started to cook Chinese food because that’s what she
could buy in Locke, or why?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I think shrimp from somebody. I don’t know who.
ETTINGER:
Maybe the supplies she could buy? What about Japanese food? Is it
just vegetables and rice?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Vegetable, rice, and some meat. I remember eating a lot of wieners.
[laughs]
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Sukiyaki meat.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Sukiyaki meat.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Vegetable.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, teriyaki sauce and wieners. Yes, I remember eating that, with rice
and vegetable. Oh yes, and hamburger meat in a frying pan, mix with
tomato sauce and some of the ingredients. We could help ourselves.
ETTINGER:
Did they ever have problems with the boarders?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, I don’t think so.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t think she had any problem with the boarders. The only thing I
remember was they had one boarder really wet the mattress. He must
have had an accident. So my mother, I think she took the sheets to the
laundry and then I think she—if I remember right, she hung that
mattress out in the sun.
410
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
After your father died, was your older brother still at home?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, he was at home, yes.
ETTINGER:
Did he assume some of the responsibilities?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know, because we weren’t that close. I don’t know. I don’t
remember him at all. I know that he graduated from Cortland High
School. Now it’s gone. I remember he was valedictorian,
salutatorian? Pretty smart. Pretty smart man.
ETTINGER:
But he wasn’t able to go on to college?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I understand that he wanted to go to college, but, you know, we were
so poor.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No money.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No money, so he had to become an itinerant worker. Poor guy.
ETTINGER:
But your mother ran the boarding house by herself until the war?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
And didn’t have problems with—
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, she had no problem with boarders. Except once she mentioned
about that Filipino couple stole the—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Stole everything.
411
SAM KURAMOTO:
Everything was gone. [Laughs] I am sorry, but I don’t remember
anything that Mother hung on the wall. She was crazy about calendars,
though.
ETTINGER:
Had lots of calendars?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. Humungous thing.
ETTINGER:
Did she have any special items around the house, a special dish or
candlesticks or curios, anything that she really treasured?
SAM KURAMOTO:
She said that Mother had a gold piece.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Gold coin.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Gold coin. I don’t know how many, but she sold that to buy something
for Haruko. She got rid of that. I’m sorry, not rid of it. She sold the
gold coins. Coin or coins, I don’t know what it is.
ETTINGER:
I forgot to ask you, earlier you said your mother had kimono that she
brought from Japan?
SAM KURAMOTO:
The one my late brother had, which I took. Now I don’t know where it
is.
ETTINGER:
Can you describe it, what color or what it looked like?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Blue and white, striped.
ETTINGER:
This was from Japan, she brought with her?
412
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. My brother had it on the wall. I [unclear] and don’t know where
I put it. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
But other than the kimono and her records, was there nothing else that
your mother or father kept around from Japan?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Records. I don’t think she had a Japanese flag.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Sewing machine.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No picture of emperor or empress. She didn’t have any of those.
Anything that people destroyed when the war started. The only thing I
remember is the record.
ETTINGER:
What about other furniture in the family residence, in that recreation
room? Tables, chairs?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Nothing. She remembers there was a couch. Sofa, I mean.
ETTINGER:
Where was that?
SAM KURAMOTO:
On one wall near the bedroom.
ETTINGER:
Tomorrow we’ll see. It’s hard to understand [unclear].
SAM KURAMOTO:
What I remember vividly was next to the piano there was a table with a
radio. That’s where we heard about Pearl Harbor. Boy, oh, man, oh
no. Sneak attack. Sunday, December—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Seventh.
413
SAM KURAMOTO:
December 7, Sunday. My brother turned on the radio, I think, before
they went to church, if I remember right. Something about sneak
attack at Pearl Harbor. Boy. I remember we almost panicked.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, panic.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. Mother saying, “Now what’s going to happen to us?” I
remember that portion.
ETTINGER:
You two were not at home anymore.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No.
ETTINGER:
We talked about the war last time. I have one other thing about the
boarding house. In the kitchen, did you have a lot of pans?
SAM KURAMOTO:
There was a cabinet, kept the frying pan and whatever, pots and pans.
ETTINGER:
And a radio. Who played piano?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Sister. The late sister played piano. Mrs. Ross, our next neighbor,
played piano.
ETTINGER:
Who owned the gas station?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes. Mrs. Ross played piano. She was good in piano. She taught late
sister to play piano.
ETTINGER:
Did they pay for lessons?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
414
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, she paid.
ETTINGER:
And your parents bought a piano?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes. Hundred dollar [phonetic].
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Gold coin [unclear].
SAM KURAMOTO:
Oh, before. A hundred bucks?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1935.
SAM KURAMOTO:
An upright piano.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Secondhand.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t know. Somebody else owned it and then, yes, loaned them
money, but to get repaid for that and got the piano. I don’t think she
ever got the loan back, though.
ETTINGER:
I want to talk a little about your life after you married and moved off,
so I was going to start with Kikue. You were living on the ranch. Had
you started a family? Children?
KIKUE:
Yes, two daughters.
ETTINGER:
What years were they born?
KIKUE:
1940 and ’42.
ETTINGER:
So one was born before the war.
KIKUE:
Yes, before war.
415
ETTINGER:
And one was born—
SAM KURAMOTO:
In the camp.
ETTINGER:
And you were at which camp?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Sacramento.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Relocation camp [unclear].
SAM KURAMOTO:
Relocation camp in Sacramento and then got shipped to Tule Lake.
ETTINGER:
Where was your daughter born? At the relocation center or at Tule?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Relocation center, Sacramento hospital.
ETTINGER:
How did you and your husband learn first about internment? How did
you her about it?
SAM KURAMOTO:
There was a notice. Everybody got notice, Executive Order 9066. So
right away every Japanese in West Coast, Washington, Oregon, and
California knew about it.
ETTINGER:
How long did you have to prepare?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I remember that too, only had ten days.
ETTINGER:
What did you and your husband do with your belongings?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Left at the ranch.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Only thing, to bring the clothes on their back, two suitcases per person.
416
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Two suitcases per person.
ETTINGER:
Were you talking to your sister or your mother at that time about where
you were going?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Before relocation camp, I talk to Mother.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, her husband is [unclear] family. He wants to be with [unclear]
family, so they went a different way. She was talking about coming to
an off-site to go to camp together.
ETTINGER:
So he wanted to be with—
SAM KURAMOTO:
His side of the family.
ETTINGER:
And they were going to Tule Lake.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
That was in May. What about you and your husband? Where were
you living?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Likens ranch.
ETTINGER:
Similarly, what did you do with your belongings, what you owned,
your furniture or beds?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They left everything except valuable things like cameras. Something,
government office, let the government office have them. Actually,
417
they got a receipt, but after the war, it disappeared. It was a good
camera, a German—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No more. Somebody took.
ETTINGER:
Where were you and your husband? Had you started a family yet?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, she had a daughter and a son.
ETTINGER:
What years were they born?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Daughter, ’35, and son, ’37. 1934 and 1935.
ETTINGER:
What’s your daughter’s name?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Janet Y____ T____. I mean her married name is [unclear].
ETTINGER:
And your son’s name?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Frank [unclear] T___.
ETTINGER:
So they were young at the time of the war.
SAM KURAMOTO:
First grade.
ETTINGER:
And which camp did your family get sent to?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Turlock [unclear] Center and then we got shipped to Hila River.
ETTINGER:
Did you know that your mother and brother were going to be in
Turlock?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were in the same room. Same barracks.
418
ETTINGER:
Did you know, when you were being assembled at Turlock, that they
were going to keep your family together?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, we knew.
ETTINGER:
Is that also in May of 1942?
SAM KURAMOTO:
1942, May. May 27 or something, 1942.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Moved to Mother’s place.
ETTINGER:
What did you do in the interment camp? Were you allowed to sew, to
work?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Her husband was a warden in Hila. He had a [unclear], a special
[unclear]. He was a warden.
ETTINGER:
Meaning he helped—
SAM KURAMOTO:
Tried to maintain order, yes. That was at Hila. Then they moved to
Tule Lake, too, so I don’t know what happened after that. He was a
mechanic.
ETTINGER:
Why did they move to Tule Lake from Hila?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They were thinking about going back to Japan, that’s why.
ETTINGER:
Tule Lake was the [unclear]—
419
SAM KURAMOTO:
Supposed to be exchange prisoner-of-war in Japan for the people here,
something like that. That’s what I heard. I don’t know if it’s true or
not.
ETTINGER:
Why don’t we take a break.
[Begin file 2]
ETTINGER:
They would remember more.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Oh yes, because they’re both graduates from the Cortland High School,
which is gone now.
ETTINGER:
Was Ami close to your father?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Oh yes?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I think so.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Oh yes.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I hardly spoke to my brother. I don’t think they got along.
ETTINGER:
Did you spend time alone with your father much?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No. I don’t remember him at all except like she did, I used to get—he
used to groan and moan so—
ETTINGER:
Give him back rubs?
420
SAM KURAMOTO:
Give him back rub. People say, “How come a young kid like you can
remember doing that kind of thing?” 1936, 1937?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
’36.
SAM KURAMOTO:
1936. I was eight years old, seven years old maybe.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I think so.
ETTINGER:
But your father was not in great health by the time you were both able
to really remember.
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, he wasn’t in good health at all.
ETTINGER:
In the 1920s he must have done more work.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Probably did, yes. I don’t remember that at all. 1920, they were in
Japan.
ETTINGER:
Your brother and your sister [unclear].
SAM KURAMOTO:
My brother might remember, yes.
ETTINGER:
What did your mother take pleasure in? What did she enjoy? Was it
music? What did she enjoy?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Mother liked music. That’s why I must have grown up liking music,
too. I like music even today. I can listen to all kinds except opera.
Sorry.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
How about your mother? She listened to that cranking all the time?
421
SAM KURAMOTO:
Phonograph?
ETTINGER:
What kind of music did she listen to?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Japanese music.
ETTINGER:
Traditional?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Old music, [unclear]. That 1930s song.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Did they do that New Year’s [unclear]? Did you do all that cooking?
SAM KURAMOTO:
We talked about that, visiting different families. But like they said, I
don’t remember our mother cooking anything at home. I don’t
remember at all. I guess my mother did cook.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
But they never did the dancing, right?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Dancing? That is all gone. That’s different.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
That’s right, they’re Christians.
SAM KURAMOTO:
But New Year’s, that’s the whole point of New Year’s.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I meant [unclear], regular [unclear].
SAM KURAMOTO:
That’s [unclear] here. Mother was Christian, so—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
She didn’t do that. They didn’t do that, then?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I did.
ETTINGER:
Tell me about it. What was it? Organized dances?
422
SAM KURAMOTO:
In a circle.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
July.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Counterclockwise, huh?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Folk dance.
SAM KURAMOTO:
They go counterclockwise.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Folk dancing. High August. That’s the [unclear].
ETTINGER:
Sort of a harvest celebration?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No. In memory of their dead ancestors.136
What are you talking about?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I told them that one year I did the [unclear] dance. I participated,
because I told them since they have many good teachers, during the
practice they’re up on a platform, they’re teaching how to move your
arm and got that [unclear].
ETTINGER:
So some of the Japanese community in the thirties here was still doing
those sorts of activities?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Sure.
ETTINGER:
Not your family?
136
Unidentified speaker is talking on top of the other speakers; cannot transcribe.
423
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, because my mother is Christian. I’m sure they had [unclear],
because at this time the Buddhists were many, many members back
then.
ETTINGER:
So you danced here?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Even after the war, yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1932.
ETTINGER:
When was this church built?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Oh, a long time ago.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
1927.
SAM KURAMOTO:
1927 it was built. There’s a plaque out there that tells when it was
built.
ETTINGER:
That’s the Buddhist church.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
Where was your mother’s church?
SAM KURAMOTO:
On another road, a dilapidated building with a cross on top.
ETTINGER:
What’s the street?
SAM KURAMOTO:
A dirty pink building now.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
By the parking lot.
SAM KURAMOTO:
In fact, that post [unclear]. Here’s the wedding picture.
424
FEMALE SPEAKER:
That’s right, you were married in a Christian church.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Christian.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
You were married in a Christian church?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, no.
ETTINGER:
How were you married?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No reception. Las Vegas? Mother was there when they got married.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
They got married in the house?
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Because no dinero.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Now you’re both here, now you’re [unclear]. [laughs] [unclear] and
said, “Now you’re Mr. and Mrs.” Okay.
ETTINGER:
Who did the ceremony?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No ceremony.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
“Goodbye.”
SAM KURAMOTO:
[laughs]
FEMALE SPEAKER:
So simple.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I remember Mr. [unclear]—what do you call that car? A two-door car
where the back opens into a seat. Two-seater. No back. Two-seater. I
don’t know what brand it was.
425
ETTINGER:
Were there other boarding houses like your parents’ boarding house?
SAM KURAMOTO:
They said quite a few. Had quite a few. Locke, yes.
ETTINGER:
Locke had one other one?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, just one. Mother’s place.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
[Unclear].
SAM KURAMOTO:
That’s what I thought. Someone told me that. That’s why my father
named me Sam.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Did you have a chance to look at that boarding house architectural
report?
ETTINGER:
I don’t have a copy of the one that he showed me. I haven’t seen it yet.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
It kind of gives a little summary.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I know the cottage is gone and the ramp is gone.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
You mean in the front.
SAM KURAMOTO:
The front. You can’t walk from the street to the second floor.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Do you still have that mother and father in the picture, in color, that we
gave to you?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I thought he might be interested.
426
ETTINGER:
Do you have any family photos from that period?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, the mother and father.
ETTINGER:
She has a copy of it?
[Cross talk]
SAM KURAMOTO:
I don’t want it. I don’t want a picture of Mother and Father.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
I said he might be interested in looking at it.
ETTINGER:
What we might want to do, if we could, is I might visit with a scanner.
I could put it on a scanner and make a copy of it, because the State
Parks might like to have that, especially if they’re going to try to
[unclear] the boarding house.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Maybe [unclear], because it’s original.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Yes, I’m surprised. That’s way before the war and it’s color, too.
How did they do that?
ETTINGER:
They colorized sometimes, yes. Is this the football-shaped one that
was hanging up?
SAM KURAMOTO:
It was shaped like this. Yes, I think she’s right. It was in Mother’s
bedroom.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
I may want to come back sometime and make a copy.
427
SAM KURAMOTO:
Like I said before, they said it too, there was nothing on the wall.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Did we show you his picture when he was three years old, listening to
the music?
ETTINGER:
No. You have that, too?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes. It’s a nice reproduction. That’s a nice one.
ETTINGER:
Is that inside the boarding house?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
No, it’s not there.
ETTINGER:
Was it taken inside the boarding house?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, it was, and it’s nice because there’s a calendar in the back and it
says 1930.
SAM KURAMOTO:
’34 or ’30? I’d be only two years old.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
That’s right.
ETTINGER:
So you have the original?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
We have the original. We have the one painting. It’s really nice.
ETTINGER:
It’s a painting of—
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Of the same reproduction.
SAM KURAMOTO:
I’m listening to the music.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
It’s a really nice one.
428
ETTINGER:
That would be something that we might want to—
SAM KURAMOTO:
The calendar is 1934. 1934, isn’t it, the calendar?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Yes, it was taken in the house. She’s asking if you had it. We left it.
He doesn’t have it. He has the original?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, he has a copy.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
We have it anyway. We have copies of it.
ETTINGER:
We may want to make copies of them. They want to keep the
originals, but [unclear] for the State Parks to have, because when they
recreate the space, whatever they’re going to do with it, that would be
something they’d really like to have. And anything that shows the
people that lived in the house.
[crosstalk]
SAM KURAMOTO:
I think that my mother did [unclear]. It’s so vague, you know. My
mother was country style.
ETTINGER:
The way she cooked?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, the way she [unclear]. Country style. It’s more like a rectangular
shape. It’s big, you know, like a brown bag with the rice inside.
FEMALE SPEAKER:
The brown bag is made out of tofu. Fried tofu looks like that.
SAM KURAMOTO:
Cooked so it’s soft.
429
FEMALE SPEAKER:
Wrinkled, brown-looking. They stuff it with rice.
ETTINGER:
So your mother cooked that?
SAM KURAMOTO:
I remember eating that. What a humungous thing.
ETTINGER:
What was it called?
SAM KURAMOTO:
[Unclear]. Nowadays in restaurants, it’s about that wide. My mother
was like that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Brown, wrapped.
SAM KURAMOTO:
That shape. It’s big.
ETTINGER:
Was that every day or once a week, special?
SAM KURAMOTO:
No, special occasion. I guess you are right, she did cook Japanese food
for New Year’s.
ETTINGER:
Well, I’ll guess we’ll come back tomorrow and meet at the boarding
house. Ten o’clock okay to meet at the boarding house? You will both
be able to come?
[End of interview]
430
Oral History Interview with
Mr. Ping Lee
For California State Parks
by Christopher J. Castaneda
Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer/Editor:
Christopher James Castaneda
Professor of History, CSU Sacramento
Co-Director, Oral History Program, CSU Sacramento
B.A., Rice University, Houston, Texas
M.A., University of Houston
Ph.D., University of Houston
Interview Time and Place:
The interview session took place on January 11, 2007 at the home of Mr. Ping Lee in
Walnut Grove, California
Transcribing/Editing:
TechniType Transcripts transcribed the interview audiotapes. Christopher J. Castaneda
checked the verbatim manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for
punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling.
Tape and Interview Records:
The original tape recording of the interview was submitted to California State Parks.
431
Interview with Ping Lee
Interviewed by Christopher Castaneda
[Session 1, January 11, 2007]
CASTANEDA:
It is January 11th, 2007 and we’re interviewing Mr. Ping Lee for the
Oral History of Locke Project.
Thanks again for doing the interview. We really appreciate it.
LEE:
Be happy to.
CASTANEDA:
What we’d like to do is talk to you about your impressions of Locke
and growing up here and what you see happening with your family. So
maybe we should start, I guess one place to start is your earliest
memories of Locke, and then we can just go on.
LEE:
Well, I was born in Locke, that’s the earliest part. That was 1917.
That makes me ninety years old in a few months.
CASTANEDA:
You’re doing very well.
LEE:
Yes. Well, Locke, of course, has been a very unique town. I was born
in 1917, and in 1915 the town was built. Of course, I think we all
know that Walnut Grove got burned up, and my father—
CASTANEDA:
So 1915?
432
LEE:
1915, yes. First of all, the Chinese people, you know, we have many
dialects and many districts. Now, my father is from Zhongshan
District, which is like compared to Sacramento County and Yolo
County, that close. And Toisan District is where most of the people at
that time were from. In the Delta here, at that time, the Zhongshan
people were all involved in the agriculture. The pear orchards, which
you see now have been pulled out, a lot of them. They were
sharecroppers. Sharecroppers, I guess, we have in the middle east,
cotton sharecropper, that type of thing.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, right.
LEE:
Yes. And the Chinese, I guess, the first that came over here to build
the levees and all that. These are the same people probably that work
on the railroad. They finish that. And then the Delta here with all this
flooding, so they brought the Chinese in and a dollar a day they built
these levees.
CASTANEDA:
Did some work in the gold fields, too?
LEE:
The gold field, now that’s a sad part of the story. It’s a very sad part of
the story. They go, those hydraulic miners, you know, they run it, and
then what’s left the Chinese come in, and if they strike, they say, “Hey,
that’s mine.” They chase you out. What are you going to do? Sitting
433
all around Newcastle, Grass Valley, they’re all like that. It goes way
back over a hundred some-odd years now, 1950s, ’51, ’52, probably.
They come up the Delta here around ’60. They showed up around
here, they brought them in for the levee. After that they able to plant
these pear trees, which you don’t see today, a lot of them they pull out.
But in the twenties and thirties, from Freeport to Rio Vista, both sides
of the levee here of the Sacramento River, full, just all pear orchards.
CASTANEDA:
Where did they get or when did they get pulled out?
LEE:
They just get pulled recently. Well, ten years ago, one or two are
pulled out, and I seen it fifteen years ago. See a farmer, I said, “God,
grandfather planted these things, you’re pulling them out?” You know,
every year you have to pick them. But he was much smarter than what
I even thought because he was way ahead of everybody. He at least
have ten, fifteen years planting different things, and these farmers have
these wonderful trees that are thirty, forty years old, they don’t want
to—oh, maybe things will change. But instead of being better, it got
worse, not worse in this sense, but the labor is so high, the fertilizer,
this and that, you know, you just can’t make it. So they said, “Well,
we better pull them out, so we can plant something else.” Use
machinery, not too much manpower, then they don’t go on strike and
434
all that. And that’s what’s happening up and down, from Freeport to
Rio Vista. Over 50 percent have been pulled out.
CASTANEDA:
Fifty percent. Who was buying the pears? Was it Bartlett [unclear]?
LEE:
No, you could buy the pears. That was well-known the Delta Bartletts
are the best in canning. Not best for eating. The Oregon’s for eating,
but it seemed like that when they can it the water inside, the juice, is
not cloudy. Some [unclear], yes.
CASTANEDA:
Interesting. Okay. So they’re better for canning?
LEE:
Much better for canning. And one time the biggest cannery on pears is
right here in the Delta.
CASTANEDA:
So can we go back to your—
LEE:
Yes.
CASTANEDA:
What were some of your earliest memories of Locke?
LEE:
Well, of course, Locke being a Chinatown, like I say, they have to
build up. I was maybe—everything after about four or five years old I
can remember. Anything beyond that I’m too small, I don’t remember.
CASTANEDA:
No, I understand that, sure.
LEE:
Yes. The whole town is all Chinese. Not only that, they spoke one
dialect, the Zhongshan dialect, because as I said the Zhongshan people
were sharecroppers. Well, my father was very, very prominent with
435
Zhongshan people from Walnut Grove. When it was burned up, he
had six businesses there started already.
CASTANEDA:
What are those?
LEE:
He had a drugstore and he had a hardware, had a dry goods store, had a
restaurant, and I think the other one a gambling house. I name five, but
there’s one more. Six business. He was here about ten years.
And to go back to my father’s history, of course, a man by the name of
Alex Brown, which owned everything in Walnut Grove.
CASTANEDA:
Alex?
LEE:
Alex Brown. He had a bank here at one time. I don’t know how long
you’ve been [unclear].
CASTANEDA:
Yes, about twelve years.
LEE:
Twelve years. Well, Alex Brown was quite a person. From Franklin
clear down to, pretty near to Isleton, he was the supervisor for the Van
Logansales [phonetic]. Van Logansales, I understand were people that
came from San Francisco when they can just stake the ground and say,
“This is mine.” And Alex Brown, I understand, was superintendent for
them. But Alex Brown was a go-getter, and in Walnut Grove his
mother was married to somebody locally and they owned a hotel.
Well, my father, when he came over here, to make a long story short,
he got into the kitchen to learn how to cook and everything.
436
CASTANEDA:
And when did he come over here?
LEE:
He came over in 1893. He came over here and he jumped ship and
came up the Delta and meet Alex Brown because he was a cook in
there. Alex Brown liked him very much and he always call him, “Hey,
Son, come here, come here.” They were friends from then. Alex
Brown at that time must be around forty-five, fifty years old, and my
father was twenty-one. And he helped my father in everything. He
liked him so much that he chased him out of the kitchen. He says,
“You’re too smart to be in the kitchen, go up to Chinatown—” All
Chinese then, thousands—“make some of that easier money instead of
working in here.” That’s how he got into all this kind of—and you
know the Chinese history going back in those days, too, you have the
[unclear] you have everything else and that’s the way it was.
And for my father to get into something like that, hey, you can’t do it.
But being that he’s very, very smart, he told Mr. Brown, he says, “I
can’t go up there and get into gambling or easy money this and that.”
He had a bank here and everything.
He says, “What do you mean you can’t?”
He says, “I don’t belong to them, I’m a Zhongshan people, they’re
Toisan, they control the town. And besides, you know, they have the
437
Tongs [phonetic] and everything, you just don’t go in there. They’ll
throw me in the river,” he says, “one night.”
“Oh, that’s the problem?”
So he come uptown, he said, “I’ll take care of that.”
He comes uptown he go look up the head man of the farm, which kind
of run the Chinatown, and he told him, he says, “I’ll tell you one thing,
my boy, he’s going to come up here and get some of this easy money,
too, and if you touch him at all,” he says, “I’m going to lock you guys
all up. I’m going to chase you out of here because you don’t own the
ground, you rent it,” see.
My father played it to the hilt. Well, those people said, “Well, wait a
minute, if you don’t let him get involved in it, he’s going to chase us
all out, then what do we got? We’ve got nothing.”
So that’s how he built up his business and all that. Then 1915 came
and it burned up the whole thing, so he move up half a mile to Locke,
took all, well, not all, but most of the Zhongshan merchants that was in
Walnut Grove. Not too many, he says, “Oh, ten or twelve merchants,
that’s all, mostly were Toisan.” Half of them went with my father and
came up to build Locke. So that’s how Locke started.
CASTANEDA:
So there was a lot of tension between the Zhongshan and the Toisan?
438
LEE:
Oh, yes. Mostly a lot of people thought it was a lot of animosity, but it
wasn’t, according to my father it wasn’t. He said, “The reason I went
up there with our district people was I was a leader, and on top of that I
disagreed with the land my store was built on.” He says, “It was
around the river, it didn’t belong to Alex Brown, it belongs to some of
his relatives.” He says, “Before the fire, a couple of years before that I
tried to tell him, I said, ‘Put a pump’”—he was the captain on a ship,
this big ship coming to San Francisco, this guy owns it, his family
owned it. He said, “Put a pump in here so in case of fire we can pump
that water from there.”
When he ticked my father off, I guess, he says, “Why I put in pump
for? Burn up, it’s your house, I still got my ground.” He says, “I’m
not going to put a pump in.”
My father was very upset on this, so after it burned, naturally my father
has a success business, but not all of it was on his land, just that big
headquarter, it was around the other side of the river. And he says,
“Well, one time I told you already. You say you still got the land and
it get burn up you still—you’ve still got the land. You keep the land.”
That’s why he came up here and made friends with the Locke estate
and talked to them and he pull out the trees where you see Main Street,
Locke. And that’s how the town was built.
439
CASTANEDA:
So they didn’t—they owned the land or they were given the land?
LEE:
Well, those days?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
No.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, they rented the land.
LEE:
Yes, you can’t own it.
CASTANEDA:
You can’t own it because of the laws, right.
LEE:
Yes. You cannot own the land. At that time the law says no, but you
can rent it. You build a house on it. And this is Locke, of course, this
is the last couple of years that it all straighten up.
CASTANEDA:
It took a long time, yes.
LEE:
It took a lot of time. Oh, back fifteen years ago, board of supervisors,
at that time I was running Locke, and he told me, he says, “Why don’t
you petition,” and this and that? He says, “Now, the law is not
anymore.”
But I thought, I guess in some [tape malfunction] I was working for the
whole town, I was running the town, and I knew and I had all the
backing of the county and everything, but I says, “You know, we’re
paying ten, fifteen dollars for the ground rent, we’ve been here for
thirty, forty, fifty years. Over at the trailer court it cost me way over a
440
hundred. So why should I go and get that kind of a headache? I have
plenty here now.” So therefore I didn’t even think about it. Probably I
couldn’t make it then anyway.
[Tape recorder turned off.]
CASTANEDA:
Okay, we’re back on.
LEE:
So where were we?
CASTANEDA:
Well, you were talking about owning the land and being able to make
it back then.
LEE:
Right. Yes, well, then of course, the last couple of years, which you’re
interviewing Connie King now, through her effort I think as much that
she really talked to supervisors, [unclear] big backing, they were able
to survey it and offer it back to the Chinese people, if you want to buy
it. There’s a lot of restrictions. Now, if I owned that land there and I
don’t want to live there anymore, and you try to buy it, I understand
today that you have okay from—they have a board and all that kind of
stuff, and be sure that my kid didn’t want it before you could have it
and that kind of stuff. I’m not familiar with the law, the rules.
But they’re very respectful, and they always ask me to go down to a lot
of these meetings, like groundbreaking the park, and I’m there, always
part of it, but I don’t know the details of it. And I just stay away
441
from—I figure twenty-eight years of running that place—see I’ll get to
that part of the history, the Chinese history.
So anyway, the town was built. First it was [unclear] Walnut Grove,
right away rebuilt, of course, after the fire. They was a [unclear] town
of 800,000 people, big town. Well, Locke didn’t take off that fast, but
a lot of Zhongshan people they always came up, because that’s the
dialect they can speak, they can’t speak the Toisan dialect. So
naturally that’s where the Zhongshan people went and they were all
farmhands, because when a sharecropper goes out and hires somebody
they’re going to hire the Zhongshan people, the same language. Not
that they don’t like the other.
Like my mother says, “I came over here, next door neighbor, Toisan
people, I like them. They’re smiling and all we do is smile at each
other and wave in the morning, can’t even communicate. It’s not that
we don’t like them.”
CASTANEDA:
Were there other differences, like differences in food or custom?
LEE:
No, not a bit, just in talking.
CASTANEDA:
Just the language.
LEE:
Oh, food, maybe they have their favorites, a few things, but it’s same.
CASTANEDA:
Very similar, yes.
442
LEE:
We all eat rice with chopstick. [laughs]
And so anyway, then Locke was built and my father came up here and
replaced his six business. And at the time, you have to go back a little
bit again to the history of Chinese, is the Manchu government had
controlled China at that area, and of course, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whether
you know the Chinese history, George Washington of China. He’s a
Zhongshan people and he had lots of Zhongshan followers. The
Zhongshan people on the Delta here, on the farm and all that, were all
supporters of Dr. Sun, but they’re not real, real rich people, but they
have a few bucks anyway. In those days, hey, they go out there and
raise $500 [unclear]. Many of the patriots we call them, the Chinese
that want to overthrow the Manchu government, which had it for about
400 years I think, and they’re not successful. Dr. Sun tried, I think he
said ten or eleven times a revolution, never got—well, he pretty near
got his head chopped off or wheeled off to England or somebody let
him go. There’s a long history, if you read Dr. Sun. So he was talking
revolution and all that.
In the meantime, over here there was associations, Yung [unclear], we
joined, we believed in Dr. Sun’s trying to overthrow the government.
It belongs to us, it don’t belong to the Manchu, the Manchuria.
443
So anyway, there’s a bloody history of the revolution just like our
United States’ revolution and all of that. It’s the same thing. Seventytwo of them from Zhongshan mostly got beheaded by the Manchu
government when they caught them, and they were all just students,
these young guys that raised cane, see, and they started to send—the
older person, sixty, seventy years, well, they struggle along, you know,
but it’s the young kid and the young idea, it belongs to us, let’s get it
back. Dr. Sun was the leader.
So over here in America, all over, that’s not in China now, it’s in
America, they have the Kuomintang, which you read about and that’s
like a democrat/republic—
CASTANEDA:
Can you say that name again?
LEE:
Kuomintang.
CASTANEDA:
Okay. Oh, okay, I know what that is, the KMT.
LEE:
Yes, KMT. Yes, that’s right. Now you’re right. So today they’re over
in Taiwan now, all the towns there. Communist China don’t recognize
it. They’ve got their own club.
CASTANEDA:
But that’s in Taiwan?
LEE:
Yes. In Taiwan, see, Chiang Kai-shek went over to Taiwan. I have an
uncle that was the secretary of the interior at that time, too, and he
went over with Chiang Kai-shek and all of that.
444
Well, my father, being a strong patriot that believed in Dr. Sun and the
revolution that he was the person as the Kuomintang in the Delta here.
But in the meantime, see, well, over here, he’s not scared too much,
but in China you got to be pretty scared. When I first went back to
China, oh, back twenty-five, thirty years, I think about 1980, ’78,
something like that, I was afraid to go into China, because my father
belongs to Kuomintang. He had a big name there with Dr. Sun.
But the communists does not hate Dr. Sun, they worship him, because
everybody else did. He was the republic of China, see. But then I
didn’t go in there because I was scared. I was afraid until two or three
years later I knew there was no problem, all brothers and sisters. And
in China, of course, each village had one surname, come from one
ancestor. So when I found out that no problem there, I wanted to go
back there because my father lived to ninety-seven years old. I
promise him if there’s a day I could do something for him in the
village, being that he’s the national party, he said, “You help those
people, if you can do something for them.”
I said, “Well, I promise you.”
He said, “If you can’t go, maybe my grandchildren can do it.”
He was that dedicated to his village and to Dr. Sun and all that kind of
stuff.
445
So finally I had the opportunity, it wasn’t long. I didn’t think I could
do it, but I promised him I would, so I did back in ’82, I think. All
these pictures of the dedication. I refurbished the school there. Yes, I
helped build. I put electricity in the village, and all that kind of stuff.
And those are the people that when I established, reestablished the
school, there was that day over twenty of those girls up there presented
flowers to me, firecrackers running for two hours, lion’s dance, the
whole business. And I was welcome back there by the supervisors and
the head of the—the village is only 700 people.
CASTANEDA:
And what was the name of the village?
LEE:
Nam Tong village, Nam Tong, yes. That’s where all the Kans live.
Now, I’m not a Lee, I’m a Kan. My son is a Kan, he changed it.
CASTANEDA:
K-a-n?
LEE:
K-a-n. And so I couldn’t change it, I’ve already established a business,
because there’s nothing for me to fear about my name. But my father’s
time there was because he jumped ship and he changed his name in
order to stay here, because that was the deal when he came over to
work in the Chicago Expo. Guy go back there, made a deal, he said,
“I’m taking these ten, fifteen Chinese guy over there.” But his idea
was, I’ll bring them over here and I’ll make myself a pot of money and
he let them jump ship. He said he went back there to bring these
446
Chinese guy in the background for Expo. That’s how he brought them
over there. I think either five hundred and seven hundred dollars, he
brought them over here, when you get over here you are free. That’s
how he got off. They took him to Chicago for four or five nights, bring
him back to San Francisco and he jumped ship, come over and came
up the Delta, that’s how he started.
CASTANEDA:
And how did he take the name Lee? How did that happen?
LEE:
He brought papers. Now he worked in—when Alex Brown set him up
and all that kind of stuff, he made money, he’s going to go back,
Chinese that way, to get married and build a house, because he got a
shack now, I’ve got a house, you know. So he was prosperous, so to
speak, in those days, so he went back there, but you’ve got to come
back, his business is here. You’re allowed to go one year. Well, he
bought a paper that claimed he was born here, that his father was a
merchant here, because all these fake papers and all that got destroyed
at the earthquake.
CASTANEDA:
Okay, San Francisco, yes.
LEE:
Yes. He says, “Well, you’ve got no proof, was destroyed.” Same way
with the people at Carson City when whenever the fire burned, you
don’t know how many Chinese are sons, but no girls, all sons. What
can you do, you know?
447
So that’s how they stayed. A lot of people are that way, they bought
paper. It cost money now, it’s 500 to $1,000. Hey, that’s a lot of
money those days, you know, back in the turn of the century, a
thousand dollars, its a thousand dollars, not like now. So that’s how
we got the name. That’s how we got the name.
CASTANEDA:
Interesting. So he liked living here, I guess, because he stayed.
LEE:
He stayed. To be very honest, to tell you the truth and everything, of
course, and I don’t blame him for thinking that way, we always
thought or he always thought, I did, too, because I was drilled that way,
because otherwise, see, my family all live here with me, we still have
that Chinese culture. Even born here not many Chinese are like that,
believe me, very few. And I could be ten, twelve years old, and some
of my friends I know, but they’re not like that. But I believe in the
Chinese culture, being the family, integrity, honesty, and all that kind
of stuff, and I was brought up that way.
But let’s see where were we?
CASTANEDA:
Well, you were talking about your father deciding to stay here and
liking it.
LEE:
Oh, yes. Well, my father always thought and this was why he believed
that, and I believed that, maybe it was drilled into me or I hear him
talk, you can’t buy land here. Well, in 1951 when I came down here
448
and open the store I can’t buy a house over this side. So all of these
things create—but he says, “Hey, but we’re here now, let’s make the
money.” Just like the Mexican people who work hard here and go
back to Mexico and lay down for three or four months and come back
next year. Chinese were same way, you went back to China. If you
were lucky, three or four years over here you save up a couple
thousand dollars, maybe a thousand dollar, go back to China, stay one
year, come back, leave your family back there, and we always come
back tell me you have a son while you were back there. That’s why so
many fake sons, you know.
CASTANEDA:
So you can come back, because—
LEE:
So you come back. All right, that son that I claim that I have a son
there, which I didn’t, now somebody over here you got a few bucks,
you really want to bring your son over here. He’s the same age as the
one I reported, now you buy the papers, now he’s just going to call me
dad and we’re going to go sit in the immigration office and prove all
that. That kind of stuff. So that’s how it happens, now. I don’t think
that happens today.
CASTANEDA:
More difficult today.
LEE:
Maybe much worse.
CASTANEDA:
Maybe more, yes.
449
LEE:
More sophisticated. More sophisticated than before. They just asked a
bunch of questions and you would practice. You know, I sell you the
paper for $500. You remember, even they ask you how many
windows you got in your house. Where did your house face? Is there
a river in front of your house? All that kind of stuff, because they got
the facts here, and if you mess up you’re sent back, Angel Island first,
then you go back, see. But that’s the way it is. And all these fake
things.
I have a paper here that the museum, I don’t know why I didn’t give it
to them to take to Peking to display all these things. I just found it the
other day when I was—I said, it got stuck in the envelope and it didn’t
come out. And I was laughing when they asked, let’s see, it was one of
my cousins come over. Fake. How old you are? How many brothers
you have? He said he had none, but he had three. What are their
names? How old were they? You know all that kind of stuff. Did he
have a limp in his leg?
CASTANEDA:
Interesting.
LEE:
Yes, they asked you all kinds of stuff.
CASTANEDA:
Tested, yes.
LEE:
You know, tough. And a lot of times it isn’t so much, if you had a
good lawyer and everything, if the money went to the right place,
450
sometimes you can get out of there faster. That’s the way it goes, you
know. That’s the way it goes today.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, that’s true.
LEE:
Same thing.
CASTANEDA:
Same thing.
LEE:
So anyway that’s how that part goes as far as my father coming over
here and building Locke and all that.
End of tape?
CASTANEDA:
No, we’re fine.
LEE:
All right. Then Locke get established as a real Chinatown. Go back to
the twenties when I was growing up, like I said, Chinese school. You
go to school five o’clock to eight o’clock six days a week, learn
Chinese.
CASTANEDA:
Did you learn English, too, or is it all in Chinese?
LEE:
You learn English, too. My English part I’ll come to that part of it.
CASTANEDA:
Okay.
LEE:
And so anyway, I’m just telling you, that’s what the town—it had
about 300 people at the most. This 1,000 people and that kind of stuff,
you know, sometime you read about it, I don’t know where this come
from. But on given Sunday you go out in the street, sun’s shining
451
pretty good, and it’s Sunday, you will find two or three hundred people
in the streets that came from the ranches. You know, they don’t have
to work today. They go uptown, get a bowl of noodles or get
something a little bit different than the farm was feeding them. And
they’ve been working there for a week and now they’ve got a chance to
come up and buy a little provision and all that kind of thing. So that’s
how all these four Chinatowns on the Delta would operate.
Locke was pretty good in the twenties, and mostly all the patrons are
Zhongshan people, because there are all Zhongshan merchants there.
Walnut Grove was more Toisan and a little mixture and was much
bigger than Locke, three or four times bigger. Courtland was
Zhongshan. Courtland had all the farmers and the farmhands are all
Zhongshan people. They’re not quite as big as Locke at that time, but
their town was established much longer than Courtland, according to
the history is much longer.
CASTANEDA:
Okay. It goes back farther then?
LEE:
Yes. Yes. And, of course, Isleton, same time as Locke, is pretty good
size then. Which later on years they had—when the Filipinos came
over in the thirties then that changes the picture of the whole thing.
CASTANEDA:
Sure. How did they get along, the Filipinos and the—
452
LEE:
The Filipinos weren’t here when the Chinese here. Filipinos didn’t
come over here until—they were on Hawaii in the cane fields. When
the cane business become a change of thing, then they came over here
to work. There was no women, it was all men coming here. And so
were the Chinese at first, although we many—much more families than
the Filipinos ever had here. And they came—so that’s why the
gambling houses and all that, which I defend all the time, and because
they painted lousy picture, it wasn’t true, see.
Well, as long as we’re on the subject we’ll go a little bit on this.
CASTANEDA:
Sure.
LEE:
The gambling houses in Walnut Grove there were four or five, in
Locke there were four or five. I’m talking about the twenties, you
know, twenties, thirties. Isleton had four or five hundred. When the
Filipinos came they had more. They open up and they close, you
know, a bunch of guys, eight or ten of them, “Hey, let’s open a
gambling house. Get a little play, we’ll make a little money,” and they
do. They make a good living. But like I always tell these people, I
say, “One slot machine at Lake Tahoe will take in more money than
you take in the whole year.” I said, “That’s the way it is.”
But why are these necessary? Because they can’t speak, no TV, no
radio, can’t go to the movie house, or even if you could you couldn’t
453
understand, so therefore there was no place to go for single men.
They’ll go into these gambling houses they have pop or tea there for
you to drink and nighttime, like my father’s gambling house, they
serve you donuts. And so you come in, if you want to play, okay, if
you don’t want to play go on back there, there’s newspapers and
magazine, maybe three months old, but you can help yourself and read
it.
That one in the museum in Locke, which is my father’s gambling
house, in the back they had [unclear], a little place like that, they had
Chinese instruments and some of these farmhands they like to play,
just like other guys.
Also hanging out there, like a post office, letter come from China,
these farmhands they don’t have a post box to go get their mail. They
might be working this farm this week, next week they’re someplace
else. They would send it to the Dai Loy Museum and they would hang
it there, and it may be there for a week, or two weeks or a month. You
come along, you see my name there, you work with me down on that
farm, you pick it up, you bring it to me, that kind of stuff. So therefore
it’s—
CASTANEDA:
It’s a social place.
LEE:
Yes, a social meeting place.
454
CASTANEDA:
A gathering place.
LEE:
A labor agency. Farmer comes up or a sharecropper comes up, “We
need five guys to dig up these ditches.” Where you going to find five
guys? You go in that gambling house, oh, here’s a guy. “Hey, you
working?”
“No, I just finished last week.”
You’re staying in one of these rooms in Locke. Okay, two and a half
dollars a month.
He says, “What do you need?”
He says, “I need three or four more guys to go down to so-and-so’s
ranch.”
“Oh, I can get them for you. We got a couple of guys down here that I
know he’s all through working. I’ll gather them up and meet you in an
hour and we’ll take”—you know, bring your little blanket and away
you go. That’s the way it is.
CASTANEDA:
And you find people at the gambling house?
LEE:
Oh, yes, because they don’t have a house.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, right, where else can you go?
455
LEE:
Yes, where else can you go? You can always meet them there.
They’re always there. Sometimes they’re not gambling, but they’re
playing cards. I’m playing with you, I’m not going to gamble.
CASTANEDA:
It’s more than just gambling, it’s a—
LEE:
Exactly.
CASTANEDA:
I understand.
LEE:
But when I first talk about these things, when they first come to me,
that was in 1950 when I came back to open the Big Store, and a lot of
the old Chinese were still here yet, and you know, you’re talking sixty
years ago pretty near. And I was thirty years old, thirty-one years old,
I think. And the other older people couldn’t speak English, but I knew
the supervisors and I got a little bit better with them, because I have a
store, and they’re always hanging around my place, and the district
attorney was my schoolmate, the sheriff comes to eat with me all the
time. You know, so I got to talking about these things just like I’m
talking to you now, no different. But prior to that nobody, the old
Chinese didn’t like too much.
CASTANEDA:
They didn’t?
LEE:
No, but my father was very prominent here and they didn’t say—and I
join all the associations, all the Tongs, they call associations then, and
then no more of that kind of fighting and all that. And they didn’t
456
come outright and say, “Don’t talk to these newspaper about any of
this stuff.” I always felt it was part of history. The Chinese history in
the Delta, we did a great part in it, we built the levees, we did a lot of
things, and outside of the Delta, the railroads and everything. And
whenever the white men started something and couldn’t finish, who
they brought in? They bring in the Chinaman. It’s always been that
way. And I resent that very much.
I said, “Whenever you write something about the Delta or some of
these—all of these Chinatowns, you’re talking about opium, gambling
hall, do you think that’s all the Chinese do? We also dug the ditches,
too. We kept the farms going. We planted the trees. Why not we talk
about some of those things?” And I was, you know, I was really
outspoken on that part.
It gets to a point, when, go see him. You know, I had the store and I
was available all the time, they can find me. But the old Chinese they
didn’t like that very much. They didn’t out and out say, “You better
stop this,” but I knew until ten years later they found out he’s a doing
great job for us.
CASTANEDA:
Were they just reluctant to talk? Were they afraid they couldn’t trust
people?
457
LEE:
They were afraid that when they talked they couldn’t explain
everything, and you know how they write, they even do that to me.
CASTANEDA:
Sure.
LEE:
I said, “That’s not the way I told you. No, you printed it that way,
that’s not the way I said.” Oh, I got boxes and boxes of newspaper.
It’s like when they come looking for my father’s history now being
that he was here so long and salvaged the Quo Min Tong in the Delta
and Dr. Sun made him a lifetime member, took care of all this kind of
stuff. Well, a lot of it is my history, because my father didn’t talk to
the friends that way. People knew him, I’m sure, but me I’m different,
because I speak the language. So that’s the whole thing.
CASTANEDA:
So everyone came and talked to you as you were with your store?
LEE:
Well, I mean, I was available, see. They found us out here. It’s hard to
find me. Go see him, he works seven days a week, and he’s not afraid
to talk, he’ll talk to you. Well, you call me, I talk to you.
CASTANEDA:
Sure.
LEE:
But I feel this way, when I talk to you or anything, especially, I don’t
care too much about the press if I don’t know the person, okay. But
sometimes they take it out—completely different than what I say.
CASTANEDA:
I understand.
458
LEE:
Yes, that way. And as far as the school is concerned and like the Asian
classes, all that, I spoke to Davis, I spoke to one high school in
Sacramento, I forgot what it—but not recently, oh, twenty-five, thirty
years ago. Then you know you could talk to the young people and
young people are interested. When I go into the Asian class I feel
they’re interested in listening to this, so I say a little more. If they’re
not, well, then just, you know—but mostly they are.
CASTANEDA:
Yes. In the gambling house, you said they served tea.
LEE:
Yes.
CASTANEDA:
What kind of tea did they serve?
LEE:
Just tea, just ordinary tea.
CASTANEDA:
Is there a certain kind of tea?
LEE:
No, just black tea.
CASTANEDA:
Just black tea.
LEE:
Yes, just black tea, like you go to a restaurant and you get served.
They try to make you think you’re drinking something fancy, it’s not.
CASTANEDA:
No, I just wondered what kind of tea.
LEE:
Oh, Chinese tea.
CASTANEDA:
It was from China? Would it come from China?
459
LEE:
Oh, yes, all the tea leaves come from the China. You say, “All the tea
in China,” refer to that remark. “I’ll give you all the tea in China.”
Well, that’s a lot of tea. You go back there and you take a look at
some of these tea farms, mulberry farms.
CASTANEDA:
What kind of food would they have there? I think you said donuts
maybe, but other—
LEE:
Oh, yes. Well, you know, nighttime, they’re open. Usually these
gambling houses don’t close until ten or eleven o’clock, and nine
o’clock, maybe, sometimes. And on Sundays, you know, the Dim Sun
[phonetic]—do you know anything about Dim Sun?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
Well, this restaurant in Locke, my father had a restaurant, and I didn’t
name the restaurant, that was number six. Al’s is his restaurant. And
then successfully he didn’t run that very well. He didn’t run it, but I
mean he rented it out. He had a lot of partners, you know, my father
had partners all over. He had business in three states.
CASTANEDA:
What were the other states?
LEE:
Oregon and Nevada and California. He was in Oregon in Klamath
Falls and in, well, Susanville, just this side of California. But he’s
actually not into Nevada, but on the borderline of Nevada, it’s
Susanville. And then, of course, the Delta.
460
Then of course, I went to school—we haven’t got to the school part—
in Grass Valley. I didn’t go to grammar school here.
All right, since we’re talking about school. Grammar school here is
segregated, always was, until the Second World War
CASTANEDA:
You’re meaning Walnut Grove?
LEE:
Walnut Grove, Courtland, Isleton, and many, many other towns was
like that, but in the Delta they’re all segregated. Well, they didn’t call
it Oriental School. They said Oriental School, but I say Japanese and
Chinese. There was no Mexicans in those days and no Filipino to
speak of. Once or twice in high school there’s one or two Filipino.
And there’s no colored people.
Well, these segregated schools, well, my father there we go his
foresight is that way, he feels that as long as we’re over here—
[Begin Tape 1, Side B]
CASTANEDA:
Okay. So go ahead with the school.
LEE:
Oh, my father, you know, when I was growing up I actually did not go
to grammar school every day until I was about eight years old. When I
was in Locke, I grew up in Locke, but at six or seven years old when
I’m supposed to go to school, I didn’t go. He didn’t believe in
segregated school. Not that because you’re Chinese, he believed that I
461
can’t speak good English if I go to the Oriental school and speak with,
just like the old Chinese.
So he decided to take me into Grass Valley. He had a ranch there. The
previous owners of the ranch gave away about two acres of it and they
built a school there. Oh, from here to the road, that far. Took me in
there, I went to school there, but I did make the third grade after the
second year, I think. I came out of that school in six years, supposedly
at eighth grade, graduated, then I went to Grass Valley High School for
a year and a few months. Then I came back out to Locke, and high
school is not segregated.
My father had come back, because his farming and everything was
here, the gambling house, the dry goods store, and the drugstore were
all here. He’s also herbalist. He many things. He was way ahead of
his time.
CASTANEDA:
Did you have a store, an herbal store?
LEE:
You know, he can write prescriptions, but he’s not a doctor. Well,
neither is today’s herbalists, they’re not doctors. But where he learn it,
I don’t know. He never went to school in China. Like I say, he came
over here. And he can write a letter, he can write anything, all night
long. He’s not a very big guy. I’m bigger than he is, two inches taller
than he is. He’s a master of Kung Fu. He said, “When I used to be in
462
China”—he didn’t come home until twenty-one years old. He says,
“When I was a teenager, I didn’t go to school, I went up the hills to
watch the monks and Kung Fu and that’s where I learn all of it.”
According to my second son, DeeDee [phonetic] is second, and the
second son, I never seen it, he said, “You know, Grandpa”—he was,
what, eighty-five, pretty near ninety years old. He said, “Every
morning I see him out in the grass practicing.” I never seen that. I
know in his younger days he did because he was a master of the Kung
Fu, they say. According to the old-timers they what they tell us. He
said, “In the old days nobody touches him.” So that’s the way he is.
Then his business—now, we’ve got me going to school and why he
believe in it. He also, even in the young days, when I went to high
school, especially, he would tell me the same story, “Look,” he says,
“we can’t buy land here and we were treated this way, but yet we’re
here.” You know, he says, “America is a very nice thing, but the only
part is that we’re not part of it. So what you have to do is, their
technology is so good. You know, look at them.” He says, “Couple
hundred years, look at how powerful they are, and China’s thousands
of years, nowhere near it. We need their technology. You go to
school, you learn that technology, but don’t learn the culture, it’s no
good. It doesn’t fit us. You keep two good things and you’ve got it
all.” He says, “When you learn the technology, go back to China and
463
put it to use. You learn it here. They’re way ahead of us in that.”
That’s what he said. He drilled, he just drilled that into me, see.
That’s why I went back to China, and I’m born here, well, I go to
China, they call me—he’s American, only he’s—he’s no Chinese, he’s
American, and yet he speaks two or three dialects, you know, it’s
unusual. I went back there just six months ago and like I say that’s, all
these people that know me now that come, especially the councilman
who came into Sunday school because of the museum and all that stuff.
He says it’s unusual for somebody you’re age, you know, and went to
college and everything and still speak all that Chinese. I said, “Well, I
hang out with them.”
I went to Cal at Berkeley and my schoolmate was Dr. Sun’s grandson.
So we have history class together. Came from China and we’re
studying Asia. Okay. We have to write a story about Dr. Sun, what he
did, what he did for China. It’s a life story. Here’s the grandson, you
know, God, I mean, he got a B and I got an A. So I guess I—and four
or five years later I happened to go to Shanghai and I ran into him in a
restaurant in a hotel, and he’s Dr. Sun’s grandson. His father, of
course, was Dr. Sun’s son, oh, he died about two or three years ago
now. He lived to ninety something.
464
CASTANEDA:
Interesting. Well, talking, just, Shanghai is a very modern city now,
too.
LEE:
Oh, it’s nice.
CASTANEDA:
The technology.
LEE:
Have you seen the marketplace?
CASTANEDA:
Yes. Yes, we saw the marketplace and then the skyline, at that
[unclear], looking east.
LEE:
Oh, God. You know, all that was international.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, that was very interesting, real interesting.
LEE:
Can you imagine four or five countries took off—the only people—
they had a park there, the only people that couldn’t go in there was
Chinese and the dogs, and you’re in China. That’s the way it was
treated. Well, Emperor [unclear] lost the war, okay, so they keep these
concessions. Did you see the French section?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
They’re very narrow streets, but they’re very nice. I’ve been to China.
In ’48 I stayed there for two months, in China. I was going to go back,
my father and mother was alive then, I was going to go back and build
a house in Kantong. We’re from the Kantong Guangdong area.
465
Shanghai is way up here, like Minnesota and California. But the
communists came, it didn’t pan out.
That’s when my father told me I have to go back to China sometime.
He knew that—he said, “Fate is that way.” He said, “But, the
communists are not going to win.” We’re still the Nationalists, see.
He said, “They’re not going to win.” He said, “One day [unclear],”
and he said, “I hope you can go back. I’m too old now, I’m ninetysome-odd years old, I have no chance to go back. If I go back there
they’ll put me in prison. So that’s the way it is.”
But luckily, it didn’t take as long. I thought I’d just promise him, I
would have done it, I wasn’t faking it or anything, but I didn’t think—
it was practically impossible, but I don’t tell him. Well, there’s no way
you can—the communists so strong, but luckily it happened very fast.
So because now the people, you know, Taiwan their enemies, back and
forth, there’s no problem. My uncle, which holds a big job with
Chiang Kai-Shek, and his son, he’s got ten buildings in Shanghai, they
welcome him back there, because he’s got money. He came over from
Taiwan. He’s still there. He’s the same age as Dee Dee.
So, you know, the Chinese culture is so strong I don’t think the
family’s going to be struck. One day when all these old regimes passes
on, they’re making a lot of noise now, one China and all that, they just
466
shake hands and forget about it. Hey, we’re Chinese, let’s work it out
some way. I’m sure that’s going to happen and I hope I can see it, the
day that it happened. I don’t think they’re going to shoot at each other.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, I don’t think so.
LEE:
I don’t think so. They might just say these things just the please the
old regime. You know, just wait until all of these are gone and then
ten, twelve years afterwards, just little by little. Before you can’t go
into China, like not Lily’s family, or grandfather who migrated into
Taiwan. He’s a Taiwanese. She went back to China with me and the
reason I can go back there with all this kind of—back to where the big
area is, the economic area and all that, is our village of 700 was seven
supervisors running, same size as Sacramento County, seven sit on the
board, three are from our village. Out of, that’s pretty near two million
people, three of them are from our village.
All right. When I went back there I was pretty near seventy years old,
sixty-eight, sixty-nine, when they first met me, and they feel that I’m a
nephew.
CASTANEDA:
There’s a very strong connection.
LEE:
Yes, connection. And I’m an uncle. So when I went back there all
these people, they went with me, the mayor of the, well, they call them
mayor, we call them supervisor, they run the county, not the town. The
467
town is a little place, see, around 700 people is pretty much local thing.
That’s how Locke was run by the merchants at one time when it first
started. Then after 1950 all these merchants close up, got too old,
couldn’t go back to China, I came back in to start the store here with
my father. He asked me to come back down. He said, “I’m getting
old.”
CASTANEDA:
And that was after you went to Berkeley?
LEE:
Oh, yes. And I ran a store in Sacramento. Three markets he had yet.
CASTANEDA:
Did you come right back after Berkeley? Did you come to Locke or
did you do something else?
LEE:
No, no, no, I came—yes, not Locke, to Sacramento to run my father’s
store. I got in the army, okay? The senior year at Cal, when you get C
you don’t have to go, you can finish there. I finished, I came back out,
so at that time all the Kans were not around Grass Valley and Locke,
because in Locke, because my father is a Kan, that’s all, and all this
cousins and everything’s in the farming here. He had a thousand acres
down here by Terminus. He lost it all, that’s all.
So anyway, when I came back the army call me, as soon as I graduate,
I graduate in May or June, and by August, I think, they call me, and I
was in Chicago. Chicago have a lot of Kans. They’re in the restaurant
business. Benny Goodman and all the playing in the big restaurant.
468
Pretty big time in Chicago. And Cleveland and Detroit, they’re spread
out there, many Kans, oh, ten to fifteen. So I figure I’m a Kan and my
father, everybody knows him, and some of them know me already, I
was nineteen, twenty years old. I come out, I told my father, I said, “I
want to go to Chicago, the East.”
He said, “What do you want to go there for?”
I said, “I want to meet the Kans. I want them to take me around, just in
case I need a job.”
My father said, “Oh, that’s a good idea. It’s about time you go out
there and meet all the cousins and everything.” He said, “Okay.”
So if I remember he gave me a couple hundred bucks, my brother and
I. I’m one year younger than my brother. We took the train and we
went to Chicago to see some of the friends and my cousins took me to
some of the cousin’s house. It’s pretty damn big city.
So when I came back the army called me. All right. I go in the army
and they check me out and I’m already in, they find a spot in my lung.
I had pneumonia when I was—come to think of it when the doctor
asked me, I say, “Yes, when I was sixth or seventh grade I had
pneumonia and I stay out of school for about three weeks.”
He said, “That’s when you got this spot.”
469
So what happened? He said, “That’s healed already, it just left a spot,
but the army won’t take you. That’s why you’re 4-F.”
I said, “What do you mean they won’t take me?”
He said, “They can’t afford to, because you got a spot there.”
I said, “Well, you know.”
He said, “No, I’m on that board, you know.”
Okay. So now I come back to my father and I says, “They won’t take
me.” I said, “I’d better put my foot down and go run your store,
because all the able bodies from the stores are going in the army.”
That’s how I got started in that kind of business. You know, one thing
lead to another, and then his stores I worked there five o’clock in the
morning to ten o’clock at night. But I saved those stores, because
there’s not enough money to hire.
CASTANEDA:
Because the people who, the other owners would retire and then no one
else could run the stores?
LEE:
Well, when he had them, they could run the store, none of them
making money. Well, my father would start something, you can run it.
He would come around once in a while and say, “Well, how are things
going?” That’s about it. He’ll organize something, but he can’t be
there all the time. When he was about ninety years old he decided to
470
tell me, he says, “You know, you’re right”—I only had the Big Store,
you know. He said, “You should branch out.”
I said, “No, I got to run this thing, you know.” I said, “Dad, that’s the
problem, you start too many thing. You can’t be there. You let your
cousins run it, and not all your cousins are good.” Because when I
went up to work in the summertime from college I say what my cousin
was doing, I said, “He’s stealing you blind.”
So after I got out, you know, I would get back in there, he quit. He
started another store a block away. Well, that’s the way it goes.
So my father said, “You’re right.” He says, “You know, it’s just like
an army, when you’re flanked it’s too far out, you can’t watch the
middle.” He says, “That’s the trouble.” He says, “You’re right in that
sense.” “But,” he says, “you should donate more time to the
community and everything, the Chinese people and all that, because
you know how to speak the language and you’re not afraid to talk, and
you can speak, you know.”
So that’s how he push everything to me.
CASTANEDA:
Which store did you work in first, or which of his businesses did you?
LEE:
They’re market, they’re all markets.
CASTANEDA:
They’re all markets?
471
LEE:
Yes, all markets. Well, you’ve heard of the farmer’s market and all
that?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
My father was twenty years ahead of them. They had four of them
there. His idea was when he had the big one, it was in Old Sacramento
now, the market, right. Those days the icebox, you put ice in it.
There’s not even refrigerators. Okay? That goes back in the twenties.
I don’t know how he bought the market, but he had a market, then he
moved across the street to a bigger place.
CASTANEDA:
That was in?
LEE:
Sacramento, Old Sacramento. It was on K and 3rd. I don’t know
where like now. The building is not there, because I’ve been to
Sacramento. And his business had about, oh, I’d say, ten, twelve
butchers, very big place, and he had to put ice in it. I’m a small kid,
five, six years old, I remember iceman would put ice in the icebox. He
wanted to build this big icebox, not small, big one, and put ice in it, so
he can find more beef, sell at wholesale through the [unclear]. Now,
he think that way. Okay. And he did that, that was all right.
He had the chicken farm up there by [unclear], killing chickens, sell
them there. Business wasn’t that good after a few years, business
would drop, maybe from management, whatever it is. I guess he must
472
be the chairman of the board, and he had partners, he had shareholders
and Chinese—hey, just shake hand and that’s it. You’re in for 500?
Okay, you’re part of the business.
So he says, “Well, what’s our problem, you know?”
He said, “Well, things are different. That store was on 3rd and K.
You’re catering all to that”—where we talk about this building this big
SP depot there. People there, three or four thousand people working
there, catering to that area, see. He says, “Now time has expanded, the
last five, six years, clear up to 21st Street. Down here clear down to
Broadway, was known as Y Street, up this way, up to B and C Street
where the almond growers are.”
And he had a store in Alkali Flat, 12th and F, one on Stockton
Boulevard, Libby Cannery there.
Before I get to the branches, he feels this way, “What’s the problem?”
“Well, you know, hey, business is not good now, that’s why we’re not
making money. People are moving away from here, they’re not all in
the area here.”
“Well, what’s the problem?”
He said, “Well, they’re way out there now. They can’t get to our
place.”
473
They don’t have automobile or anything, just streetcars in those days.
My father, “Well, we can solve that problem.” He said, “We’ll have
satellites to all corners of it.”
That’s why he started Stockton Boulevard and that, and he was that far
away of farmer’s market, he was, he’s way ahead. Not because he’s
my father, but like a lot of people said, “God, he’s just”—
I said, “You know, if you think that because I can speak the language
and I been in this business this long, in one place fifty-some-odd years,
and the community, and they all know me,” I said, “I don’t think I can
carry my father’s briefcase in no way.” I say, “He don’t have the
schooling. That’s why he sits there, he says, ‘You can do it.’”
I said, “Well,” I says, “I can’t.”
“You got to go to college. Or you got to go to Cal Berkeley.”
“Well, I can’t, I don’t have the brain.” And I didn’t take the [unclear]
how could I got there.
He says, “What do you mean?”
I said, “You’ve got to have certain classes.”
“Well, why didn’t you take them?”
I said, “Well, I didn’t think I need them, I thought I was going to work
in the restaurant or work in someplace, you know.”
474
But then after he went broke he got back a few dollars, he’s going to
send me to Berkeley, because he had a friend and he had a son, he
thought was the brightest thing there is, went to Berkeley. And he was,
he knew, he was American born, too, and he know Chinese and some
other things. He want me to be like him, so I got to go to Berkeley,
that’s the best school. He was going to Berkeley.
Well, I said, “I can’t.”
He says, “What do you mean you can’t?”
I said, “I don’t have these classes.”
“Well, you have to.”
I said, “I have to go back to junior college to make up these things.”
“Well, then go back and make it up and then go to Berkeley.”
CASTANEDA:
So is that what you did?
LEE:
Yes, I did. So it took me five semesters to get all my bit and I got to
get a B and a C, and then the last semester, I said, well, they already
school, I might as well save the other half, too, so I take a couple
Mickey Mouse course, so bring the grade up a little bit higher yet. So
three years I was Sac—no, it was junior college, Freeport U, kind of
like Freeport U. [laughs]
475
I went to Berkeley as a junior, I got out of there in two years, I did, and
I came back and this is my story. So today I think my granddaughter
learn much more than I do.
CASTANEDA:
So you came back and you worked in Locke or in Sacramento?
LEE:
No, I went to Sacramento first. I commuted.
CASTANEDA:
When did you come back to Locke?
LEE:
I came in ’51, when I open the Big Store. That was Alex Brown’s little
store, see. His grandson ran it to the ground, owed the bank, always
owe bank a lot of money, they wrote it off. I bought it from him and I
did eight times the business they did the first year. Well, at that time,
’51, of the four towns our place was the biggest until the one in Rio
Vista open up, oh, I guess it was about 1960. So we was kingpin there
for about seven or eight years and the biggest one of the four little
towns.
CASTANEDA:
Can you describe Locke in ’51, in the fifties, when you came back?
How do you think of it?
LEE:
At ’50 already going downhill. Prior to that—the war ended in ’45,
huh?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
476
LEE:
From ’45 to ’50 the complex of the town change already because the
young people now finally are able to go to school, because of the GI
Bill. So these high school kids previously would all when done with
high school go work on the farm or do something, but now they can go
to college because the government’s going to pay for it. So a lot of
people go, but I came out already. I was the first one out of Locke,
born in Locke, to come out of a university.
CASTANEDA:
Really, the first one?
LEE:
Yes, the first one. So, yes, there’s a couple of them that went to
university from the Delta, but they weren’t born in Locke. They
weren’t from Locke. One of them was born on a ranch up in Courtland
someplace, he was the first one, and then a couple of others, maybe
five, six years ahead of me. But I was the first one out of Locke that
went to college and came out, graduated.
Then my brother went on, he was one year behind me. He just passed
away this year and he went onto Stanford and got an M.A., too. Then
he came in the business with me, but like people say, two brothers
different. I said we think the same, but I’m the one that does all the
talking and he’s very quiet. He was down in the store with me forty
years. Yes, we both ran this. So that was a part of it.
477
But Locke at that time, it was going downhill, for the same reason that
just like these farms just begin. There were still a few sharecroppers in
1950, not many. I think about three or four, before the war there was
still twenty or thirty. At the peak I would say there must be seventy or
eighty sharecroppers from Freeport to Rio Vista. So there was a lot of
Toisan people there, mostly of them all use [unclear]. In later years
they begin to hire some Filipinos. No Mexicans yet. The Mexicans
didn’t get involved until just about 1950 when I came to town.
CASTANEDA:
Now, we’re try to find a little bit about the boarding house, too. Do
you know who would stay at the boarding house?
LEE:
Boarding house was a Japanese guy. I don’t know where he came
from. I went to school with one of them many years later and I also
knew the family. At first that Japanese woman, he was married to a
barber, and the barber was renting my father’s, one of the buildings in
Locke, that ran it. So later on they either split up or something and
then she either marry or stay with a guy that had a restaurant next to
the Star Theater. And then somehow they got involved in that
boarding house, but somebody was there first, some Japanese, not a
Chinese, no Chinese there, because on the other side of the hill that’s
not Locke, that’s out of bounds, okay.
CASTANEDA:
That’s funny, it was just out of bounds.
478
LEE:
No, I just kid people.
CASTANEDA:
But in a way it’s true, isn’t it?
LEE:
Well, it had one Japanese family. But Japanese, Chinese, they all got
along. There was no big problem except when Japanese during the
war, then that was a different story, you know, then they really hate
each other. Well, the rape of Naking and all that, you know, you’ve
got cousins right in the village. You know, you can’t blame them.
That’s another part of history I can talk about.
CASTANEDA:
Did the people who stayed at the boarding house, what did they do? I
mean, who—
LEE:
At that time when I remember when I was kid, there was just a family
staying there. They might have rented a room out here and there to
farmhands or something, but I don’t recall. Later years, oh, I would
say when I came back in ’37, ’38, that place was used primarily during
the summer when the packers, you don’t see that recently, they packed
the pears, that work on the boathouse there with all that fruit going out,
the packers, they were living there. It was only for three weeks.
CASTANEDA:
The summer, yes.
LEE:
Yes, the summer. And they were renting those places, because their
shoreline is connected to our town. So when I ran the town then, we
had nothing but problem with it, because you’ve got too many people
479
there, and that’s how I remember how that thing worked. And oh, I
guess, 1955, by the time I opened the store, I think there are still a few
on the summer guys were packing pears still rented the place, they still
rented the place. Not many. But back in the late thirties and forties I
guess that was used primarily for that. I don’t think it was like a hotel
that you one night or anything. I guy might rent a—they had about I
think six rooms on the upstairs.
CASTANEDA:
I think that’s right.
LEE:
Yes, they’re going to build museum there.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, what do you think about that? Do you think that’s a good idea?
LEE:
Oh, good idea or not? Well, it takes money to run it, you know, and
just because you’re going to get about half, over half million dollars to
put it up, now—
CASTANEDA:
You still have to run it.
LEE:
Yes. Now, how you going to—I don’t know how Locke is doing this.
Of course, they got a board there and they’ve got people running it and
all that kind of stuff, but I don’t know. I’m not involved in it, but the
way I see it and the way I hear it and Connie keeps me in touch all the
time, because I says, “You’re the mayor now. I pass it on to you,” and
she’s got all the headaches. And she’ll call me all the time and tell me
about what the hell is going on.
480
But anyway, I don’t know. But the old days when Locke had all
Chinese and all Toisan people I ran it for twenty-eight years and had
no problem. I mean, there were what we call the last of the hippies
come in at that time, not because they liked to live in Locke, because
it’s the cheapest rent you can pay. You know how those people in
those days played for a while. They become one of my good friends.
One of them wrote this [unclear]. Yes. I wouldn’t help him until my
son changed my mind. Not this one, the older one.
They both study [unclear] and photographer. My son is still press
photographer, Press Democrat in Santa Rosa. Then he’s ahead of
Matlo [phonetic] and when he came out then Matlo went to Fishback
[phonetic] School in Sacramento. I don’t know if the school is
operating now. It was by Oak Park then. But he was a professor, well,
a couple semesters at Sac State. Fishback.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, that sounds very familiar.
LEE:
Yes. Well, see, he had a brother that was a great hurdler, Del Fishback
[phonetic]. Hey we’re talking sixty years back, way before your time.
CASTANEDA:
Well, how did you see Locke change from fifty to now? How would
you describe the change?
LEE:
Because it’s just like a theater play, you know, the actors are all gone
and you got somebody substituting and they don’t play as good as the
481
old original. [laughs] That’s about it. Yes, because the time changes.
I still enjoy it. I still call Locke, you know, my heart is still in Locke.
I donated money there. I do—when they want to dig up, dig the first
spade of dirt out, I have to do it, and I went up there. I feel it’s an
honor for them to ask me. I’m honored already, but they all said
former mayor of Locke. So that kind of stuff.
CASTANEDA:
So at what point did it stop becoming just a Chinese town? When did
other people start coming in? When did it really start changing?
LEE:
I would say, well, right now there’s more outside people, I would call
them, whether it’s white, Mexican, or what, than Chinese, right now.
But before that decline I’d say maybe up to the 1970s there were more
Chinese. Yes, late sixties more Chinese than outsiders, because I at
fifty—I ran the thing to 1970 something, and I still have all Chinese.
All Chinese. Whenever two meetings, two or three meetings a year,
there’s no outsiders, all Chinese, easy for me. Like they say, “Well, it
wasn’t like that when you ran.”
I say, “You got to remember, I had everything in my favor,” because
now you’ve got all the [unclear], this guy complaining, this guy. You
can’t handle them. Before, the Chinese, I could handle with no
problem. They put me up there and I was elected for twenty-eight
years, nobody else wanted it, I guess, and I guess I was doing a pretty
482
good job, otherwise they would have said that. Even the next door
neighbors, the Caucasian people, when I have to send them a water bill
and all that, you know what, they said, “Hey, when you left the town
changed.” That’s why I left. It wasn’t when I left it changes, it was
they changed when I left, that’s what it was.
CASTANEDA:
And when did you leave? When was that?
LEE:
’90. Yes, ’90. 1990, New Year’s Day, I move in here. But I always
have these good memories. I go to Locke, everybody knows me.
Now, when I first came down here, the first few years I’m up there a
lot. There was still some more Chinese live there. The old Chinese
that were ten, fifteen year older than I am found out that I don’t go into
Locke that much, they would walk all the way down to the store just to
chat with me, you know. Oh, there were half a dozen old Chinese.
And I said, “Wait a minute, you guys are too old to walk back and
forth, let me take you back up to home.” And they’ll get a few items
from the store and go.
CASTANEDA:
When did people from Sacramento start coming down to Locke to
visit?
LEE:
What do you mean start?
CASTANEDA:
To visit. I mean, to go to restaurants or something like that.
483
LEE:
Oh, that goes back to Al when he had that bar, he attracted a lot of
politicians. They love to come down here and get drunk, nobody
complains. You don’t want to get drunk in town, you get in trouble.
Oh, Al, in the sixties even, he was still alive, he had slot machines in
that restaurant. I sold him the restaurant in about 1945. See, he was
renting from my father and then I would come down, home every
night, but on Sunday or something I’m open half a day, and two or
three gambling houses in town and I’m just visiting everybody, just
having fun, you know, talking, at the pool hall shooting pool or doing
something. And I would go collect rent from Al. He called himself Al
the Wop, okay? He’s Italian. Actually, he’s a convict. He supposedly
killed somebody, anyway, and came out. I don’t know the history of it,
but I would say—he’s gone now, but he’s not very cooperative to
Locke, to the Chinese, and I think a lot of Chinese just scared of him,
too, because of his record, okay.
CASTANEDA:
When did he open, when did he start the restaurant himself?
LEE:
I was going to college. I think about ’38 he came up from Ryde. He
had a little place in Ryde. You know that little town?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
And then he knew the place was available, my father had—somebody
had rented it and failed, didn’t make it. I think it was locked up. And
484
they rented the place. Him and another friend or his brother-in-law,
I’ve forgot what it was, two of them from Ryde came up and rented a
place from my father I think for either twenty or twenty-five dollars a
month and ran it. Well, it’s just an old building, you know. Then he
began to attract a lot of out-of-towners.
CASTANEDA:
Right. Interesting.
LEE:
Yes.
CASTANEDA:
And he was Italian?
LEE:
Yes, he was Italian. And I don’t know how, but there were women that
would come down with men and all that. Well, I was in the street all
the time, you know, seeing all that, all dressed up nice going to that
place. He was a dirty guy. He was—not like today, today they run a
pretty good place. He was a slob. But he has a way with them. The
politicians liked him.
CASTANEDA:
Where did he live? He didn’t—
LEE:
He lived right in that place upstairs. He die up there.
CASTANEDA:
Did he really?
LEE:
I don’t think that little attic is still there, though.
CASTANEDA:
He didn’t mix much with the other people in the town? He didn’t?
LEE:
No.
485
CASTANEDA:
Not too much.
LEE:
He just ran his business. But the guy is just—he won’t cooperate with
anybody and everybody is kind said, ah, let him let alone, let alone.
He’s got streetlights on the street, I can remember, even when I took
over I didn’t like him, but I sold him the place, you know, so I
[unclear]. He would tie his—he had a carport, he had a light for his car
in the alley there, he would connect it to the streetlight and do things
like that. But later on when he died the other guys came out and
they’re all good. The guy that passed away a couple of years ago was
his bartender happened to be a part of the partner there, I never had any
problem with him. The town, when I was running it, he never come to
the meeting. Anytime I tell him about—I say, “Your assessment’s
going to be this much.”
“Okay.”
No problem, he paid me, give me the money and I’d give it to the
treasurer. Usually Connie was the collector at that time.
I remember one time I had to repair the steps coming down from the
top to the bottom, right through his place. I says, “Hey, you know
you’ve got the most business in town, you’re the most prosperous in
town. I’m short of funds, I can’t finish that step.”
He said, “How much we need?”
486
I said, “About a hundred bucks to pull the thing through.” I said, “I
need at least sixty, seventy dollars.”
“You come down tonight late, okay, I’m going to take some of that
money off the top there.”
You see all these money stuck up there? Did you ever go there?
CASTANEDA:
No, I never [unclear].
LEE:
He said, “I’ll pull off some of that.” But he was just only a partner
then. He would cooperate and he had the most business in town, that
was true. I’m popular like in seventies. He would give me the money.
No problem when I say, “Hey, something happened here, we need
about twenty-five, thirty bucks to hire somebody to do this.” I said,
“Can you throw in a few bucks?” He’d give it to me.
CASTANEDA:
So that restaurant has been there a long time?
LEE:
Yes. Oh, yes.
CASTANEDA:
Are there other restaurants that have been there, that were there for a
long time? Chinese restaurants or are there other kinds of restaurants?
LEE:
No. No. I mean, to operate. Al operated that thing over ten years and
then that Portuguese, the one I like very much, he was a partner with
Malino [phonetic]. Malino was a car dealer in Walnut Grove when the
other Locke died, Mrs. Locke couldn’t collect the money, couldn’t take
487
care of the sewer line, get plugged and all that kind of—electricity
broke down. I did it all for her. Mrs. Locke liked me very much and
she’s a widower. And this guy Malino, is after her money, see, plays it
up to her, hauls her around and then he got a third of the property. He
did, but then later when they sold that place for three or four million,
he got a quarter million dollars. That’s three ways. And he didn’t run
it, but he was a partner and he put this guy up that gave me the money
to run the thing because he was bartender for Al for many, many years.
I sold that place to Al. I remember one Sunday I came home, my
father says, “You go collect from Al today?”
“Yes, I go collect from Dago, yes.”
He says, “Okay.” He said, “Hey, try to sell him the place.”
“What do you want for it?”
“Well, you know right now he’s bitching about the roof is leaking, the
floor, and he wants me to fix it.”
That’s a lot of money to fix it. He collected twenty, twenty-five dollars
a month. I think it was twenty-five or twenty.
I said, “Well, what do you want to do?”
He says, “Let him fix it.”
“How much you want?”
488
He said, “Well, we built that thing for eight hundred bucks.”
That’s when it was built, eight hundred bucks.
I said, “You get back anywhere near that, well, that will be fine, you
know. Well, I’ll try.”
So I go over there, he was sitting at the bar with a couple of farmers
and smoking a cigarette or whatever. I said, “Hi, Al.”
“Hmm.” He reach in his pocket and he’s got his twenty-five dollars
out, you know, throw it at me. I didn’t even have to ask, he just throw
it at me, no reason.
I said, “Hey, Al, wait a minute. Why don’t you buy this place?”
“Huh? Well, the place is leaking, falling apart.”
“Well, I know, but you can fix it. Sell it to you cheap.”
“How much?”
“Oh, say a thousand.”
“You’re crazy, a thousand dollars. The damn thing is [unclear].”
“Well,” I said, “what do you think?”
He reaches in his pocket and pull out five hundred dollar bills and just
threw at me. “Here, take this.”
489
I look at it, it’s five hundred bucks, “Okay, sure,” sold it. I didn’t sell
him the ground, it’s not mine, right, just the building?
CASTANEDA:
Not the ground, just the building. Yes, you can’t sell the ground.
LEE:
No, it’s not mine.
[Begin Tape 2, Side A]
CASTANEDA:
We talked about pears, asparagus that grew. What other things did
they grow?
LEE:
At that time that we talking about, in the late twenties, thirties, up to
about forties, asparagus was pretty prominent around here. This
[unclear]. Of course, down by Terminus, a thousand acre my father
had planted and went broke. And he also had asparagus up here on
Tulare Road, just up here, you go on the river, Tulare Road, in there,
which still is a good piece of land, has asparagus.
But the asparagus is usually down at Isleton. Isleton is asparagus of
the world. They used to have asparagus festival. Now they have the
crawdad festival. That’s changed. Asparagus is out of the area now
mostly, not too much, although there’s a few grown back in the last ten
years just right on the other island, Tyler Island. Yes, K. Dix
[phonetic] has a good-sized patch. He sells asparagus. He packs it
right there, he has a packing house. And before the town of Thornton
490
had a bunch, but those people they go told, they gave up farming, too.
A couple of brothers, the Italians.
CASTANEDA:
Did many of the children, I guess they would move away a lot of
times. When the older people retired, would their children stay?
LEE:
You’re talking Sacramento or in Locke?
CASTANEDA:
Well, in Locke and in [unclear].
LEE:
No, these new people are—no, they’re gone. Now, what few of them
like Locke, the restaurant and all that, they actually are newcomers.
Well, ten years now, anyway. They come here and these are from
China and they do business, it’s a little town, used to do pretty good.
They make a living. They work hard, seven days a week, whatever it
takes. That’s all. And then Clarence has four or five places. Well, he
owned the town before he sold it to the county so the county could put
the sewer line in, and that’s the way they worked it, otherwise Locke
would be condemned. If it wasn’t for Connie yelling and jumping
around we would have been condemned. And the supervisor is very
good, Illa Collins, and present supervisor Nottoli, very good. They’re
very good.
CASTANEDA:
So they help preserve the town.
LEE:
Yes. Well, Connie sold them the idea, and maybe she’s sorry now, all
that headache. You know, she’s eighty-three years old now, you know,
491
she’s no youngster and she’s got arthritis. “So I didn’t pass it along to
you just to get out of it,” I said, “you liked it anyway.” And she won’t
move away from Locke, she like it.
CASTANEDA:
I met her. On the way I stopped and met her at the restaurant.
LEE:
She’s getting a little forgetful now and she repeats a little bit. People
start, “Yes, Connie starts repeating this thing.” So somebody says,
“Well, she’s pretty old, in her eighties, sometimes—”
“Well, how about Ping, he’s damn near ninety and he doesn’t repeat.”
CASTANEDA:
No, he doesn’t. [laughs]
LEE:
She’s done a good job there. All her heart’s in it. She’s going to die
there or else she’s going to not be able to walk or anything. She won’t
go with her daughter. Her daughter lives in Sacramento. She’s pretty
good. She has good son-in-law. Come down and mow the lawn for
her and all that, otherwise she tries to. She still make a thousand
almond cookies at the functions there. A thousand of them. I says,
“You don’t have to do it.” I said, “You already donated all your social
security, Connie, how much more do you want to do?”
And yet she has to fight with all those guys on the board, some of
them. Some of them they don’t know anything about that, they don’t
deserve all that. No. But, no, they cause you nothing but headache.
There’s a few of them, they got all the electricity free, fixing it up, and
492
everything else. I heard a couple of them even the land they gave it to
them. I don’t know if it’s truth or not, but I believe it. They just never
enough, government give, give, give.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, that’s really—let’s see. Are there other things I haven’t talked to
you about? You worked in Locke for a long time. The Big Store, was
that where you mostly were at, the Big Store?
LEE:
Yes, in Walnut Grove. Yes, it’s in Walnut Grove.
CASTANEDA:
And then in Locke? How about in Locke where would you—
LEE:
I have no store in Locke, never did.
CASTANEDA:
Never?
LEE:
I mean my father did. My father started a dry goods store and all that,
but I never worked in Locke.
CASTANEDA:
Okay. You talked about the gambling. What kind of gambling would
be done, cards? Was it all cards?
LEE:
There was a little bit of 21 at the tail-end, because there was mostly all
Chinese workers that play the dominoes and the Fan-Tan.
CASTANEDA:
The Fan-Tan?
LEE:
Yes, Chinese game.
CASTANEDA:
So games from China would be played?
493
LEE:
Yes, they’d play their regular games. But when you play Mah Jong,
Mah Jong is like—
CASTANEDA:
I have a Mah Jong set, but I don’t know how to play.
LEE:
Mah Jong is just like, our family cards or playing Rummy or whatever
you want to call it, that kind of thing, but gambling is—like 21 is
gambling.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, so it’d be card games basically.
LEE:
Blackjack, you know, all that kind of stuff. Fan-Tan is the same way,
you bet on the numbers. And then, of course, today’s—well, the Keno
is the lottery, Chinese lottery, that’s what it is. It used to be all in
Chinese writing. Well, those things, everybody’s looking for them as
souvenirs, you know. They all use numbers now, one, two, three, four,
that kind of stuff. Just like the lake, you see it. Yes, that’s the Chinese
lottery.
In China, now, I heard, like these big gambling places tried to open up
in China. I heard that Macau is a big gambling—
CASTANEDA:
Yes, I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that.
LEE:
But I have been there and it’s not a very big place. There are gambling
houses that Hong Kong people, rich, they go up to play. Well, take the
[unclear], I guess, couple of hours in Macau. But the place is dingy
494
and not very big, but big money involved, because it’s a gambling—
just like, what’s that place in Europe?
CASTANEDA:
Oh, Monte Carlo?
LEE:
Yes, something like that, it’s just gambling. That’s their business. But
I heard I think, I don’t know if it was Harrah’s, want to open up, but
now if you want to open it it’s okay, but you got to deal with the
government. See, China, that’s all—you’ve got a big place, you want
to do something, you’ve got to talk to the government. You’ve got to
give so much to the government. Even the basketball player come over
here have to give so much to the—
CASTANEDA:
Yao Ming?
LEE:
Yes, Yao Ming, have to give so—God knows how much he gives to
them.
CASTANEDA:
Really? He gives a lot back?
LEE:
Oh, yes. I heard that some people say pretty near 50 percent of that
money come out. I don’t know what Yao Ming is getting right now,
but I guess pretty good. There’s some of these jokers get that much, I
don’t know.
CASTANEDA:
When you think—how would you like Locke to be remembered by
people? What images do you have? How would you like it to be
remembered?
495
LEE:
You know, I’d like to see Locke, now today we call it like a memorial,
a living memorial, I like to call it that, because the town at one time
represents something like China. All Chinese is Chinese custom and
everything else. Of course, you don’t see that anymore, you’ll never
see it again. But to leave something behind like the way it is now and
if you say, say, five years from now, it don’t have to be ten, you come
by and not even Chinese, there might be one or two in business or
something. There’s a lot of business by Chinese all over, and it leaves
a little story behind, a little something to remember the Chinese by.
That’s the only part I’m for. [unclear] although I hate the way it’s
wasted sometimes, but that’s the way government does things.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, it’s very true.
LEE:
Is that right?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
And these pipes they cost a million dollars with these fire—
CASTANEDA:
Yes, the sprinklers?
LEE:
The sprinklers on. Well, if it wasn’t for that it might burn up. Well,
for that kind of money could you do something else? Well, if you want
to put in that kind of money to remember Chinese I’m for that, that’s
okay. If you want to dump in three-quarters of a million dollars to
build a museum, fine, show some of the things, at least to keep the
496
story alive. You know the Chinese—the main thing is to give them
back some of the credit for what they did around here.
CASTANEDA:
Well, and what is the true story that should be told? I mean, you know
how you said people think of gambling and they think of opium, but
what is the real story?
LEE:
Well, if you put in all the things they’ve done, that’s building the
levees and all that, that more than pay for what—it covers up all the
other stuff. That’s the good stuff. I don’t say ignore it, its part of
history. It’s okay. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know, it’s
okay, but be sure to name some of the good stuff.
CASTANEDA:
To tell the whole story.
LEE:
Not just tell part of the story. Let’s pick out the bad part, people like to
read opium and all that kind of—you cover everything. Opium
compared to what they did is very little compared to what the Chinese
did around here. They kept the economy going for many, many years.
Now you don’t see it because they went one step higher now. Before
you never see Chinese judges, Chinese dentist, Chinese doctor, you see
all that now. Before what they say? There’s a Chinese dentist in town
or in Sacramento they said, “Oh, look at that Chinaman.” You don’t
say that. “There goes Dr. Chan or Dr. Sun.” We don’t say that
anymore. So that’s how far it comes.
497
CASTANEDA:
Well, I have to ask you this. Was there much opium smoke there?
LEE:
In Locke, yes, there’s an opium den. I never been in the one to do it.
Gambling house I go in all the time with my father. It’s okay, and no
other kids would go in fifteen years old, fourteen, their mother won’t
let me, but for me, it was my father’s, I just go in and out. I know all
the games and I like to play with the dealers sometimes when nobody’s
around, play it. That’s different.
CASTANEDA:
Well, in a museum there would be exhibits.
LEE:
Oh, yes.
CASTANEDA:
What would you like the exhibits to be?
LEE:
God, I mean, just the exhibit, if it pertains to what the Chinese did,
things like, you know, a lot of guys never seen anything, just like the
drugstore sells the herbs.
CASTANEDA:
Right, herbs.
LEE:
Yes, the herbs and the herbs don’t mean anything, but I mean, if you’re
sick or something it really works, because I believe in it, and even
American doctors believe it now. But like the little scale, they weigh
it, you know, we just gave one, the last one, to the museum in Peking.
She took it up, took it home a couple of months ago. I got letter, some
acknowledgements, and all that kind of stuff, and letters from Dr. Sun.
498
I forgot to tell you that when the revolution started the second in
command of the Chinese revolution was with my father for six weeks
raising money here to help the cause. Then he went to Chicago to talk
revolution and then they succeeded in overthrowing the government in
China. They sent for him by telegram to, “Hurry up, come back, we
need you,” and he took off from Chicago back to China to lead the
army. He was the general.
Yes, there’s a lot of history here, a lot of it.
CASTANEDA:
A lot of hard work, people worked hard.
LEE:
Work hard for it, yes. This area here, being that so many Chinese here
were from the Toisan district, a lot of them play a big part in the
Chinese revolution. You know, but those days, like my father said,
you won’t dare in the open because China’s run by the Manchus, and
they said they threw sticks to see who was going to shoot this
ambassador coming over here to borrow money from American
government. He says, “If we kill him, he couldn’t get the money.”
Shoot our people like that, they even do things like that. See, he says,
those days, he says, the people really put their lives on, just to be free
from the Manchu government.
CASTANEDA:
Well, your father was a very, very important person, too, to Locke.
499
LEE:
History shows that, in fact, they said something in the paper when he
pass away in ’97, a big article in Chinese telling about the founder of
Locke and what he did for Dr. Sun, what he did for the revolution, and
all that kind of stuff.
The general fought the Japanese at Shanghai in 1934, ’35. That’s the
biggest gathering of Chinese celebration that came here, he came over
here. He was just like Macarthur, okay. Macarthur didn’t listen to
Truman, did he? Came back here and they give big celebration, same
way with Shai Tang Kai [phonetic]. He didn’t listen to Chiang Kaishek. Chiang Kai-shek didn’t want him to antagonize the Japanese
anymore, but he fought him, he ignored him. He said, “Well, we’re
going to fight them.” And then afterward he didn’t get fired, but he
resigned, he came over here. He really went over Taishan [phonetic] I
guess, because Chiang wouldn’t help him and he put his life up against
the Japanese. So his story is just like Macarthur. Macarthur come
home a big hero, right? And yet he was fired, huh? He didn’t listen to
the president, that’s what you get, but that’s the way it is.
And at that time when he came it was lots of people celebrating. He
came to my house, he had dinner with us. He wrote me a nice poem,
gave my mother a little skull with writing on it. It went back to the
museum. They thought of it. He said, “Well, I didn’t even have—”
He was a good speaker. He’s not Toisan now, he’s not even from
500
Kantong, he’s from another province up by Shanghai and he spoke
Mandarin, but he had an interpreter. Oh, big crowd, it must have been
seven, eight hundred people, back in the garden there where Locke is,
that big platform. It was all a basketball court, see, and then the people
came to see him here and he talk about against the Japanese, how they
fought and all that kind of stuff.
And my father, really believed that he shouldn’t listen to the central [?]
government, he’s the boss, right? But like my father said, “Well, I
welcome him and I respect him because of what he put up the fight
with, but he should have listened. You know, we do have a
government that tells you what to do.” “But,” he says, “the
government is not always right, but I mean, still that’s our country,
he’s the president.” But that was all right.
He came and I had dinner with him one time. And at that time when
he came I was student body president of Chinese School. I gave him
the welcome speech for students. I remember that. And there’s two
more generals that came after him. In fact, I just remember the one, it
wasn’t a very big deal, but his was big. One of them came in and I
have a snapshot picture and I ran across, I remember him. He was
from way up there near Manchuria. He fought the Japanese up there.
Yes, two more came.
501
There was a lot of Chinese here in those days, you got to remember.
That’s why they came here. See, they came here. Why a little town,
you know? A lot of Chinese. One time there’s Chinese all the way
down to Merced. There was Chinatowns in Merced, Fresno, Modesto,
all in the valley here. They were working on the farms. Not on pears,
there’s no pears down there, but they worked on the farms. They built
these great big fences with rock. My daughter has a big ranch in
Mariposa, over 2,000 acres, and her farm is over the hills and
everything, there’s rock fences all—about that high. I said, “How
come this fence is all the way over there?”
He said, “They used them for stagecoach [unclear].” He says, “The
Chinese built these.” A town called Honito [phonetic], up there. Right
now he’s got iron doors and everything.
You go up in there, Marysville and a place called Smartsville, they
have a Chinatown there one time, and they got these iron doors. As a
little kid I remember that, halfway down, going down to Marysville
from Grass Valley.
Oh, the Chinese left a lot of things behind, but they’re never wrote
about too much. Look at the biggest sample, the Continental Railroad
goes through the Rockies, huh? They couldn’t go through. Who put it
through? Chinese work hard and a lot die, too, went through. Golden
502
spike come in. The big forest there. Do you see Chinese there? No.
You don’t see no Chinese around there, just the four big wheels,
Stanford and—
CASTANEDA:
The big four.
LEE:
Yes.
CASTANEDA:
But they came for the railroad and they ended up many living here, I
mean others came?
LEE:
Oh, yes, others came, some went back to China, you know, after they
made a few bucks, they said to heck with it. I mean, you can’t buy that
here, our family’s back there, they go. Some of them come over here
and if they’re not real, real thrifty and everything, maybe they gamble
a little bit, they die here and never seen their family, never even seen
their kids. That happens all the time.
CASTANEDA:
The museum exhibit in Peking, what museum is that there?
LEE:
They’re building it now. It’s called—I don’t know. It’s a national
museum. They build it right in Tiananmen Square, where you were.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, I was there.
LEE:
Ten months ago?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
You know how big that is.
503
CASTANEDA:
Yes, it is.
LEE:
People stand there. And that’s where the museum is going to be. So
when you go back to see China, you’re going to see Tiananmen
Square, you’re going to see the museum.
CASTANEDA:
And they’ll have exhibits of Locke?
LEE:
Yes. Yes. This museum shows everything, the Chinese outside of
China that did in many places, like New York, Toronto, and all that.
There’s a big Chinese there and here. It so happens that so many
Toisan people, they went to Courtland, you know. Dr. Sun slept in
Courtland when he came over here to talk. That’s a pretty big deal.
They move that little cabin, Lincoln Chan owns that piece of land, and
the office is there. I didn’t even know Dr. Sun slept there until I went
with these people to the museum to take them up there to see it. And
they moved that little shack as their office from here to there. Like
that, but it’s still on the ground. That’s where Dr. Sun came down and
stayed.
He must be a terrific speaker, because, like he says, sometimes you
fight them with arms, sometimes you fight them with talking. [laughs]
Yes, he’s interesting, his life story, of course, you know. A lot of
people, I can remember in those days of high school when you read,
504
say he’s a dreamer. He wasn’t a dreamer. Well, Martin Luther King is
the same way, you call him a dreamer and all that.
CASTANEDA:
But you understand, too.
LEE:
Yes. So, you know, these things—so now you back a lot of things that
I can see. I appreciate more now than when I was a kid. I was lucky to
live so old to see all these changes, all these things.
CASTANEDA:
You’re doing very well. You really are.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about Locke or the Chinese
community or remember any—
LEE:
Well, Locke, like I say, it’s just like a small Chinatown in San
Francisco. Like I always tell these tours, sometimes they invite me to
talk to them and all that kind of stuff. Oh, many, many times when I
was in Locke, pretty near every month we got a whole load I would
talk to sometimes and young Chinese will come in and they’ll listen to
the old Chinese talk, say, ten years ago. And I’m talking to them in the
Chinese School. And he says, “You know, my grandfather used to
work around here in Locke. He always mentioned Locke.”
I say, “Is he Toisan?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
505
He said, oh, so-and-so.
I says, “I know him.”
“You know him?”
“Yes, he worked in the gambling house with my father. He used to be
on the farm, then he decided it was easier if he can work on the table,
easier. He was getting a little older.”
He says, “Well, which place?”
I says, “Well, the museum.” I said, “Come with me and I’ll show you
where he stayed at nighttime, you know, upstairs.”
He got very impressed.
So the next year, the next year he wrote me a card first, he said, “I’m
coming in. Will you talk to my family about my grandpa, what he did
around here like you told me last year?”
I told him, “Yes, sure.” I said, “Your grandfather took me and buy me
candy and everything.” I said, “I like him.”
So he brought in over twenty of them, his cousins and nephews and all
that come in and I tell them the story of how he came up here and he
used to be on the farm, right on the bridge there. And then he came
uptown and worked.
He said, “How’d he get in the gambling?”
506
I said, “Well, it was a little easier. Better than go outside pruning in a
cold day and everything. You don’t make much money either way.” I
said, “Yes, he was here. I know him.”
A lot of these people said, “Well, what’s his name?”
“Oh, yes. Is that your great-aunt? Yes, I know her. She’s not that
old.”
And like he says, “You know more about my grandpa than the whole
family.”
“Well,” I said, “he stayed here for, what, twenty-five, thirty years.”
Oh, I had a lot of old men that worked for my father thirty or forty
years, follow him around. Some of them work in the card games and
some of them work on the farms that my father had. He was in four or
five farms, asparagus farms, pears, and all that, sharecroppers. He
never work in a farm, but he has a share in it, because he can talk a
little English, not much, but enough to get a lease and owners know
him. “Hey, can you find me about four or five good boys,
sharecroppers, you know? Someone who’s going back to China. I
need more new boys.”
My father said, “Oh, yes, so-and-so, he’s left the so-and-so ranch, he’s
a good boy.”
507
Then my father would get involved in it and say that each one, four of
you went in and he was a silent partner for four of them, and you guys
took $500 a year, my father will have to put out his 500 in the pot
because he’s not working. See, so that’s the way it works. Oh, yes,
Chinese in those days, they don’t sign no contracts, but your word is
good. That’s good, that’s it. Hey, I’m part of it, they say.
CASTANEDA:
And you remember, too, you remember it.
LEE:
Oh, yes. Like my father when he had the asparagus ranch people
pledged a thousand dollars. Well, you have to come up with it, see. If
you don’t have it you’re not going to say it. There’s no contract, but
“You’re in, huh?”
“Okay, fine.”
“Okay, I’ll write you down in the little book you’re in for a thousand
dollars.”
Well, that’s it. In those days when he lost that ranch he lost $80,000
cash. That’s a lot of money in 1920-something. That’s a lot of money.
Can you imagine how much that land—the whole island, Breck Tract,
right by Terminius. Then he lost that and he lost the one in Grass
Valley, too, because he owned—I think he owned a note for $1,000 or
5,000, I forgot, but I don’t think it’s five, I think it’s only one, and he
gave it to Bank of America. So then we came back up here.
508
CASTANEDA:
He kept starting over. He kept moving forward.
LEE:
Yes. Well, he said the day you quit this is when you fail. As soon as
you quit, then you fail, but otherwise you just keep pushing, keep
going.
CASTANEDA:
Yes, that’s very interesting, inspiring story. He was an entrepreneur.
LEE:
Yes, he inspires you, because he did so much and really he knows what
he’s doing. A lot of people said, “Well, how come he never made it,
you know?”
I said, “He made it, he lost it.”
It’s not that he didn’t make it, he made it. He made thousands. A
thousand dollars a year, in those days, hey, you’re talking $1,000 is
like 10,000 today. He made lots of money, you know, but he lost it,
and helped a lot of people.
CASTANEDA:
And he kept doing things.
LEE:
Yes, he did a lot of things. I say he helped a lot of people and he not
even know it, they took it. [laughs] Oh, he thought everybody was
honest, you know. “Oh, so-and-so pretty smart kid, put him in there.
He’s [unclear].” He feed him well.
I said, “You can’t be that trustworthy. Things have changed a little
bit.”
509
Yes, I always liked to talk about it. A lot of things, like I talk to you
now for a couple of hours, there’s a lot about him. It’s about him that
makes me feel like I do sometimes, that inspire me to go ahead and do
all these—some of these things. He always said, “If I can do what I’m
doing without any education, and you’re a college graduate, you can
almost do it with your eyes closed.” He expects you to. He really
does. He let’s you do anything. I’ve got two brothers, he doesn’t
make my younger brother do anything, it’s always me.
I learn how to drive when I was six years old, seven years old. I drove
a Model-T in a ranch. Model-T had three pedals, see. And I kid
around with the keys all the time. I’m all inquisitive about how it
works and that. He knows I’m going to take those keys and try it, he
knew it, but he just left the keys there, see. So one morning I took the
key and I started the old Ford, backed up and drove it around, just like
in a ring out here. He had, oh, eighty or ninety pears packed. They
packed them on the ranch in those days under a tree. Well, there are
three pedals, I’m supposed to hit the middle one back when I come
close to it, but I hit the low gear and I smack into that stack of pears.
Oh, criminy [phonetic] sakes. [unclear] fell apart, you know. Did he
get mad? No. He said, “Next time you’ve got to be careful.” He
doesn’t discourage you, that’s the way it is.
510
And he also a terrific chef, you know. He can cook for hundreds of
people. At parties, twenty-five tables, that’s 250 people, he’s done it in
a banquet. Now, where did he learn all this stuff?
You know cilantro?
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
Cilantro is eaten fresh, you know, right? I always remember this, see,
that’s my father. He bought a bunch of cilantro from Sacramento into
Grass Valley. That’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive, about 58 miles or
something like that. In a pear season you got about fifteen, twenty
people picking pears. He bought from all the farmers, he buys a crop,
and you finish up in a month’s time and we’re going to have a party
before I take you back to the Delta. See, that’s the way he got these
boys. Then a few good friends, you know, maybe laborers or
something, he’d invite them all for dinner, you know. It’s usually in
August when you finish. Put tables up in a big yard on the big farms.
So that day, tomorrow is the big party, today he’s going to get
everything ready, he’s going to cook and maybe one of the helpers to
help him. Big party, okay? So he gets this cilantro, whole bunch, this
is for the duck, cilantro duck. It’s his specialty. You put it in there and
then all fresh and the duck is fried first and steamed and got dried
[unclear] and the whole business. All right, he’s got the duck prepared
511
already. Now, he’s got to put the cilantro on it, a whole bunch. Not
just a few, a whole bunch.
I come along, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, go clean those cilantro.” You know, peel it and clean it.
Well, hard for a kid. I was about twelve years old. So I get this bunch
of cilantro and start using the water to wash it, clean off the mud on it.
It’s got roots. That damn water was pretty cold. Why can’t I use hot
water? So I turn on the hot faucet and run the cilantro through that,
you know what’s going to happen. [laughs] It all wilted, you know.
Oh, my God, what happened?
Now, he comes around, he’s a chef, he needs this cilantro. I washed it
off, but it was hot water. He looks at it, “What happened? Did you use
the hot water?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, you can’t use hot water on it, you know.”
“Oh, it’s too late now.”
Do you think he’d get mad? No, he didn’t get mad. I think that he
substituted something else. Whole bunch, for about ten tables, whole
bunches of it. I remember that until my dying day, I guess.
CASTANEDA:
So he didn’t get angry?
512
LEE:
No. He said, “What happened? You use hot water?” He knew I used
hot water. It was cold that water, too cold, so I decided I’d use some
hot water. It’s funny, I tell you.
[Tape recorded turn off.]
LEE:
They come interview me or something, write it down. I said, me, I can
wander from one thing to another and come back two months later.
CASTANEDA:
Well, I don’t want to talk too much about the gambling, but gambling,
I read somewhere it was shut down at some point, is that right?
LEE:
Shut down in 1950. When I started the Big Store in 1951 it was shut
down. It was open, shut, open, shut. I think Pat Brown must have
been—
CASTANEDA:
D.A.?
LEE:
Was he?
CASTANEDA:
Or Attorney General?
LEE:
Attorney General, I think he was, yes. Gambling is—I have a whole
tape full in historic society on these things, talk about the Dai Loy, how
it was operated and what was then—and they got it down there.
CASTANEDA:
Okay.
LEE:
They got a lot of my tapes down there.
513
CASTANEDA:
Yes, I know they have a lot of tapes. Well, good. Is there anything
else? Maybe we’ll talk again, too, but is there anything else we should
talk about?
LEE:
Well, no, maybe—I’m always pretty proud of when I ran the town, you
know, the changes I made. I don’t think it would last this long if I
didn’t come back.
CASTANEDA:
What were some of the changes you’re most proud of?
LEE:
Well, see, before, like I say, it was ran by the stores, like in China, the
elders, okay. The guy’s respectable, you know, he can’t be a drunk all
the time or he wouldn’t be on that. And you’d maybe have a
committee of four or five people and, “Hey, you listen to these old
fellows here.” When they say you did something wrong, maybe you
and other people didn’t along and it was brought up, you better
apologize and you’re wrong, you know. And then you better listen to
them. And they’re powerful, because they respect him, they elected
him, or put him up there.
Well, in Locke at that time, about 1950, when I came back down to the
store it was about three years later that I have full control of the whole
town. But at first when I come down, everybody know me, because I
commuted and everything and they know my father. There again, my
father’s again push me out there, “I’m too old, you go. You get into
514
these meetings and you contribute or whatever you can, your ideas or
anything.” He says, “About time you learn how to do this, I’m getting
too old. I’m not going to do it anymore; you’re going to do it.”
“Okay.” So I attended some meetings and all that, and as I see that
things were going—Oner [phonetic] last year, he was the treasurer, he
paid the bills and the lights and garbage bills and all that kind of stuff,
assess people. “Hey, we’ve got a night watchman, you got to pay so
much every week to keep—your know, there’s fire come, give them—
”
Well, at that time they rotate and must be half a dozen stores, they’ve
got a safe and everything, it’s a big place. It’s been here fifteen,
twenty years, these honest people. So he take care of this thing. The
next year we rotate after we audit the books and everything,
everybody’s happy, nobody questions anything, everything seems to
go on, oh, we’re going to do this, this year maybe get this fixed, get
this and that fixed. And then we rotate to another place. Oh, it’s your
turn now, you take over the books. And that’s the way it always has
run.
Well, I don’t know, about ’51 or ’52, there was only four or five stores
left. Four or five stores and everybody had done it two or three times
already. I don’t want to do it anymore, I’m getting old and I have to
515
make the reports and all that. I said, “I don’t want to do it.” Pass it on
to the next guy, the next guy said, “Well, it’s your turn, not my turn.”
So at a meeting I decided, I says, “Well, if that’s the way it’s going to
be why don’t we change the set up a little bit then? Maybe we get
some volunteer.” A lot of people figure, well, just don’t let any joker
in town, you know, you’ve got about 200 people then, joker in town
take over the town. You can’t do that. Well, we’ll see how many
volunteer we get on the committee to run this town, like a council.
Well, I got four or five volunteers and they were all my age and they
owned a store, two of them owned a store. One of them is my partner,
and he’s a partner, he owns the store, and I myself. So unanimous, I
said, “Well, let these four younger people,” they’re all thirties, “run it.”
All right then out of the four you choose a chairman. All right, I
suggested, naturally I’m the chairman. Okay? Then I did all the
talking anyway. So I took it over and I change a few things and right
off the bat they decided, that’s the guy we want to have it, I stayed for
twenty-eight years.
And at that time, it’s just like anything else, if you’ll make a big splash,
a big deal, everybody’s for you, if you can handle something. And
even at that time I can remember what made us so popular that I was
the chairman and all that is when I first went to the meeting, the town
516
meeting when they have one of these things in January every year, this
old man from China, he came back from China, he used to be—he had
the opium den, okay. He had the opium den and maybe got ten, fifteen
thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money back in the thirties. He went
back to China, he bought a store or houses or something, run a little
business with his money that he brought back, and then when the
communists come they really beat the heck out of him because he’s a
capitalist, okay? Now, he comes back over.
But in the meantime he had a building, which is the opium den before,
in Locke, the Star Theater.
CASTANEDA:
Oh, that was an opium den before?
LEE:
The opium den upstairs. Downstairs he rented to somebody that, it
wasn’t a gambling house then, but used to be a gambling house. He
rent it to somebody to store things or something like that. And at that
time when he came back over the tenant, there was no tenant, for
maybe a whole year, no tenant. So he has no $10 coming in a month,
$15, whatever.
So he come to the meeting because he was the owner of a house in
town, he has a voting power. So there must be maybe thirty
representatives, thirty, thirty-five people, however had houses has a—if
517
you just would rent a room you have no say, but the owner come if you
want to. If you don’t, then you just lose your voice in the vote.
So we had the meeting and he owned, not $100, less than a $100. It
was probably maybe a couple of years and nobody rent the place. The
guy, I didn’t run it yet, the guy that was the master that year used to be
his buddy, but now that, I guess that poor guy coming back, he has no
money and he’s not his buddy anymore, and he’s the chief this year,
okay? So he wanted this money. This old guy, they’re both old now,
in their seventies, come in and he says, well, you so-and-so, he read it
out in public, owes this much money. He didn’t pay for a couple of
years and we need money. And this old man, oh, when he was
younger he was tough, he start yelling at him, you know, “I haven’t got
the money now. What am I going to do?”
I’m sitting there quietly. It’s my first meeting. I didn’t say anything.
And the guys on the table, six or eight of them surrounded the table,
and the others are all sitting down. So some of them say, “Well, he’s
got to pay just like everybody else. If he doesn’t pay, I don’t pay, how
we going to operate,” you know? The guys start yelling and this old
man he really get mad.
518
He said, “Well, what the heck are you going to do? You going to kill
me? You going to hang me? I haven’t got the money, I just came back
from China. I lost my house and rent.”
Some of the other ones doesn’t know how to talk too well will say,
“Well, that’s your tough luck.”
You know, that start a big argument, and I’m keeping quiet all this
time. He’s yelling and he gets real mad now, he gets violent. He’s
going to go home and get a gun and shoot this guy. He storms out of
the meeting. Now, I’m sitting here now and I’m getting anxious,
because I didn’t know this kind of stuff. And I know them all, my
friends and my cousins, you know, I’m sitting there.
So he storm out, he was going home and get a gun. I don’t think he
has a gun. I sort of peek out the window, I saw him. He just went
across the street where the art gallery is, there’s a bench out there, he
was sitting there. He just storm out right across, sitting there.
So there’s this yelling and some people got scared, see. “This guy
really mean business.” Then it went on for a little while and they
decided what to do.
I says, “I can’t understand.” I said, “Can I say something?”
“Yes.”
519
“I can’t understand he owes some money and it comes to this.” I says,
“Why can’t we all sit down and talk about this and get it straightened
up?”
He said, “You can’t talk to a guy like this.”
I said, “Now what are you going to do?”
He said, “Well, what would you do?”
I said, “In the first place,” I said, “the man is wrong, okay. We’re a
body of men sitting down here trying to decide what to do. Now, he
hasn’t got any money. He said he hasn’t got any money. Are you
going to kill him? You going to hang him or what? He said that.
That’s not right, he shouldn’t say things like that, not with all these
people, he should be apologetic, he should come in and apologize and
ask for time and I think everybody that’s sitting here would grant him
the time or should, we should at least give him the chance. He did
come back as a refugee. But he shouldn’t talk that way, we can’t
accept that.”
He said, “Well, what are you going to do with the guy?”
[Begin Tape 2, Side B]
LEE:
“I’m not wrong. What are you going to do?”
520
I said, “You do owe them the money, don’t you? You admit that, huh?
It’s fair and square you have to pay so much, you owe them, but you
go in there, you said, ‘You going to kill me? You going to hang me?’
That’s not right. We can’t accept that. You have to be apologetic and
ask for it. I’m sure we all would agree to grant you this, but the way
you talk we can’t accept that.”
“Well, what am I going to do now?”
I said, “Go back in there and apologize.”
“Uhh, I can’t do that.”
I said, “What do you mean you can’t do that?”
“Well, I haven’t got the money.”
I said, “I didn’t say you have to pay today.”
“Okay, will you talk for me?”
“Yes, I’ll talk for you. You come in with me, though.”
I drag him in there with me, I said, “Okay, here’s Mr. So-and-So, he’s
ready to say something, but he wants me to say something for him. He
said he’s too old and he’s kind of forgetful, he doesn’t want to
[unclear].”
The guy says, “Okay.”
521
I said, “Now, I talked to him out there and this is what I told him, that
he was wrong. He’s ready to apologize to us and all he asks is some
time so he can pay this. Now I’m sure we’re bit enough to accept
that.”
They said, “That guy’s got a way of doing things,” you know. So from
there on in it was just me all the way through.
CASTANEDA:
You were good there, yes.
LEE:
Yes, I solved it. So some of these things in time I feel that I play a big
part in it, you know, I feel that if you handle it right and that’s the way
it goes. So now I’m running the show for that [unclear].
So one year, this was a tough guy, a very tough guy. He’s the
association’s head man, you know. I wasn’t the chairman. It was one
of the stores, his turn. Now this is still not for the—I didn’t change it
yet, it was still was the next year or something like that. That I want to
do everything my way, so the words that surround it, this young fellow,
now, he’s going to take over the whole thing, you know, everything—
we don’t have anything to say, which is not true. So word got around
with the meeting that, hey, he’s going to get after you, you know, you
don’t own the whole thing and all that. I don’t worry about it. Don’t
worry about it. I says, “We can take care of that. That’s not true.”
522
This guy that had it was one that opened the Dell [phonetic] Food
Company, and if everything is smooth he talk fine. If something come
up he can’t handle it. So he’s supposed to have a bad cold. He didn’t
have no bad cold. He asked me, he says, “Ping, can you take over the
chair for me today?” He said, “I got bad cold,” you know.
I says, “Why, can’t you talk?”
“No,” he says, “so-and-so there he’s going to raise hell today, too.”
And he says, “Can you do it?”
“I’ll do it for you, but you have to announce that though, you appoint
me or you pass it on to me, let me handle it,” because I don’t own a
store, I wasn’t in the rotation.
Okay, so I take over [unclear] everybody’s happy. I just preside over
the meeting, talk about a few little things. Then before the meeting we
had a book you sign up, okay, you’re here, okay. So everybody’s
name on there, all the house, the guys own the house has a right to sign
their name so you know you’re represented. I had the night watchman
to bring to this guy that’s in the back, way in the back, of the Chinese
School, take it to him, and I heard him, he said, “Sign this book.”
He said, “What do I have to sign for? Do you think I’m God? I don’t
have to sign this.”
523
The night watchman, “Oh, okay,” take it and brings it up to me. He
says, “So-and-so won’t sign.”
I said, “I heard him.”
“He won’t sign.”
“Okay.” All right, so I put it down.
So now I call the meeting to order, I hit the bell a couple of times. I
said, “Did everybody sign up?”
Everybody that sign up they just put up their hand.
“Oh,” I said, “Mr. So-and-so, you didn’t sign.”
“I don’t have to sign. What do you think, I’m—” I forget the word he
used—you think it will make me God or something, something like
that, yes.
I says, “Well, you should sign it, so you represent you’re here. You
got a house and everything.”
“I’m not going to sign.”
I put it down, the book, the meeting go on, oh, about five, ten minutes,
argue a little bit about this and do this, maybe we shouldn’t do this, and
all that kind of stuff, go on. And we got to some subject, I forget what
it is, and I was saying, and he got kind of ticked off. He said, “Ping, I
always said that, you know, you have to have everything your way.”
524
I said, “No, we don’t have anything one way.” I said, “You better shut
up right now.” I really got mad now, I hit the bell. I said, “Just quiet
down, I don’t want you to say anything.”
“You see always you got all the say, we don’t got that.”
I said, “Everybody has a say in here, except you, you don’t have any
say, you gave it up already, you don’t sign this book. What do you
mean you have—you know, you have some of the say if you sign it,
you won’t sign. We asked you twice. So you better shut up, you have
nothing to say in here.”
He got so mad he got up, wham, he banged the door and he went
out.Okay, so we finished the meeting. A guy come up, he says,
“That guy is a tough guy, you know.” He says, “He’s going to get
after you.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” I says, “He’ll be buying coffee from me pretty
soon, you watch and see.”
Sure enough he had a big birthday coming up next Monday and he
invites to San Francisco to a party, you know. Oh, the town had six or
eight of his buddies, too. He invited me and we didn’t have any
problems, but he was wrong. He forgot that I asked him twice, see,
and I knew where I stand. I said, “Well, I’ll show you who’s got the
power then.” I says, “No, it’s not that I’m the only one that can do all
525
the talking, everybody can talk, but not you, though,” he can’t, he gave
it up.
Some of these things happen like that all the time, but these are funny
things that happened during Locke all the time. I got lots of them.
Lots of them.
I’ll tell you one funny one. This one I like to tell to some of the
[unclear].
One night, I knew the patrol comes by, the deputy sheriff he makes a
round, oh, a couple times during the night, he’ll drive back there. I
used to live there by the church on Second Street. Well, one night
about twelve or one o’clock my doorbell rings. I’m fast asleep and the
doorbell rings. I peek out, holy cow, there’s the deputy sheriff. Oh,
my God, somebody broke into the Big Store, I’ll bet you. I opened it
up, “What happened, John?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing.”
I said, “What do you mean nothing?”
He said, “No, I just came by and I know it’s kind of late, but the
coroner’s office just on the radio told me to tell you.”
“Tell me what? The coroner’s office?”
526
He said, “Mr. So-and-so died.” Not die. What do you call it? Retire?
No, not retire.
CASTANEDA:
Expired?
LEE:
Expire. He expired. Well, that means he’s dead, okay? It’s about one
o’clock, I think, one or two o’clock. He says to be sure to let you
know so you give him good burial.
“What? Mr. what?”
He said, “Mr. Law.”
I said, “Mr. Law? I don’t know a Mr. Law. He says for me to give
him a good burial?”
Well, these Chinese name, sometimes they come up with fake names,
maybe he has another name. Maybe he was somebody I do know. I
wonder why he would say tell Ping Lee. Okay.
I says, “I’ll tell you what, let me—tomorrow I’ll go out to the
association,” and there’s still a lot of people in town yet, “and I’ll ask
around and see if anybody knows this name, maybe he has a fake
name, and see if he has any relatives so we can inform them.” I don’t
go bury somebody I don’t know this guy, see, and you won’t do that
because somebody will say, “Well, what right have you got to bury my
uncle or my father or my grandfather?”
527
I says, “Let me find out who he is first.”
“Okay, that’s good.” He says, “Well, the coroner told me to tell you
that.”
I said, “Well, I don’t know him.” All right. So I said, “Okay. All
right, I’ll check tomorrow.”
So I start going back in the house and I stopped and I said, “Oh, John,
do me a favor.”
He said, “What?”
I says, “The next time somebody expire in the middle of the night,
don’t call me, he’ll be expired tomorrow morning, too. Tell me that in
the morning. You scare the heck out of me.”
He said, “I’ll tell them exactly what you said.” He think that was
funny.
I found out the next day he had a real name, but, no, his nephew lives
across the street from me. He bought my store when I came down to
Walnut Grove, I used to work in Locke, it was his nephew. This poor
guy that died he just never associated with them. He’s a poor man,
okay?
So I said, “Oh, that’s so-and-so’s uncle, huh? All right, let me call and
tell his nephew then.”
528
So I called up and before I can say five words he said, “We don’t have
anything to do with him, Ping.” He said, “It’s all right, you go ahead
and bury him.” He had no money.
I said, “Well, it’s not right, you’re the closest kin as far as I know.”
“Yes, but we don’t even associate with him for many, many years.
You just bury him, whatever you want to do.”
“Well, I guess he’ll be buried in the pauper’s grave, you know, because
he had no money.”
He said, “That’s all right, it’s no problem there.”
CASTANEDA:
Interesting story.
LEE:
It’s stories like that, you know. This guy wants me to go down when
the second edition of one of—
CASTANEDA:
Oh, yes.
LEE:
In Berkeley. He says, “Hey, Ping, come on down.” He comes and
visits me all the time, Gillenkirk. Gillenkirk is a speech writer for
Boxer and he was a speech writer for Cuneo in New York. He was the
one who wrote the book, but he had come and ask me, he said, “Hey,
we’re going to have this second edition.” He says, “Will you come
down and sign the book at Berkeley?”
I said, “Depend on what time.”
529
“Whenever you decide.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Just sign the book and tell funny stories. I want funny stories.”
I said, “What do you mean funny stories?”
“You know, the stories that you have [unclear].”
I never did go down.
Oh, one time a talk show wanted me to go down to San Francisco. I
said, “That’s too early for me, at six o’clock. I’m not going to do no
talk show,” you know.
CASTANEDA:
That’s too early.
LEE:
That was funny, I’ll tell you, this guy. But I have a lot of fun.
This guy won honors on this thing, you know, at Sacramento. He won
honors. And me and my wife was on as guests, he took us up there.
CASTANEDA:
Really?
LEE:
Yes. Interesting book.
CASTANEDA:
It is. It’s interesting.
LEE:
Read about the part on, the last part on Effie Lye [phonetic]. Effie Lye
is way in the back there and he’s got his son and all that kind of stuff in
530
there. Effie Lye was a very brilliant woman. She lived to ninety-nine
years old.
CASTANEDA:
Really?
LEE:
Yes. She pass away couple years ago.
CASTANEDA:
Are there other people that would be good to talk to, do you know?
LEE:
No, you’ve got what’s left. What are you talking about, you’ve got
Connie and me left. Thank God that we live that long. [laughs]
CASTANEDA:
Yes.
LEE:
Otherwise you can’t talk to anybody there. Oh, yes, there are a couple
of young ones. Effie’s nephew is there, Everett. Everett’s there.
Everett’s seventy-some-odd years old. Let’s see, who else is there?
That’s all I can think of beside Connie and me. Yes, that’s it. But the
girl that took him around, let’s see, her name is, last name is Chan
then. She worked for me. What is her name? Well, I can’t remember.
She was a nice girl and she’s in here. She’s from China.
Now, this picture is—see, I see they have a picture in there, Bitter
Melon. This picture is the opening of the Chinese School, 1926, I
think. ’26, yes. I’m in here. Where am I? I’m in here someplace.
That’s my father. I can’t find my own picture. Oh, here’s the other
part. Yes, here I am, right here. This is me. That’s my brother. This
is the teacher. This is the Walnut Grove bunch, and this is the Walnut
531
Grove bunch. This is the Isleton bunch. Maybe this is the Courtland
bunch, I guess. They have the opening of the Chinese School here.
CASTANEDA:
You can tell because their clothes are different.
LEE:
Yes.
CASTANEDA:
They’re a different group.
LEE:
Yes, but these are boys. These are all girls, though. Oh, well, there’s a
couple of boys here.
That’s the Courtland [unclear]. The Chinese [unclear]. 1953 my father
built this because he was a follower of Dr. Sun, he took the money and
built this place, got his money back from the members many years
later. 1954. In the 1930s they rented a—they loaned it out to the—
well, it was assembly hall and everything else. Tommy Lee’s in here.
And loaned it out to the Chinese instructor to teach Chinese, no rent,
you know, you can use the place. And the part I played in it, my father
built the place, later on in 1954 I refurbished that place, I rebuilt it, I
raised the money, and reopened the Chinese School. It lasted about ten
years after I’d done it. How I got to do this—it’s called the Chung
Shoong [phonetic] School. Chung Shoong was the philanthropist for
the National Dollar Store, it’s mostly closed now. But he was the
richest Chinese in America at that time. He’s a multimillionaire. And
532
he had a foundation, the monies to have the Chinese culture taught and
all that.
And the reason he got interested in this he knows all the Chinese and
all that, and his son-in-law was my schoolmate and I introduce him to
his daughter, and when he became the chairman of the board of the
National Dollar Store he had this pot of money, he came back, that’s
him right here—I just saw his picture. Here, this guy. He’s two years
older than I am. And he become the chairman of the board of the
National Dollar Store and he also had control of the—
CASTANEDA:
Now, which store is that?
LEE:
The National Dollar Store it called. I don’t think there’s any left.
Chung Shoong is the guy’s name, S-h-o-o-n-g, and he donated a lot of
money, but if you don’t—sometime they make you big philanthropist
because of taxes. And the foundation, he was head of that, he came in
one day to see me at the store, or I was downtown, I’ve already start
running Locke already, and he came in with my old—he’s not here—
my old instructor that taught me Chinese School two or three years.
And he came to the store and he says, [unclear] want to talk a little bit.
“Hey, we come down to ask you to do something.”
I said, “Do what?”
533
He says, “Professor here,” you know, my old teacher, “he says you’re
the only one that can do it because you’re doing it in town here.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“We want you to reopen the Chinese School.”
I said, “Well, there’s not that many Chinese.”
“Well, there will be if you fix it all up.” He says, “You know, you owe
it to our school.”
I said, “What do you mean now ‘I owe it’?”
He said, “Well, he taught you and here today you’re the big ruler in
town.” He says, “So you got all your Chinese from that school.” He
says, “We want you to come out and establish the school.” He said,
“All the money you want I’ll give you.” And he says, “We have
foundation. You can go hire a teacher, you set it up and all that.”
“Well,” I says, “I’ll do my best. I’ll do my best.”
So I call a meeting and I told them that this guy come to see me and get
the money and all that. A lot of people were, “That’s good.”
“Wait a minute.” I said, “We should go out and raise some money
ourselves, not to depend on just somebody’s give you the money to do
it. That way, at least, we show some interest. We have some trustees
and everything there.”
534
There again it’s something that I wanted to do. And so we raised some
money, I think we raised about $4,000. It took about eight thousandsomething to refurbish the whole thing. I bought the old desks from
the school board here, they changed desks. I bought, I think, ten or
twelve of them, and we had some old ones when I went to school.
So we set it all up, clean it all up, and the foundation sent a couple of
these representatives and his son-in-law came in and he said [unclear]
school before and he made speech. And for the Delta. Not just Locke,
the Delta Chinese School. At that time I had about forty students.
Everything going pretty well, but like anything else you get a couple of
bad guys in there and pretty soon I got disgusted with it and I left.
After seven years, I left and I think we had eight trustees or six, half of
them quit at the same time I did because I didn’t want to do it anymore.
CASTANEDA:
What year was that that you left?
LEE: When I left it was about 1960. We started in ’54. It lasted about
seven years. But that’s the way it goes on a lot of these things, you
know. But I thought I saw a picture of Shai Tang Kai in here, too. I
just haven’t seen this book for a little while.
Oh, that’s Effie. We had a very good story.
535
This is the guy that live across the street from me. They stole his diary.
That’s not very good. This guy got hold of his diary and wrote some
of this stuff and he was kind of ticked off.
CASTANEDA:
Well, yes.
LEE:
Yes. And this is the house he lived in. That’s him, too. That’s the
house I used to live in. He right across the street from me.
This is all the story about me and my brother.
This is Courtland. In Courtland way before the Quo Min Tong, the
first thing, and in those days they said my father attended this. My
father never spoke about going to Courtland, but evidently, because the
Walnut Grove—Locke wasn’t built then when they had this one. Now,
this is the way Courtland looked at one time.
See, this is my father’s picture. This is a fake name in here.
I guess it wasn’t—I saw a picture. Now, in the museum there’s several
pictures of Shai Tang Kai and all that.
That’s Connie.
This gal was the interpreter. Let’s see what—oh, Connie Chang
[phonetic]. She worked for me for a couple of summers. She’s a
doctor now, I think. Yes, graduated from Davis.
This book is—that’s Tom King.
536
CASTANEDA:
[unclear] that I need to read the whole thing.
LEE:
That’s Connie husband. Now, this is Everett’s mother, see. They talk
about her and her life a little bit, because she has two sons, they were
mentioned in here.
This lady lived over a hundred, hundred and one. She died; I think she
died a couple of years ago. Somebody’s house here. [unclear] I don’t
know why that picture got in. This one here used to live in town. Oh,
she’s alive. She’s alive, yes. I just saw her a few months ago. All
these guys pass away already and most of them associate with my
father, you read it and it will mention a little bit about it.
Now, this is one where Shai Tang Kai came. There he is, the general.
That’s him and my father’s in there, he’s master of ceremonies. He’s
in here someplace. Here he is right here. And I’ve grown up then, I’m
over here. I’m right here.
CASTANEDA:
In between the two, yes, okay.
LEE:
He carried a flag. And all these guys—this is a big one, that’s right in
the back.
CASTANEDA:
Panoramic picture, yes.
LEE:
Yes. Now, this is Isleton. Courtland wouldn’t join us. Courtland has
its own. Three towns did, Isleton, Walnut Grove, and Locke. Now,
this is Locke. This is Locke and this is Walnut Grove, or is it Isleton?
537
This one is—this one’s Isleton, I think. This is Walnut Grove. Yes,
this is when Shai Tang Kai came. I think you could read about this
[unclear]. 1930 army, Shanghai against—1932, yes. All the places,
see, the Delta communities. This is down in Isleton. This is a back
street, Key [phonetic] Street, and this is all about Locke.
Yes, this is a very interesting book. A lot of good material in there. A
lot of good history and how the ordinary people lived at that time in
Locke and all that.
CASTANEDA:
Okay. Well, I’ve been here a long time, I think we better—
LEE:
Oh, it’s all right. You know, I always love to talk and chat.
CASTANEDA:
I probably better—we might want to talk with you again.
LEE:
Call me if you’ve got some questions. You know, you talk about
something, you don’t know what year it is, or we got mixed up with
something else. You can call me.
CASTANEDA:
We’ll have this typed up and we’ll send it to you and you can have a
copy of it.
LEE:
Oh, fine, that’d be great.
CASTANEDA:
Well, thank you. Let me just say thank you on the tape, so thank you.
LEE:
Thank you.
[End of interview]
538
539
Oral History Interview with
Penny Lee Pederson
For California State Parks
by Maya Beneli
Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer/Editor:
Maya Beneli
Graduate Student, CSU Sacramento
B.A., CSU Sacramento
Interview Time and Place:
The interview session took place on April 27, 2007 at the home of Ms. Penny Lee
Pederson in Carmichael, California
Transcribing/Editing:
Maya Beneli transcribed the interview audiotapes. Maya Beneli checked the verbatim
manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for punctuation,
paragraphing, and spelling.
Tape and Interview Records:
The original tape recording of the interview was submitted to California State Parks.
540
Interview with Penny Lee Pederson
Interviewed by Maya Beneli
[Session 1, April 27, 2007]
[Begin Tape 1, Side A]
BENELI:
Today is Friday, April 27, 2007 and I’m here in Carmichael California
with Penny Lee Pederson. Thank you for sitting with me today. We
are working on the Locke oral history project which was
commissioned by California State Parks and you are a long time Locke
resident.
PEDERSON:
Come and go, yes.
BENELI:
Come and go. I just would like to ask you about your parents. Do you
know where they came from?
PEDERSON:
Okay, Locke was not, as you probably know, the first Chinese
settlement then. My parents came from Walnut Grove, after the fire,
the original fire. As was my grandfather, they were all born in Walnut
Grove. And in ’37, probably the winter of ’37 the town, the Chinese
settlement burnt down again and that’s how I came to Locke. But my
grandfather, with the first fire, went to Locke and built one of the first
buildings.
BENELI:
So was that around 1915?
541
PEDERSON:
I think 1916 was when they built their house. Because my mom said
she can sort of remember it and I’ve heard various stories as to how it
got built all the way from grandpa and his good friend who built the
house, to- there was a carpenter named Mr. Gray. Have you heard that
name? That built most of the houses in Locke back then. And I think
my mom said she was probably two or three when they moved to
Locke. And she said that my grandfather and his good friend Mr. Chan
who were drinking buddies, his wife was pregnant so they decided to
build his house first. That’s what I was told. He helped Mr. Chan
build his house and then Mr. Chan helped my grandparents build their
house.
BENELI:
And so they moved to Locke in ‘30...
PEDERSON:
No, it would have been I think or so. I’m not sure. I know that’s it’s
recorded on a plaque on a building in Locke, you’ve seen it?
BENELI:
On the building itself?
PEDERSON:
Yea, on the Tulle Café. That was the first building. And our building
was the one that’s right across from it. So that would make it the
second building. But my mom said there was already Indians living
behind her house and they were there before the start of the town. And
I always thought that they were native Indians. No, they were Eastern
Indians. Because some of Locke’s property there’s evidence of an
542
Indian settlement and there’s an Indian burial yard, I guess you know
about that, in the back. So I just automatically thought that they were
American Indians. [Laughs]
BENELI:
So you’re grandparents assisted in building homes in Locke before
they actually moved into Locke.
PEDERSON:
Assisted Mr. Chan in building his house and then in turn he helped him
build the house.
BENELI:
And then did your grandparents eventually move into Locke?
PEDERSON:
Oh yeah, they moved in after they finished the house. This is my
grandparents on my mother’s side. My father’s side of the family
continued to live in Walnut Grove.
BENELI:
Tell me about your parents.
PEDERSON:
They’re in their mid nineties and my mom’s still pretty sharp. People
come and ask her about the good old days all the time. She is a very
creative speaker. [Laughs] Sometimes the story changes a little bit but
she’s lots of fun to talk to. My dad probably has more
historical…since his family had been here in the U.S….I think my dad
would have been the third or fourth generation…but he’s very shy. It’s
hard to get a word out of him.
BENELI:
What work did they do while you were growing up, your parents?
543
PEDERSON:
I think they just did what they could. We moved in and out of Locke
almost throughout my whole childhood. When the town burned down
and we came to Locke to live with my grandmother and I think at that
time my dad had a merchandising store or something. And then he
went to San Francisco to work in the shipyards. And then eventually
we joined him in San Francisco and then when the war was over we
came back. I guess before the war was over he came back and tried
tomato farming. My dad’s family, they were not farmers, which is
unusual. Almost everybody in the Delta were farmers but they were
not farmers. Anyway, he did the tomato farm bit.
Then I think there was this venture up in Forest Hill that a lot of Delta
Chinese invested in and it was failing and my dad was asked to go up
and manage it so we moved to Forest Hill. And then after that he was
asked to join a venture in a supermarket in Vallejo and we stayed in
Locke and he went off to Vallejo. Then eventually he opened a grocery
store in Thornton, I believe. Something like that.
BENELI:
So were you born in Locke?
PEDERSON:
I was born in Walnut Grove.
BENELI:
When was that?
PEDERSON:
1937.
544
BENELI:
Do you know when you personally began living in Locke, I know you
said you were in and out but do you remember when you first…
PEDERSON:
The first time I was six months old.
BENELI:
Obviously you wouldn’t remember that. But what are your earliest
memories?
PEDERSON:
I do remember a little bit of that.
BENELI:
Of six months old?
PEDERSON:
Yeah.
BENELI:
Really?
PEDERSON:
I can remember my uncles. I can remember people carrying me. I can
remember them slapping my left hand because I kept insisting on using
my left hand. Yeah, I can remember some of it. And then sometimes I
have dreams where I’ll see something in my dream that looks familiar.
Like recently there’s a particular dream where I’m looking up at a bare
light bulb. Then one day I saw a photo of that house, “Mom what is
that? I dream about that room!” All the time- yeah I have little
memories like that. And I’ve always been afraid of the sound of fire
and fire trucks and I don’t k now if that has anything to do… I was six
months old when the fire came about. People trying to get [unclear].
BENELI:
Did you go to school in Locke?
545
PEDERSON:
There was no school in Locke. There was a Chinese school and yes,
when it was opened I went to Chinese school there. But it wasn’t open
much.
BENELI:
So did you go to Courtland or the Walnut Grove School?
PEDERSON:
The Walnut Grove school. I believe our class was the first to integrate.
BENELI:
What do you remember about that?
PEDERSON:
Uh, that we sat on one side of the class and everybody else sat on the
other. [Laughs].
BENELI:
So integration still looked segregated.
PEDERSON:
Well it was segregated within the classroom. And that’s what I was
told but I’m not sure that this is true. I remember people saying, “oh
you’re the first class to integrate.”
BENELI:
But you remember sitting on one side and everybody else sitting…
PEDERSON:
Yeah, and I helped my aunt on her educational thesis and she
uncovered it. I don’t know where she uncovered it from though, but in
reality the Delta was probably one of the very last places to integrate.
All of California had integrated by then and I think, in the history
books, supposedly what she found was that the last school to integrate
integrated way beforethe Delta schools did.
546
BENELI:
I’d like to ask you about your friendships with other children during
this time of integration. I assume that your friends were mostly nonCaucasian. Is that right?
PEDERSON:
No, because while I was in school I had friends in Walnut Grove and
we walked from Locke to Walnut Grove to school so we had friends
that were in Walnut Grove.
BENELI:
Not Chinese friends.
PEDERSON:
I had Chinese friends at Locke, because it was all Chinese then. And
then I think I had a few Caucasian friends in Walnut Grove from
school. I did not as I remember have any…no better not say that,
[laughs], we don’t want that in there. The Japanese had not returned
from World War II then; when I was in school.137
BENELI:
Do you remember, maybe at home, or among your Chinese friends or
community, discussion about the integration process?
PEDERSON:
No, not really. We spoke about differences. My family was mostly in
the restaurant business and I remember people saying things like: “look
at those crazy white people. They’re eating all that butter smeared on
this bread, they’re gonna die!” [Laughs] Or you know, “they’re eating
all those eggs, they’re gonna die!” or “all they eat is meat, they’re
gonna die!” I remember stuff like that.
137
Daisy the dog barks; audio a bit unclear here.
547
I remember my mom had kids that she went to school with when she
went in school. They would say, “Well you know, the swimming pool
over in Walnut Grove isn’t integrated, but you know, your kids are
welcome to attend. But they can’t bring their friends with them.” And
then my mom would say, “Why would I want my kids to go swimming
where we’re not welcome.” But in fact, in the end I did take my
swimming lessons there.
BENELI:
Because there was no choice, it was there or nowhere, right?
PEDERSON:
Yeah. There wasn’t always so much to do. I think my parents were
more middle-classed and they watched me more closely. Like I wasn’t
allowed to go to the river by myself or go down to what she called
“hobo paradise”, because it was near the railroad track and there was a
lot of rail travelers that stopped there. Especially after World War II.
Mostly the other kids weren’t supervised that closely.
BENELI:
That’s what I gathered from the other interviews.
PEDERSON:
That they weren’t supervised closely?
BENELI:
Right.
PEDERSON: And it’s amazing how all those other kids could go down to the river and I
couldn’t. But if I just snuck down there with my friends she would
know. [Laughs] It’s like, you didn’t need a babysitter down there.
Everybody was watching you.
548
BENELI:
And there’s some benefit to that, certainly.
PEDERSON:
Big benefits to that, yeah.
BENELI:
So you were maybe 10, 11, 12 in the late 1940s and early 50s. Were
you around during those years?
PEDERSON:
Yeah, in and out. If we had moved away I was surely there during the
summers. All my cousins would go back to grandmas in the summer.
As did a lot of kids in town. During pear season everybody came back
to Locke. You know they’d grown and married but they’d all come
back to Locke to work on the pears, and say hello to each other and the
streets were all lively and people all up and down the street….
BENELI:
When does pear season begin?
PEDERSON:
July, late June- early July.
BENELI:
And it goes through for a couple of months?
PEDERSON:
It depends on the weather and the market. I think a little after the
Fourth of July, in my day it was pretty much over.
BENELI:
Oh the Fourth of July.
PEDERSON:
A little after the Fourth of July. And there were different kinds of
pears that some people grew too. But like I said, our family wasn’t
much into farming.
BENELI:
But they did come back and participate in harvesting pears?
549
PEDERSON:
If we were living away we’d come back and work and harvest. Sorting
the pears and then help my uncle Dick in the restaurant.
BENELI:
Tell me about this restaurant.
PEDERSON:
It’s a very long story. [Laughs]
BENELI:
I have a few minutes, go ahead. [Laughs]
PEDERSON:
Well I used to have this one aunt, my mom’s sister, who according to
my mother, a very wild roaring twenties gal. And one day she brought
home this boyfriend who hailed from Hawaii.
BENELI:
Let me get this straight. This is a cousin of your mother’s.
PEDERSON:
No, this is my mother’s sister. She was a wild roaring twenties gal and
my mom would say “she’d dare to do anything.” Even down at the
Japanese bathhouse, dating with the Japanese. And she moved out to
San Francisco and she came back with this boyfriend. The boyfriend
stayed and called my grandmother “mama.” My mother was still very
young and there were still very young children at the house and he just
got the restaurant going, because my grandmother had a restaurant that
was not running at the time. He got it running and just bossed
everybody around; made everybody work in the restaurant.
He was big in gambling. Hailed from Hawaii. Actually had his own
family in Hawaii and supposedly was a chuck-house cook. I think
that’s what they’re called; people that cook out of the chuck wagons,
550
for some big family on the big island of Hawaii, the Parker Ranch of
Hawaii. As was his father, a cook, and then apparently he was really
good at it so eventually they sent him to school somewhere to learn
how to cook and they made him the cook at their house; their
plantation. And since he was a gambler he owed a lot of people money
and he had to flee to California to keep from having to pay his bills.
So that’s how uncle Dick came to Locke.
And he opened this restaurant and of course he was just this wonderful
cook. You haven’t eaten a pie till you’ve eaten one of uncle Dick’s
pies or you haven’t eaten a roast beef or turkey till you’ve eaten one of
his. Everything he made was like magically good. And when I grew
up, married, had a child, divorced, I ran into this really old man and he
said: “where are you from?” I said, “I’m from Locke” and he said,
“Oh! Do you know that restaurant down in Locke?” This was in the
seventies. He said, “we used to run that line down there. You don’t
know the fights we got into up here in Sacramento because everybody
wanted to take that line down to Locke so they could eat lunch there.”
BENELI:
Did he cook Hawaiian food?
PEDERSON:
No, he cooked Western food. Like banana cream pies, apple pies,
homemade parker roles. And he was very stubborn in his own way.
Everybody would raise the prices and we would not raise his. It would
551
always be the same. He’d get up at the crack of dawn, you know, he’d
be cooking till way past midnight. He was grouchy but he made the
most wonderful food. Then this man said “and you know it was
always down there.”138
BENELI:
Did you eat at this restaurant when you were a little girl?
PEDERSON:
Oh yeah. Yeah. If they were real busy we usually ate something that
was already made on the steam table and if it wasn’t busy than we
could order what we wanted.
BENELI:
What is the restaurant name?
PEDERSON:
It was then called Dick’s Café. That’s where your mom and dad got
married. [Pederson tells her cousin].
BENELI:
Did your mother’s sister and uncle Dick ever get married?
PEDERSON:
Uncle Dick, I told you, was already married, and he had a family in
Hawaii. Eventually in the 50s his daughter and family came to live
with us for a while. I think they stayed for like two or three years.
And then I think eventually he did go back to Hawaii. In his old age,
after he retired, he went back.
BENELI:
What ever happened to the restaurant?
Audio becomes unclear as Pederson’s dog, Daisy, barks loudly. Pederson tries to calm the dog down
and asks her to get in the car.
138
552
PEDERSON:
Gosh. Of course the restaurant was in our building and then he moved
down to Main Street for a while. And then he moved to where Tulle’s
is now. And then grandma died. You know I kinda don’t remember. I
think eventually maybe there just wasn’t the customers. Back then few
Chinese people in town ate at the restaurant. You know, if they were
very western they might eat there. Men came in but gentlemen didn’t
bring their families into a Chinese restaurant when I was growing up.
It was very rare.
BENELI:
Into a Chinese owned restaurant.
PEDERSON:
That’s right. They didn’t. I remember it used to be a bus line called
Gibson’s line, I don’t know if you know about it, out of Sacramento.
Mr. and Mrs. Gibson used to come down and eat there. I remember
hearing the street talk, “well you know that’s because they’re not really
genteel people,” or something like that. And there’s..no we don’t want
to say that either…not while recording. [Laughs]. Also, you know
Sutter’s crowd was a pretty rowdy crowd and there were a lot of fine
families that were wealthy that came out of the old Sutter’s Fort days.
And they weren’t always seemingly seen as fine folks either. Now
don’t put that it…[laughs]…I’m gonna have to [unclear]. But that’s
interesting.
553
BENELI:
Because there were a lot of bachelors living in Locke, the bachelors, I
would imagine would be a good portion of the clientele at Dick’s café.
PEDERSON:
The bachelors generally were earning money and sending it back to try
and support family in China. If they did it would be really rare because
they didn’t have that kind of money. I remember there was a man and
my mother always told me, “don’t go near the bachelor’s houses.” And
whenever my mother told me not to do something I would do it.
[Laughs] So I went down there and I started asking him how he cooked
and stuff. And he would tell me “everybody here in town thinks that
I’m a bachelor but I’m not.” He said, “I’m supporting a wife and a
mother and a child back in China.” He said, “this is how I have to live
because I have to send everything to them.”
And all he ate everyday was just a little bit of rice and maybe like a
little bit of salt fish and whatever veggies he could grow. People
would grow things and they would share with each other. And that’s
all he ate; Almost the same thing every day. He just had a very bare
wood floor, a very narrow room as I remember it. Just a single bed
with hardly anything on it. Nothing fancy whatsoever. No pictures or
anything. Clean. And then just this little kerosene stove where he
could just cook his rice and just the veggies on top of it and that’s it.
Just ate sparingly and worked very very hard. I have no idea, has
554
anybody told you how much the people made down in the Delta back
then?
BENELI:
I understand seventy five cents to a dollar depending on…
PEDERSON:
Okay, but he was a farm hand and I can remember looking at
someone’s paycheck back then and they were getting thirty five cents
an hour. And I was getting….gasp! My dog pooped on the yard! Oh
my god! [Now talking to the dog] How could you!?
BENELI:
Poor thing, she was probably holding it for so long.
[Pause while Pederson attends to dog]
BENELI:
I’m sorry to interrupt but I’d like to go back a little and ask just a
couple questions about your mom and dad. I know that they were
California residents their entire lives. Were they educated in Walnut
Grove?
PEDERSON:
Yeah, they were both educated in the Oriental School and the Walnut
Grove School. My dad went to Isleton High School, I think his choice.
He had a car. And my mom went to Courtland. It was very very hard,
money wise and neither one of them finished. I don’t believe it was
hard money wise for my dad, but it just seemed pointless because
people has gone off to college before then and had come back and
there weren’t any jobs for the Asians in the area. But I don’t really
know why. I know my dad probably could have afforded to go to
555
college if he chose and his family is very literate in the Chinese way.
He’s like the first son of the first son but he didn’t go to college.
BENELI:
So your parents spoke Chinese as well as English?
PEDERSON:
They did but I think their generation…I know my English was pretty
bad when I got to college. And I think its because I learned to speak
English from people that were speaking kinda pigeon English. I had a
hard time in college. Nobody knew what I was saying.
BENELI:
And at home did you speak Chinese?
PEDERSON:
We spoke both.
BENELI:
Equally? I know some parents who have children who are raised
bilingual will say, you know, “you must answer me in your native
language.”
PEDERSON:
No, but in the schools we weren’t allowed to speak Chinese. No, we
spoke both. The people in Walnut Grove spoke one dialect and the
people in Locke spoke another. That’s basically how they separated
themselves. So, my dad’s from the Walnut Grove side of the people
and mom’s from the Locke side.
BENELI:
Those two dialects are very different, aren’t they?
PEDERSON:
They are. I find it very difficult to speak my dad’s dialect, even though
I’m actually traditionally of my dad’s dialect. So they compromised
556
and they taught me the city dialect like they speak in San Francisco or
like they would speak in Hong Kong. Unclear. That’s the one that
they brought me up with but I can speak my mom’s dialect. Because I
know I can speak it to people that are from say, like Hong Kong and
they don’t know what I’m saying. So it must be a little bit different.
And I’m sure I have an American accent along with it.
BENELI:
I can identify with that issue. Do you have any siblings?
PEDERSON:
I have a sister. There’s just two of us.
BENELI:
Is she an older sister?
PEDERSON:
Younger sister.
BENELI:
How much younger?
PEDERSON:
Three and a half years.
BENELI:
Was she born in Locke?
PEDERSON:
No, she was born in San Francisco during the war.
BENELI:
What is her name?
PEDERSON:
Everybody in town calls her Linky. Her name is Genelie Lane and we
chose to call her Lane. And if you translate it enough in Locke’s
dialect it ends up being Linky. So everybody, even today, calls her
Linky.
BENELI:
Have you ever written ‘Linky’?
557
PEDERSON:
L-I-N-K-Y.
BENELI:
So that would be her nickname.
PEDERSON:
Yeah, actually some people pronounced it Lingy. There’s just some
spell it L-I-N-G-Y, L-I-N-J-Y.
BENELI:
When you were children and you were in Locke, during the times
when you were in Locke, did you and your sister play with a lot of the
neighborhood kids?
PEDERSON:
Oh yeah, definitely.
BENELI:
What were some things you enjoyed doing?
PEDERSON:
In the evening playing cops and robber or kick the bottle. I was always
very maternal, playing with my dolls or playing house. I think being a
younger generation we were more modern so I had like a lot of modern
toys. Plus when Walnut Grove burnt down the Red Cross came and
gave me say, a lot more Western toys that other children in town might
not have had. And unfortunately my mother threw it away. You
know, the Chinese back then were very against hand-outs. It was like a
very shameful thing to have to take a hand-out so you know, as soon as
they could they got rid of it. And now that I’m older I’m really into
antiques and I would love to have my old Pinocchio doll back or my
Charlie McCarthy doll back.
558
BENELI:
So you remember them, you had them for a good length of time. Did
you feel special because you had them?
PEDERSON:
No, my parents were very adamant about us not being that way. It was
like on the negative side. I think the year that I was born there were
very very few babies. That was the year after the Depression. For
most people the Depression was still on. So everybody was oooing
and aahhing me, babysitting me and buying me toys. And then a lot of
toys that I got I remember having to say “oh thank you so much! I like
it so much!” And it would have been like the fifth one that I had
gotten. And I remember the chore of my mother always telling me to
take care of my things and it was so much stuff I couldn’t take care of
it. So from that standpoint I think I was more privileged.
And a lot of children…because of the generation thing, maybe their
parents had just come from China and in our family there’s just us two
girls. In other families everything went to the boys. So they’re saving
for the boy, you know I didn’t have that. And I know a lot of my
friends got very little of anything. Everything their parents working so
hard to save was saved for the sons going to college or for his future, to
help him buy a home when he grew up. There was a lot of that.
There’s definitely people that were in Locke that were of my mom and
dad’s generation too.
559
BENELI:
It’s interesting to hear the difference in class perspective, like you were
saying earlier.
PEDERSON:
There is probably very few of us quote unquote middle-class kids in
the whole river Delta. Because, you know, there were farm workers
and wealthy land owners so the middle-class was kind of skinny.
BENELI:
How long did you stay in Locke during your teen years?
PEDERSON:
I think we came back from Forest Hill when I was twelve and we were
still living in the Delta when I graduated from college. That’s a long
time. But by then the house had moved to Thorton, because there was
no land available. That was the closest piece of land my dad could
find. But our activity and our social life was still all centered around
Locke.
BENELI:
Did you date any boys while you were in your teen years?
PEDERSON:
Oh of course, all of them. [Laughs] As somebody said at the last
reunion: “boy you were kinda wild, weren’t you!”
BENELI:
It’s interesting because I’ve heard a lot of other participants in this
project say, “gosh I didn’t feel I could date because I grew up with
these other people and I just felt like siblings more than anything else.
But you did find that you could date?
PEDERSON:
Yeah, I didn’t have any problem. Maybe I waited longer, maybe my
hormones were raging, I don’t know. But, my parents were very
560
liberal. Most Asian parents said, you know, “don’t go with a boy
unless you intend to marry him.” And pretty much a lot of times you
ended up marrying that first boyfriend. My parents said “get out there
and find out what the world is about. You date as many people as you
can and no, you may not go steady.” [Laughs] That was sort of their
perspective, but we weren’t allowed to be promiscuous.
BENELI:
No, certainly. Were you allowed to date out of the Chinese
population?
PEDERSON:
I thought I was but actually, I wasn’t. In my junior year a Japanese
boy asked me to the prom and I was not allowed to go. And my senior
prom unclear a Caucasian boy and he stood me up so I didn’t get to go
to that one either.
BENELI:
But that wasn’t because your parents said no.
PEDERSON:
No, it was because he didn’t show up. That happens.
BENELI:
Oh yeah. Did you work when you were a teenager?
PEDERSON:
I did because I nagged my parents till they let me. But they didn’t
want me to go to work when I was a teenager.
BENELI:
Why not?
PEDERSON:
Probably because I’m their baby. Because my dad’s family was not- I
don’t know how to say it-why not? Okay, for instance, my Japanese
561
girlfriends would clean mansions on the weekend. They would all go
in a team and would clean like brown mansions, different mansions in
the Delta. And I wanted to go, not because I wanted to clean, I wanted
to see the house. “Why don’t you stay home? Why don’t you clean
your own house?” And finally my dad just said “we don’t do that; we
don’t clean other people’s houses.”
And then I remember my friends all went out to pick tomatoes and they
were all complaining how hard it was and I wanted to go and pick
tomatoes in the worst way. They wouldn’t let me go out and pick
tomatoes and finally I nagged and nagged and mom got me a job
sorting pears, and I was twelve years old.
BENELI:
Oh so all this nagging you did before the age of twelve?
PEDERSON:
I couldn’t wait to grow up to do what I wanted to do. Oh yea, [laughs].
BENELI:
I was thinking sixteen.
PEDERSON:
Oh no, twelve.
BENELI:
Did you learn to drive in Locke?
PEDERSON:
Yes, I did. But, no, I learned late to drive, but I did learn in a pear
orchard in Locke; there was a lot of space to learn to drive down there.
BENELI:
139
Dog barking.
Who taught you to drive?139
562
PEDERSON:
You know I really don’t remember. I know my mom took me out
driving so I could get my learners permit. I think dad did a few times
but he didn’t so that well; he’s too excitable. And probably boyfriends,
I don’t remember.
BENELI:
I want to ask you a little bit about the Chinese and Japanese cultures.
You mentioned several times having Japanese friends. I know that
there was just a small portion of the Delta population that was
Japanese. Specifically, in Locke.
PEDERSON:
Well not in Locke. There was perhaps, maybe, just one family.
BENELI:
Did you celebrate similar holidays or in a similar way?
PEDERSON:
Not that I know of.
BENELI:
And you spoke a different language. And what about the food?
PEDERSON:
Definitely different. Not that similar. No bath houses. There was no
similarity. I don’t think there was anybody in Locke that was
Buddhist. Most of the Japanese in town were Buddhist or Protestant.
We were Baptist. When war broke out my dad went to San Francisco
to work in the ship yards and we had all that block out training where it
might be [unclear]. I think its just like a little imprint in your brain
even though nothing bad ever happened. And I can remember all those
Japs, all those yellow pearl, those monsters, I remember all those
words.
563
And then when the Japanese were coming back to Walnut Grove I was
in grammar school. Everybody, my grandmother, my aunts, everybody
said “now the Japanese are gonna be in school when you start school.
We don’t want you to talk to them. We don’t want you to have
anything to do with them. Not so much totally because of World War
II, but because of the hardship they caused China and the Chinese
coming over had suffered in the hands of the Japanese.
I remember the first person I saw was Mynomi, [phonetic]. And
Mynomi looked just like me. You know, I always remember them
telling me that they’re monsters they’re yellow pearl. I’m conjuring up
someone that has a round face and yellow pole with antenna. I was
really expecting to see a monster. It was like when they said “don’t
you have anything to do with them”, why would I have anything to do
with a monster? And I saw her and as it turns out she does look like
me. She has a round face, [laughs], and we became the best of friends.
But I can remember my shock that these people who came back looked
just like me.
BENELI:
What was her name?
PEDERSON:
Nunami Kenoshiba, [phonetic]. And I was so surprised to hear the
older generation talk about how they had to fight from the time they
got out of grammar school all the way back to Locke. You know, first
564
they had to fight the white boys in schoolyard. Then they had to fight
their way through Jap town. You know that kind of talk. I thought,
that doesn’t happen in our time. We didn’t have any of that.
BENELI:
Part of this project is to discuss the Locke boarding house.
PEDERSON:
Oh the building that you people have bought.
BENELI:
Well not me personally, but…
PEDERSON:
Unclear. As I remember I think it was owned by Jack Ross, is that
correct?
BENELI:
At some point, and then inherited by a Japanese family, the
Kuramoto’s.
PEDERSON:
Oh, the Kuramoto’s. Okay. My mom said that when she was young
there was a Japanese barber in town. And she had a good story to tell
about them, I wrote it down but I can’t remember it right now. When I
was little Jack Ross owned it and it looked fairly new; like it hadn’t
been built that long ago. Jack Ross was one of the people that ate at
Dick’s Café every night.
BENELI:
Every night.
PEDERSON:
Every night he ate at Dick’s Café. My mother couldn’t stand him
because whenever he ate he always put one hand on his waist. He ate
like this, [shows one hand on waist and laughs]. You know to the
565
Asians its like bad manners to put your hand out like that. And I
remember him well, he was very nice to us. He helped me fix my bike
when it was broken. I remember taking the chain off to adjust it and…
BENELI:
Because he owed the gas station.
PEDERSON:
He owned the gas station and I would go up there, “Mr. Ross, can I
soak my chain in your oil?” And I would throw it in whatever he
soaked his parts in. I remember being so intrigued with gasoline. Its
really dangerous but it was so cheap and it got you so far and
everybody was saying it was so expensive but to me it was so cheap.
So I took a gallon in one day and I bought a gallon of gasoline. “Does
your mom know you’re doing this?” “Oh its all right, they know” and
they didn’t know and I took it and I used it as I had seen other people
use it, to clean with. You know, like there’s people that did dry
cleaning in gasoline and I remember cleaning my bike chain with
gasoline. Bicycle was big for me because it always got me around.
BENELI:
You must have had a gasoline odor about you. Nobody asked you any
questions?
PEDERSON:
[Unclear] worked for the fire department. Do you know how easily
that ignites? Oh my goodness, you know, they used to do laundry. If
you so much as rub it like that it can ignite. I’m so lucky. [Laughs]
566
BENELI:
And so you remember this boarding house looking fairly new. Do you
remember people coming in and out? Have you ever been inside?
PEDERSON:
I remember it was just a long hallway and it had very plain rooms on
either side. I think it was two stories. When I went into the boarding
house I don’t remember anybody being in it except during pear season
and then they would cram as many people and families in it as they
could. And in playing with their children, that’s how I got to see the
inside of the boarding house. But nothing memorable. In fact, I
remember thinking this is a really ugly structure.
BENELI:
So there was no decorative interest?
PEDERSON:
Nothing that I can remember. Not one thing.
BENELI:
What about the kitchen or the food in that house, do you remember,
was there…
PEDERSON:
They ate at Dick’s Café mostly. Gene Chan probably knew because
they got the baloney and the hot dogs from the market and they would
just eat that as I remember. Yeah. There would be like an invasion. I
remember one year in the 50s they took the census and it said one
thousand and two. That’s because it was pear season when they took
the census. Otherwise, there might have been forty of us. I’m not
sure, but there just weren’t very many people in town.
567
BENELI:
On the weekends, I know that some families used to travel to
Sacramento. Did your family do the same? Being middle class,
maybe you had more means at some time to make such trips.
PEDERSON:
We made a lot of trips like that. You know, mom drove. Dad had a
car. But mostly, if we were thinking like of a trip it would have been to
San Francisco or to L.A. After the fire, and then after Locke and for a
period I lived with Aunt Rita in San Francisco. They were fortunate
enough to live in Pacific Heights in San Francisco. We would do
things like go to the opera. They wanted to cultivate us little country
bumpkins. We would go to the opera and go to the ice follies; that sort
of thing, the Chinese opera. My great grandmother, who lived in
Walnut Grove, was big on the Chinese operas and I would ride to San
Francisco with her to go to the Chinese opera, which is totally different
than the American operas. Yea, we traveled quite a bit.
BENELI:
I know some families maybe only did it once or twice a year for
special shopping but you...
PEDERSON:
I think people of my mom and dad’s generation in American probably
went on vacation once a year. Went to ball games. They used to go to
all the San Francisco ball games. You know, people did. I had a
collection of pictures; one of them I just loved. [Unclear] when he
came back from the service, “look at me I’m some hotshot chauffeur
568
for some Hollywood star. Life was changing then already. That’s why
I think it’s a shame that you couldn’t do this a generation earlier.
It’s interesting too, the coming of America. I always wanted to do this
picture album with my collection of pictures. It’s like becoming
American. You know, like Aunt Marie, when she first went to L.A.
she had the false eyelashes, the lipstick the Garbo look. One of my
aunts with a big bow in her hair… I think there was a lot of
Hollywood influence when you grew up in Locke. Most everybody
was actually from China. You know you look at America, this country
that you were born to, a lot of it was looking to Hollywood.
BENELI:
This is interesting because no one else has brought this up. The idea
that as Locke began to change, really what was happening was that as
the children graduated and went off to college or found work outside of
Locke, (because that’s really where there were opportunities), what
really was also happening simultaneously was their culture was
shifting a bit.
PEDERSON:
I think it was. I really think it was. I mean our generation… we went
to the movies frequently. Not everybody could afford it and it wasn’t
always available in Walnut Grove. Some people in their unclear had
T.V.s. It was changing. And I think a lot of times you didn’t realize it
was changing. Because like I talk to Ping Lee’s son and he said, “did
569
you know my dad never let us eat hamburgers and hot dogs, because it
was not Chinese to eat hamburgers and hot dogs?” I didn’t know. And
this is a man of my mom and dad’s generation. His kids went off to
college, or to the university. He wouldn’t let his kids eat hamburgers
or hot dogs. Now I don’t know if this is true, I didn’t ask Ping about it
but that’s what his son told me.
BENELI:
The idea that he was really just trying to preserve the Chinese culture
makes you think that he did know that culture was being lost.
PEDERSON:
I’m sure that he, if he thought about it. A lot of times when you’re in
that culture you don’t think about that or you don’t think about the
changes. You hear the stories but you don’t think how it’s influencing
you. Like the stories of two Hollywood sisters that came back to
Locke. They were in their little two-piece bathing suits parading
around the wharf. We used to swim around the wharf. They jumped
in the water, they couldn’t swim, they were just wading, and their
falsies floated out. [Laughs] Women in Locke, I don’t think they
wore bras. They bounded their chest. You know, the earlier Chinese
did. Well even one time I dove off the high dive and my swimsuit fell
off!
BENELI:
So this is a very different looking Locke than the Locke of your
parents’ generation. Like you said -
570
PEDERSON:
I think so because it was a heyday when, I think there were ferries, I’m
not sure, but it was still a picking point for the produce that wharf was
built for. Maybe there used to be signs that read ‘bakery’ and ‘hotels’
and as a child, I’m reading this ‘bakery’ ‘hotels’. “Mom, why was
there a bakery here? Who brought the bakery?” Then I began to
realize that it was a real bustling place. The ferry would stop and
people would stop in Locke; Stay overnight on their way to San
Francisco. There would be all these people in and out of town. It was
a very different place. My mom talks about walking to the garbage
bridge, you know like they did in China, and it was very interesting-
BENELI:
And then through media, television and movies; children going off to
school, American culture began seeping in?
PEDERSON:
Very slowly though. I would say slowly. You know if you look at
Janie's’ population, her mom and dad grew up in Locke, were still very
Chinese and I think its because they came from Locke. There was a lot
of Chinese preservation, cultural preservation there. And in most of
the people living in Locke, not all, but most were farm workers. Even
if you talk about preserving your culture, if you’re just a farm worker
raising a family on thirty two cents an hour you cant afford to eat
Chinese. All you can afford to eat is what you can fish out, what you
can preserve on your own and what you can grow in the garden. So I
think the culture isn’t always preserved just because you’re closer to it.
571
I think, I’m not sure. It costs money to go to Chinese school. If your
parents didn’t think it was worthy to send a daughter to Chinese school
you would miss out on that experience. And the son would get to go to
Chinese school. But our Chinese school was a joke, I don’t know that
anybody learned anything, in my day. Now my mom and dad can still
read and write Chinese and they went to Chinese school.
BENELI:
What do you mean ‘it was a joke’? You went to Chinese school and
what did you do?
PEDERSON:
We were too Americanized. We would taunt the teacher. [Laughs]
We didn’t take it seriously. We went because we had to go and it was
hard. You went to school in Walnut Grove, you walked a whole mile
and a half back to Locke and then you go to Chinese school. You had
to get dinner in between and you still had homework and band practice,
and church choir, and all that stuff that you thought you had to do. Like
today, we had a number of things we thought we had to do and the
Chinese school just kinda took a back seat.
BENELI:
While you were in Chinese school, I know you said you taunted the
teachers, but did you-
PEDERSON:
I didn’t personally.
BENELI:
But did you receive lessons? I know it was primarily language but did
you do any writing?
572
PEDERSON:
No, we did writing. They taught us unclear, not exactly the way it was
taught in China. They recruited these teachers from China, gave them
a salary, brought them over and they hated it. You know, it was
nothing like China, the town. For an educated man who had
credentials enough to teach school it would be like going to a
backwards village where the children didn’t even speak Chinese, or
proper Chinese. So I’m sure it was very disheartening all the way
around. As I remember it the two or three Chinese teachers that we
had really didn’t stay very long. I think they had to have felt very
culturally deprived.
BENELI:
And they were single people?
PEDERSON:
I don’t remember any coming back that were married. So have people
talked to you about how important the church was?140
BENELI:
Yeah. I’d like to talk to you about that. You’ve mentioned that your
family was-
PEDERSON:
See that one you should talk to my mom about. Did you watch the
Bitter Roots thing that Channel 6 did? And do you know that fellow
that- what’s his name?
BENELI:
Are you talking about the- it’s called “looking at our roots?” I do have
the video at home actually.
Because the interview took place outside, in the backyard of Pederson’s cousin’s home, traffic can
sometimes be heard.
140
573
PEDERSON:
Who was the fellow that did some of that interviewing? He’s Asian.
He’s Chinese.
BENELI:
Yip. Was that his name?
PEDERSON:
Yeah. It turns out that his... My mother told me that the first
missionary to Locke was this Reverend, I’m not sure, was it Reverend
Yee or Yip or something.
BENELI:
You know I have that information.
PEDERSON:
She said he had two daughters. He was so strict with his daughters. I
often wondered what happened with his daughters. We just kind of
lost touch. And mom had all these funny stories about what happened
in church. So I always wondered what happened with these two
daughters because they’d always say if they got a bad grade or
anything their dad would really get on them. They’d cry and their dad
would really get on them. And anyway it turns out that was his
mother. That my mother was wondering about. Or something like
that.
BENELI:
Who’s mother?
PEDERSON:
The guy that did the interviewing for the Channel 6 series. And during
the interview my mom said “I wonder what ever happened to those two
girls?” and it turns out to be either him mother or his grandmother.
BENELI:
Wow.
574
PEDERSON:
Yeah. They caught up a bit. It was interesting. A lot of things had
happened. Did you hear about the airplane?
BENELI:
Tell me.
PEDERSON:
I don’t know anything about it. I’d like to know from you.
Well the people in the Delta during World War II tried to help China
build an air force and so the people collected all this money and they
bought, I don’t know, an airplane or two. Don’t use my interview.
Back it up with someone that knows.
BENELI:
Absolutely.
PEDERSON:
But anyway, the barns that house the airplanes burnt up and the
airplanes were burnt up in the barn. I’m going “how can a barn in
Walnut Grove burn up?” Or in the Delta. We don’t have that many
barns in the Delta. And I was reading this book by Check ko Shek,
who most people agree was a crook anyway, was negotiating with the
U.S. government to make the U.S. government buy him a fleet of
airplanes. So he probably didn’t want it known that he was getting
airplanes from the people in Locke. And with the tong so strong back
then, I’m sure he had someone burn it down. That’s what I think. But
don’t go by my words.
BENELI:
Certainly.
PEDERSON:
There’s a number of people who could tell you about that.
575
BENELI:
Let’s go back and speak about the Baptist mission.
PEDERSON:
Dr. Christian. Did anyone mention Dr. Christian?
BENELI:
No.
PEDERSON:
No?
BENELI:
Not to me.
PEDERSON:
You have got to find out about Dr. Christian. Because you know what
I tell you may not be as accurate as I remember. Is it water you
want?141 As I remember, he was the child of the missionary couple
that were in Shanghai. He came to Locke, supposedly, with other
people and started the mission there in Locke. At the same time I think
he worked with Mrs. Cameron in San Francisco rescuing the children
from the brothels. And he opened the Jomay [phonetic] home in
Oakland, California to house-
BENELI:
Okay, actually I did have information.
PEDERSON:
Okay, and did you know that they always took their retreats in the
summer to Locke?
BENELI:
And that’s one of the times that he came originally, isn’t it? It was for
a retreat?
141
Pederson asks her dog if she’d like water.
576
PEDERSON:
No. I don’t think that it was for the retreat that he originally came but
even in my day they were still coming for the retreat. It was like, you
know the population was never that great. And it was “what are those
boys coming in?” but my mom said they would have wiener roasts and
they would have cookouts, dances and just have a wonderful time.
Play ball games with each other. We had a drum core and my mom
was saying how nice it was that they, you know, they would march up
and down every morning, blow the bugles and it was like, something
happening in town. And I think that was very important. Because my
dad talks about the gambling houses. He said “you know Penny, the
gambling house never closed. It ran day and night, three hundred sixty
five days a year except…” He said, “I bet you can’t imagine when it
closed.” He said, “when the Salvation Army band came down to play
we closed the gambling houses and everybody ran out to listen to the
Salvation Army play.”
I can remember a carnival coming into town thinking, “shall we stop
here, shall we not, shall we put up these tents here in this town.” They
would put up the carnival where the old Chinatown was; it was an
abandoned field. And you know, after work all these people from the
different parts; there were like a million people in town, for these little
old carnivals. And I think at one point, in the seventies, Clint
Eastwood started to film a film down at Walnut Grove and everybody
577
came. I mean everybody that had even came from the Delta, like me.
We would go down and we would watch him shoot. I remember
hearing the directors in the back: “who would have known there was
this many people in this town!” [Laughs]
BENELI:
They probably chose it for its seclusion.
PEDERSON:
Yeah! They probably did.
BENELI:
So you are talking about the Salvation Army band, do you know about
when that was?
PEDERSON:
It would have been before I was born; Probably in the twenties, the
teens and the twenties. There was a dentist in town. Did you know
that? Dr. Dean. I don’t know too much about Dr. Dean. Only that he
introduced his friend Dr. Danley to my aunt. That’s how they ended up
living with us. That’s how I ended up growing [unclear].
BENELI:
Dr. Dean lived in Locke or his office…?
PEDERSON:
No, Dr. Dean came in, I don’t know if it was once or twice a week and
had a office in my grandmother’s building. Do you know Harry Sen?
Harry would know about Dr. Dean. When Dr. Dean was old and in the
old age home, I think Harry and his family used to go visit Dr. Dean.
He’s a good talker.
BENELI:
I’m just reviewing his transcripts actually, Harry Sen. I don’t
remember seeing anything about Dr. Dean.
578
PEDERSON:
He might not have thought of it. Because Dr. Dean would have been
in my mother’s teenage years. And when he spoke of Dr. Dean I was
really really surprised. Unclear never really knew him and he said to
me, he said, “my dad used to go visit him.” So what he knows about
Dr. Dean, probably totally different than what I know about Dr. Dean.
But definitely the mission played a huge role in Americanizing us.
And I might be wrong, but I often thought because the men from China
would taunt us in our American ways. “You think if you go down to
that Church and you worship that American god you’re gonna go to the
white people’s heaven?” They said, “You’re not gonna go to the white
people’s heaven. You’re gonna go to the Chinese heaven and no
body’s gonna know you there. You’re gonna be a stranger.” They
always told us how useless we were, you know.
BENELI:
Who would say those things?
PEDERSON:
Maybe in part the group that might have been called the bachelor
society. I think some of them were not really bachelors but they just
didn’t have their wives and families with them.
BENELI:
That’s true.
PEDERSON:
Is that correct? Okay. So they would say things like that. And maybe
because in our snooty way, they looked not as American to us so we
wouldn’t really socialize with them. So they’d say “you’re useless. If
579
you went back to China you’d starve. You don’t know how to do
anything, you can’t read or write.” And it would be true. But think
about it, if your parents or whomever sold you down to slave market
and you were auctioned off in San Francisco and became somebody’s
wife, would you want to be with this American god or would you want
to go back to the Chinese god? I don’t know, I might be wrong. But
that’s just my take on it. Its because it’s the ladies that were really
faithful to the church and the mission and the men were more faithful
to their tong associations, their benevolent association.
BENELI:
So did your mom participate heavily in the church?
PEDERSON:
Mhm.
BENELI:
And what did that look like? What did she do?
PEDERSON:
I guess she just went to church, bible study, sang in the choir. You’d
have to ask her what she did. But the church originally was not where
it is now. She said the very first church was in Walley’s store, in the
back. And that was also where the mail was. And then they moved
across the street to it was then, I guess, the Jang’s house. And had it
there. I vaguely can remember that, going to church and it being in
that room. And somehow maybe while we were in San Francisco the
church got built. I’m not sure. What year was that built?
BENELI:
I know it was in the thirties. I can’t recall exactly…
580
PEDERSON:
Yeah, I don’t remember. I do often remember things that happened
before I was born. But I don’t know why.
BENELI:
And so your father didn’t participate as much with the church, as your
mother, is that right?
PEDERSON:
No. But he was very supportive of the church, but he didn’t believe.
He was very supportive. He made us go. He served. I forgot what kind
of officer. One year they even elected him President of the…what
fund is that? Community Chest? So he supported stuff like that.
BENELI:
Did your parents speak about why the Baptist movement was good or
positive? Did you have a sense of why they participated?
PEDERSON:
It’s a really good question. I would rather you ask her. Really, if you
have the time. I really don’t know. Like I said, the men had their own
association and things to do. I don’t believe the women had a whole
lot other than maybe getting together to peel a pot of peas on the porch
or take care of each other’s babies, maybe. But I don’t even think you
had to do that. People left their babies and the doors open. You could
hear. Yeah. It was very open. The Chinese are very good at
remaining very private in a very small space
BENELI:
I know that there were a few gambling houses in Locke. Did you ever
experience going into them?
581
PEDERSON:
I did and I had wandered in a few times but you’re told not to go in
there. Women are bad luck. And you’re not allowed in there. And
then I would say “well she went in there!” “Well she’s different” she’s
more like, I don’t know, a lady of the evening.” So you weren’t
always very welcome. So they’d say “come on in here” “Oh you cant
have her in here, she’s a girl! It’s bad luck!” “come over here. I need
some luck. Stand here and bring me some luck.” And I’d stand there
and you know, every time anybody ever asked me to stand near them I
always brought bad luck. To this day. I go to the casino and
everybody’s money lasts a while. Mine just goes straight in and its
done and over with. And so I don’t have really good feelings about
walking into the casino even though I believe my grandparents owned
gambling houses too.
BENELI:
In the Delta area?
PEDERSON:
In Walnut Grove. It just wasn’t a place that you went to. It was all
men. And you know the Victorian era, back the, just fit perfectly with
the Chinese way of looking at things. There was modesty and being
female in both cultures actually. It was kind of restrictive.
BENELI:
I know that in the gambling halls a lot of men talk about that it wasn’t
really just for gambling. It was also a social community; where they
582
could sit and have some tea and they could collect their mail. There
was a mail center in the back.
PEDERSON:
There was someone to help you take care of your mail; maybe help you
write a letter home. My dad told me that how the Chinese started the
businesses is they all pooled their money together, more or less, and
they all draw straws.
BENELI:
And take turns.
PEDERSON:
And take turns, yeah. See you know more than I do. I should be
interviewing you.
BENELI:
No. Not a chance. Do you remember anything about law enforcement
in Locke?
PEDERSON:
Yeah. I remember hearing the tales about the people that were unjustly
taken away. And they didn’t have much trial. I remember talk about
somebody that was held by the Warden at Folsom, as a cook. They
wouldn’t let him out cause he was a good cook. And I don’t know if
it’s the same person but I often wondered how it was that he should
have been in prison and I saw him all the time. And I guess the story
was that while he was a captive cook for the Warden at Folsom prison,
they allowed him time off. And he grew up in Locke so I would see
him. Now I don’t know if any of that is true. My mom always told us
that back then, there was sheriffs and there was law but the law
583
enforcement was more for the rest of the people. And if you had
problems in Locke pretty much the association would have to take care
of it. [Unclear]
BENELI:
What rest of the people? There weren’t that many other people.
PEDERSON:
I think if you counted it, all the people that socialized in Locke, that
came for groceries, that came to the association, you’re talking about a
lot of people that lived out in the farms and camps and things. There
would be a lot of people.
BENELI:
Are you talking about non-Chinese people?
PEDERSON:
No. Chinese people. I’m talking maybe when I was very little. By the
time I was in high school, I’m saying in the fifties, maybe I could
analyze it better there weren’t very many people left. Most of the,
even the farm workers, were just really old people who came back.
But see Harry knows all about that kind of stuff. I always thought I
was an outsider and Harry’s an insider.
BENELI:
Really?
PEDERSON:
Well yeah. Cause we moved, came back, moved, came back and
supposedly, I’m supposed to be a Walnut Grove person, not a Locke
person. So I’m an outsider.
BENELI:
But you have a lot of friends in Locke.
584
PEDERSON:
Also, in Walnut Grove, my grandfather was a big tong leader. I
remember mother saying “you play with her real nice” or “you don’t
bother her” or “you don’t play with her cause you’re bad.” Her
grandfather, he had already been dead years and years earlier.
BENELI:
Who was this who was leader of the tong?
PEDERSON:
It was my dad’s grandfather.
BENELI:
Your great grandfather.
PEDERSON:
Yeah. My great grandfather. I guess he still struck, when I was
growing up, a cord of terror in people’s hearts. I don’t know what
nasty deed he did.
BENELI:
What’s his name?
PEDERSON:
I don’t know. You’ll have to ask my dad. I remember going into a
home, in my teen years, we used to group date a lot. We’d be at
somebody’s house and they’d say, “well, who is she?” and then they’d
say the name, and “oh! Those people are crazy!” [Laughs]
BENELI:
Because of your great grandparents?
PEDERSON:
Because of my grandparents. My grandfather. And the church
sponsored a lot of things like baseball, basketball. I think they tried to
Americanize us. It always was classified as a mission. And part of the
American mission thing was to Americanize whether it be Chinese,
585
Native Americans. I told you about Uncle Dick and his great baking. I
remember going to church, “well what did you do in church today?”
“Oh! We learned how to make an American apple pie!” [Laughs]
And everybody would laugh. I wouldn’t know why they were
laughing. Cause it wasn’t just Uncle Dick.
A lot of Chinese had worked as household help a lot of people in
Locke knew how to make a really good apple pie. And these
missionaries, who, one were female, never married, didn’t
hardly…You know I think back to how they made that pie. It wasn’t
even right! And they would laugh at us and say, “you did? Huh!” You
know they would teach us English, they would teach us songs, we’d
play games and activities…
BENELI:
So was there talk about religion as well, or for the children was it
mostly…?
PEDERSON:
Yeah, on Sunday there was talk of religion, when reading the bible. It
was very nice. Missions, I think sometimes they tend to bend. Like
they let us dance in the chapel, not while we were worshipping, but
during activity time. We had dances. We learned to dance at church.
I remember this man came down and taught us how to rumba or do the
fox trot.
BENELI:
Isn’t that just on certain evenings or afternoons?
586
PETERSON:
Yeah, in the evenings, actually, it was.
BENELI:
So it was a mixed group of boys and girls that he taught,
simultaneously?
PEDERSON:
Well it was different people that taught it. Sometimes it might be, like
in the summer, a missionary student would come and teach.
Sometimes somebody from Sacramento. Because the minister,
probably a traveling minister, he wasn’t there every Sunday. They
would send used clothing down for us poor mission children. And I
told you that the Chinese in those days would not take, not only say
you’re poor and you have to take somebody’s throw-aways; but there’s
a bit of superstition attached to it. You know if I adopt this old dress
maybe it will bring me bad luck or something. And so we would sit
around and mend it and send it onto another camp somewhere. There
was a lot of migrant camps, and we’d give it to them.
Music was always very big in the Delta for several reasons and I
remember we would be invited to sing at other churches, particularly
the one here in Carmichael. The lady would say, “see these children, I
made you give away your old clothes, see it’s for these lovely children
that you gave away your old clothes.”
BENELI:
Do you mean the church on Marconi?
587
PEDERSON:
You know, I don’t remember where it is but it was on the main drag.
Back then Carmichael definitely was not like it is now. It was just a
farm community.
BENELI:
Right.
PEDERSON:
And not a high-end farm community. Dragon dances, Chinese New
Years, playing with fire crackers, building bombs.
BENELI:
So some of these are Chinese cultural experiences, but the fire
crackers, are those also-
PEDERSON:
Yeah, in Locke they celebrated the Western New Year. But we did it
Chinese style. You know, you would have the fire crackers; you
would have the licees, do you know about the licees? [phonetic] The
red paper packet? Very important in our culture. And everybody in
town would give you a licee. We would play firecrackers all day long
like they weren’t at all dangerous. They would get the dragon out;
Locke had one of the finer dragons in California. They’d do the
dragon dance along the street and people would hang out their
firecrackers and their money on the bottom for the dragon to eat. It
would bring you luck for the year. All the ladies made the special
foods for New Years. And then in Walnut Grove they celebrated the
Chinese New Years.
588
BENELI:
So the American New Year was celebrated on December thirty first,
but in Chinese style. Do you know where the dragon came from? Did
someone make the dragon?
PEDERSON:
It came from China. Someone ordered it. But they did have a
beautiful dragon. I don’t know what happened to the dragon.
BENELI:
What about Christmas?
PEDERSON:
In some homes, Christmas was celebrated more than others. Usually
the Chinese, when they say they’re celebrating Christmas, they say
they’re celebrating winter and the coming of winter. But I know for a
lot of children, that one little gift that they got from the church would
be the only present that they would get. So it wasn’t like a big gift
giving…In our family it was. Mom always had a big Christmas tree
and we had gifts. So many you couldn’t even walk in the living room.
I think most of the people of my mom and dad’s generation celebrated
Christmas, had a tree, did the Christmas meal. You know the Chinese
love anything that involves eating so you could be sure that probably
everybody in town had a Christmas meal. Probably. I don’t know
that for sure. That’s probably true in the Jewish culture too.
BENELI:
Yes, yes. But we don’t celebrate Christmas.
PEDERSON:
You don’t celebrate winter?
589
BENELI:
No, we have Chanukah during that time. Certainly one of the
festivities is food, fried food. Its interesting because it is one of the
ways that we can see American culture seeping into this Chinese
community; through the children who really want to celebrate these
holidays or to enjoy the gifts and the good food, sweets. Would you
say that the children were excited about the western traditions more
than the older generation? Would you say that it was driven by the
kids who were eager and interested?
PEDERSON:
Yes, but not exactly in that tone in my family. But I’m not real sure
where it comes from. For instance, right now there’s this lady from
China that comes once a week to help me take care of my mom and
dad. She’s very eager to adopt our holidays. I think in most cultures,
you know holidays probably are more important in third world
countries than in America. Because how often do you really get to
celebrate in other countries? So every time we’re having a party or its
somebody’s birthday, she gets really excited and we just kinda go “oh
god, another party, another birthday.” And I think maybe it was more
like that. If you were almost like a pioneer Chinese woman, working
alongside your husband in a field, maybe a holiday, no matter whose
holiday is still a holiday. Maybe. I don’t really know.
BENELI:
So you didn’t see a distinctive difference between the children and the
adults in their level of enthusiasm to include Western holidays.
590
PEDERSON:
Well I think for the children, who probably didn’t have
Christmas…you know most of my friends were daughters, and there
were daughters who probably had no presents I think it could be
hurtful. They interpret it different. I think even though it could have
been hurtful for me, remember I’ve lived in San Francisco, I’ve lived
in Forest Hill, I’ve lived in Vallejo and there’s no place like Locke.
All my cousins would come back to Locke, like holidays and we’d all
get together and we’d talk about how much fun we had in the summer
at Locke. Swimming, water skiing, fishing, hunting, going out to the
burial grounds, unclear didn’t catch you. You know, speaking of the
post office and reading other people’s mail, which I didn’t do.
Certain times of the year like fall, all the ladies would do the pickling
of the vegetables and it would smell so good. As a kid you knew who
did it the best, you would walk up and say, “Oh! Your pickles smell so
good!” And she’d say, “Oh! Do you want one?” “Oh! Can we?” And
you’d grab a pickle and it was really fun to walk around! People
always invited you to dinner but you would always be very careful not
to be like so usually you refused. That was just custom. People
always invited each other to dinner. “Would you like to take home
some of this corn, to your mom and dad? We picked it out in the farm
today.” It was just great.
BENELI:
You said it was customary to refuse, politely?
591
PEDERSON:
Yeah. We have a term about being like a beggar. You don’t want to be
like a beggar. So you always refuse. And with the Chinese, you
always offer. You always offer that hospitality and its polite to offer
and its polite to refuse. But that’s what everyone did but back to the
sheriff. Yeah, the Sheriff had… I think the Chinese have, especially
with certain groups the midnight meal. Did you hear about that?
BENELI:
Well I understand that’s true during holidays, in some Asian cultures to
have a midnight meal.
PEDERSON:
There’s a term for it called Sui Yea.
BENELI:
How would you spell that?
PEDERSON:
I don’t know, how would you spell Sui? S-U-I Y-E-A, Sui Yea. I
remember my mom and dad and their cronies would get together for
Sui Yea and the sheriff always came. Whoever that fat sheriff was;
always came for Sui Yea. My folks would have it and we would have
a pile of dishes.
BENELI:
Who could eat at midnight. You know, I don’t understand. But you
know, I mean, I’m not hungry- I’m tired at midnight.
PEDERSON:
You could be tired and hungry. I know my dad’s family always had
that meal. When I was in college, I went to San Jose State, we would
all study and we would hurry to study because at midnight we would
592
all hop into our volkswagons and our busses for San Francisco for Sui
Yea. That was just what we did. So there is such a meal.
BENELI:
Oh absolutely.
PEDERSON:
No, don’t take my word for it that it’s true. It wasn’t just our family.
BENELI:
No I absolutely have heard of that. Yeah. It sounds very lively and
fun.
PEDERSON:
Well, it could be just satisfying too. I’m sure that the farmer that
worked in the field, who had to be up before dawn, didn’t eat Sui Yea.
I don’t think so. He might have wanted to. But they would get there
and work practically in the dark in the freezing cold weather and then
come home well before dark and eat a meal. And it probably wouldn’t
be like a real fancy meal. Whereas women who didn’t have to work
probably spent most of the day cooking. You know, because there’s
that numerology thing. I know on my dad’s side of the family you
always had to have nine courses. Now, it wasn’t always nine fresh
cooked courses. It was something like, you know, throw in a salt egg
because it’s readily available to make up that ninth course. But
basically it was a nine-course meal for dinner. Because nine is a good
luck number.
BENELI:
And that was true while you were growing up as well?
593
PEDERSON:
In our house? We usually had multiple courses, but my folks weren’t
superstitious at all; that way, not at all. And my mom was very
Christian; wanted to be Christian.
BENELI:
Do you know when that began? When did she convert to Christianity?
PEDERSON:
You should talk to her. I think when Dr. Christian came. Dr. Christian
came in the fifties. I had met him. He was a very lovable old guy. He
talked to that old generation and they’d all speak really fondly of him.
I don’t know who all you interviewed but any of those World War II
people all knew Dr. Christian. So I’m surprised you didn’t bring him
up. They’re all very sharp in the brain, unlike me. [Laughs].
BENELI:
No, this has been really interesting and you’ve given a lot of
information.
PEDERSON:
[Unclear].
BENELI:
I personally haven’t, but I’m one of three that is conducting the
interviews. What is something you’d say you don’t hear and see a lot
when you’re hearing and seeing historians talk about Locke? Is there
anything that’s missing?
PEDERSON:
Oh, a lot is missing. I have so many questions, myself. I know that the
Chinese had helped to build the levees there. I know about the railroad
working. I know about the Gold Rush. I’ve never heard anybody
mention- I’ve read that somebody interviewed somebody and they said
594
that their dad or their grandfather worked on the railroad but I’ve never
talked to anybody that did, growing up. I’m not even positive actually,
other than my great grandfather who was this big bad tong leader, I’m
not even sure what he did. I think he probably did some labor
contracting. And I know that his son did, in my lifetime, did some
labor contracting. I’m pretty sure heBENELI:
And that’s your grandfather?
PEDERSON:
No. Oh, the labor contracting? This is my father’s uncle. My father
talks about his grandfather giving him a load of pipes to take to an
address. He said he was walking down Chinatown and this policeman
taps him on the shoulder. He yelled, “My god! I almost peed in my
pants! I thought I’d had it!” Then the policeman said, “I’m new on the
beat, do you know where Clay Street is?” And he said, I wasn’t
supposed to know, but I knew they were opium pipes. I don’t know if
he was just [unclear], because I know that my grandfather was into
import/ export.
There’s a lot of that generation, that’s why I say too bad you can’tbecause the earliest person alive would be a hundred. And there’s
people gone way before that. My great grandfather would have been
maybe two hundred or something. It’s a shame that that’s all lost
because I don’t hear about that generation a lot. I do hear from the
595
World War II generation, my generation. We were really quite
Americanized. But this is 1950s that I went to high school. My school
bus was integrated, but the boys’ bus wasn’t. The Asian boys got
picked up in one bus. I don’t know who picked up the other people.
Interesting.
BENELI:
What was the variance about? Why were the girls’ bus integrated?
PEDERSON:
I have no idea. But I remember the prevailing thought at the time. I
remember this teacher came to work at Courtland high school. Her last
name was Chew, C-H-E-W. So the Delta people, having lived among
the Asians all their lives, they knew that Chew was an Asian last name.
And she had light brown hair, blue eyes, huge blue eyes, but they
slanted a little bit, or seemed to. And there was question by the board
as to maybe they should fire her because she must be part Chinese. I
remember stuff like that. But you know, you’ve got to remember that
those were the days when a school teacher couldn’t be seen in a bar, or
a movie house. She would be fired. She had to be the perfect lady.
But to me, the fifties- that wasn’t really that long ago. It was well after
World War II. Did anyone tell you about how the guys got drafted?
BENELI:
Well, Gene Chan, actually, talked a little bit about his experiences.
PEDERSON:
Oh he did? Oh, okay. Well his might be a little different.
BENELI:
Yes. He volunteered, as far as I remember or he was-
596
PEDERSON:
I was just shocked. You know we have this reunion group and I guess
I’m like the baby of the group. And I was just shocked. I didn’t know
that that had happened. That going to the service was by lottery. And
so those that could afford it, that had the farms, made up the lottery by
telling the guys “we need you to work at the farm. Be here at such and
such time.” They just high-jacked them all. They never served. That’s
hilarious. I was wondering why they all went at the same time. Did
your dad go to the service?142 That’s how they did it. I’m sorry Daisy,
you’re such a good dog.
BENELI:
I think that’s all I have today.
PEDERSON:
Well call me again if you need more. I’m sorry I rambled on and I
know my voice isn’t good for the tape recorder.
BENELI:
No, no.
PEDERSON:
Don’t get me in trouble. I keep saying things that I shouldn’t say.
BENELI:
Thank you for your time.
142
Pederson asks her cousin, Jaine.
597
598
Oral History Interview with
Mr. Harry Sen
For California State Parks
By Patrick Ettinger
Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer/Editor:
Patrick Ettinger
Professor of History, CSU Sacramento
Co-Director, Oral History Program, CSU Sacramento
B.A., Rice University, Houston, Texas
M.A., University of Houston
Ph.D., University of Houston
Interview Time and Place:
The interview session took place on January 25, 2007 at the home of Mr. Harry Sen in
Sacramento, California.
Transcribing/Editing:
Maya Beneli transcribed the interview audiotapes. Ms. Beneli checked the verbatim
manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for punctuation,
paragraphing, and spelling.
Tape and Interview Records:
The original tape recording of the interview was submitted to California State Parks.
599
Interview with Harry Sen
Interviewed by Patrick Ettinger
[Session 1, January 25, 2007]
ETTINGER:
Today is Thursday, January 25th, 2007. My name is Patrick Ettinger
and I’m sitting in the home of Mr. Harry Sen in Sacramento,
California. We’re conducting an interview for the Locke Oral History
Project, which is being undertaken on behalf of the California
Department of Parks and Recreation.
Harry, maybe you can just start off by telling me your name and where
you were born, and then we’ll talk about your family’s background.
SEN:
My name is Harry Sen. I was born in Rio Vista, California. I lived in
Locke most of my childhood. We lived in Isleton and Rio Vista, but
most of the time we lived in Locke and I was educated in the Lowes
[phonetic] Elementary School in Walnut Grove, and also Courtland
[phonetic] for my high school.
ETTINGER:
What year were you born?
SEN:
1933, October the first.
ETTINGER:
Let’s just get a little background on your parents. Tell me about your
father’s name and where and when he was born.
600
SEN:
Okay. Grandfather came to California back in the early 1900s; I would
say 1910, 1915. Grandfather helped build the town of Locke. They
built quite a few structures there and they opened up a grocery store
and a food store.
ETTINGER:
And his name?
SEN:
His name was Poi, P-o-i, Chan. Poi Chin Chan.
ETTINGER:
Okay. And you said he opened up a—
SEN:
A grocery store, and they made roast duck, roast pig, the traditional
Chinese food, and they were one of the first to have tofu in
Sacramento, in Locke. Their tofu was one of the best.
ETTINGER:
So he came in as a merchant from China.
SEN:
He came in as a merchant, yes.
ETTINGER:
Right, which was the only way Chinese were allowed to come in, if
they were a merchant.
SEN:
Exactly, merchant as well as a farmer.
ETTINGER:
Right. And was he married at the time when he came here?
SEN:
Yes, Grandmother was in China.
ETTINGER:
So he came by himself?
SEN:
Yes.
601
ETTINGER:
And then your father, was this your father you’re were talking about
or—
SEN:
My mother’s father. My father’s parents were in China. They never
immigrated. It’s my mother’s father that immigrated. My mother’s
mother had never left China.
ETTINGER:
Now, when and where was your father born?
SEN:
Gosh, I can’t remember right offhand. My father passed away twentyfive years ago.
ETTINGER:
Was he born in—
SEN:
China.
ETTINGER:
And he came with— You just referred to someone as Grandfather.
Was that your father you were referring to?
SEN:
My grandfather was my mother’s father. They came first, and then my
father came during the depression. My grandfather formed a company,
a farming company, and they had pear orchards, but initially my father
came here as a laborer. He worked in Monterey Cannery. He had two
shifts of work to save the money to bring my mother over later. Dad
was here for quite a few years and saved the money, went back to
China to bring Mom over, and when they came back over, Grandfather
had a company where his two sons, Chester Chun’s father, Joe Chan’s
father, and my father and mother were partnered in a company and we
602
had many orchards to take care of. The older days, the Chinese cannot
own property in the United States or California. Therefore, we were
sharecroppers. So we had two or three or four orchards that we
sharecropped. So that’s how it started.
In the meanwhile, Grandfather had a grocery store in Locke, one of the
first in Locke, and we provided food for all the farmers in the area. We
delivered the food, in fact.
ETTINGER:
What was the name of that grocery store?
SEN:
Foon Hop, F-o-o-n, H-o-p.
ETTINGER:
So that was one interest and the other interest was this sharecropping
farming.
SEN:
Sharecropping.
ETTINGER:
It was a collaborative of various relatives?
SEN:
Dad had an orchard, two uncles had the other orchard, and the funds
were pulled together, and it’s like a company.
ETTINGER:
Interesting. Did they have a name for it? Did that company have a
name?
SEN:
No. No, it didn’t have a name.
ETTINGER:
But they ran it that way.
603
SEN:
Right, they ran it that way. It was a difficult time during the
depression, and Dad tells me during the time pears were— There was
no money in pears. They didn’t have the technology they have today
for pesticide, and the pears were wormy; they ended up in the river.
The price was not right and so forth. So they were very clever,
knowing that they were not going to do well they planted snow peas,
other vegetables in between the orchard and they sold the snow peas
and whatever they were growing.
During the day San Francisco Produce ship by ship, I mean there’s a
ship that comes through the Sacramento River, they loaded it on a ship
and they went to San Francisco market. That’s how they survived.
They were very ingenious. If they can’t do something here, they do
something else. But it takes a lot of labor.
Fortunately, my family was eight strong. I have seven sisters. So Dad
always wanted a boy, so he kept on trying because he needed the labor
for farming.
ETTINGER:
What number child are you? Were you number eight?
SEN:
I’m number—eight from two is—I’m number six. I have two more
sisters. They’re all in the area. Of course, two of them have passed on
now.
ETTINGER:
What level of education had your father received?
604
SEN:
Nothing. Dad was raised in Canton, China in the village, and Dad
didn’t have much of an education. He went to Chinese school, of
course. When he came to this country, Mom and Dad, they’re not
bilingual, but they learned enough English to communicate with their
employers and the public, but essentially they’re not bilingual.
ETTINGER:
And did you have a sense about what year your father came to the
country?
SEN:
Father came here, I would say, probably in the twenties. I was born in
’33, and I have sisters a lot older than I am.
ETTINGER:
And were some of your sisters born in China and some here?
SEN:
Yes, my first sister, Loni [phonetic], was born in China. The intent of
my father was to go back to China to bring the family over. So Dad
went back to China, supposedly to build up the village and put more
houses. We have three houses in China right now. In fact, I just went
back there last month to spend two thousand dollars to redo the house.
The walls were separating. So I was there a month ago to talk to the
cousins and said, “Hey, repair it, because otherwise they’re going to
fall apart.”
ETTINGER:
Oh, wow.
SEN:
So that was just done recently.
605
ETTINGER:
Now, tell me a little bit about your mother. She came in the midtwenties, and what was her name?
SEN:
Chan Shee Sen, C-h-a-n, S-h-e-e, Sen. Dad went back to China to
actually spend the money to fix up another house. They had it all
graded, they were going to build another house there, and somehow my
father’s brother and my mother couldn’t get along. He ended up in
South America being a bachelor and he was a gambler. He never
succeeded too well. But anyway, they couldn’t get along, and Mom
said, “Dad, why don’t you bring me to America. I won’t stay here.”
Otherwise, Mom wouldn’t have come. So she was lucky to come,
otherwise we wouldn’t have been born here. [laughs]
So anyway, they immigrated to Sacramento Valley and then farmed
there. During this time they brought my oldest sister, Loni, with them,
and Loni was only maybe about a year old. In fact, Loni had to get her
citizenship because she was born in China.
ETTINGER:
What was your mother’s— Was she educated?
SEN:
Mom. I’ll tell you a long story about Mom. My maternal grandfather
and father were fairly wealthy. Mother used to walk my uncles to
school and Mother would sit on the porch waiting for them to finish
school and walk them home, because the girls were not to be educated
in China. So Grandfather would never educate my mother. My
606
mother regretted it. So Mother was never educated, so she can’t read
Chinese or English. It’s unfortunate.
ETTINGER:
But her family was relatively well off?
SEN:
Joe’s father, Chester’s father, were relatively well off. We have land,
we have buildings, and so forth.
ETTINGER:
When you were growing up, what language was spoken at home?
SEN:
Chinese. I was not bilingual until I went to school, the first grade.
There was no kindergarten in those days. We lived in the little town of
Locke and it was a ghetto town. Everybody spoke Chinese, no English
at all whatsoever, because there were no Caucasian in Locke; they
were all Chinese. So when we go to school we always got together,
and during the time we went to grammar school we were segregated.
There was an Oriental school and a white school. The Oriental school
was painted yellow, the white school was painted white. The Oriental
school had a big iron plate there the shape of a junk, a Chinese junk,
and that’s how they recognized our school as an Oriental school.
So therefore when we go to an Oriental school with all Chinese and
Japanese, as well, naturally we’d be speaking Chinese. I spoke
Chinese there and tried to learn English, and I had to stay after school,
a special class after school was out, and learn English to help my
English because I wasn’t bilingual.
607
ETTINGER:
They used it during the regular class session, but then they would
reinforce—
SEN:
Right. I needed to improve my English, so we had to stay after school
for another hour to learn how to speak English.
ETTINGER:
Now, did you, after that, go home to Locke and go to the Chinese
school?
SEN:
And after that I went to Locke to go to Chinese school. I was the
janitor of the school, because I don’t have to pay tuition. Tuition was
only something like three dollars a month, but that was a lot of money
then.
ETTINGER:
Oh yes, especially your family with all the kids. It’s kind of ironic,
you’re at school during the day in English and then getting more
English and then going back doing the—
SEN:
Chinese.
ETTINGER:
At the Chinese school, was it a couple of hours in the afternoon?
SEN:
Evening.
ETTINGER:
Were there books? What was the curriculum like?
SEN:
Just learning calligraphy, learning how to comprehend the language,
learn how to write and read. No math or anything like this. Basically
language.
608
ETTINGER:
A little bit about Chinese culture, as well?
SEN:
Yes, definitely.
ETTINGER:
You said you had lived several places. You were born in Rio Vista and
you came—
SEN:
Father was farming in Twitchell Island, right across the river.
ETTINGER:
In the sharecropping arrangement.
SEN:
Yes. And then some of my sisters were going to school in Isleton,
that’s closer, because of Chinese school. There’s a Chinese school
there, too. My parents always wanted us to have an education. I think
they had intention in their mind that we may go back to China;
therefore you better learn the Chinese language, not only the verbal
language, the written language. So all of us had a chance to go to
Chinese school, all my sisters and myself. And that’s what they
stressed; education.
My oldest sister, which is eighty-five now, that passed on, she went to
Sacramento City College, and during the time when we had no money,
but Dad says, “Loni, you were born in China, you’re not a citizen,
therefore you need a good education for your future.” So my father
insisted, in spite of all of us so young and didn’t have anything, my dad
wanted Loni to be educated so she’ll have a better future.
ETTINGER:
What’s the first house you remember living in? Where was it?
609
SEN:
In Twitchell Island. It’s a farmhouse.
ETTINGER:
And then did you move from there to Locke?
SEN:
To Isleton. We lived in a cannery, the National Cannery. They have
houses there for the workers.
ETTINGER:
So it was family housing? I mean, it was housing for—
SEN:
Public housing for all the employees.
ETTINGER:
When you were about three, four, five, at that time?
SEN:
I went to school there. I was about five. Five and six.
ETTINGER:
And how long did the family stay in Isleton?
SEN:
Oh, I would say three to five years.
ETTINGER:
What memories do you have of what Isleton was like? There was also
a little Japanese community there, as well?
SEN:
By the time I was in Isleton, the Japanese were taken to camp. That
was during World War II. The things I can remember in Isleton is that
I had to walk to school going through the town, and it’s a long walk
from the house. I was only five or six years old, but I did all the
walking. You’ve got to go through commercial area. And during that
time in Isleton it was the peak of their brothel business. They had
about ten or twelve brothels in Isleton. It was written up in all the
magazines. And it was kind of a dangerous situation to walk through
610
there in the daytime and nighttime, but we did it. But during those
days things were pretty tame.
We didn’t stay there too long because the farming wasn’t doing too
well in Twitchell Island, and we moved to Isleton. Then Dad moved
back up to Locke to do contracting work, pruning contracting. My
uncle had a contracting business in the Terminus area in celery
farming. So we were labor contractors. The family was involved. So
Dad got into that, therefore we stayed in Locke from there.
ETTINGER:
And so as a contractor, he would just negotiate with a farmer and
supply the labor?
SEN:
Supply the labor.
ETTINGER:
Some which might be his family and some of which might be others,
or just was it—
SEN:
Most of the labor that we had were basically bachelors, because many
of the Chinese living in Locke were bachelors. They couldn’t bring
their family over or they never were married. So it was just a labor
town and a place to stay and find work. That’s how most of the men in
Locke survived, was working in the farms. They were all farm
laborers.
ETTINGER:
So your father’s English was good enough to do that, be a sort of
middleman between the farmers?
611
SEN:
Yes, Dad could communicate with the farmers and to negotiate a
contract. We were mostly a pruning contractor, pear trees, and then the
other part was celery farming and so forth and to provide labor. And
then Dad worked in the cannery, as well, and Dad provided help during
the war. They couldn’t get labor during World War II, and Dad
provided labor for them, not only to find them, but Dad provided
transportation, as well.
ETTINGER:
Do you remember what kind of work you or your sisters did as
children, like on Twitchell Island or in the cannery? Did you work in
addition to going to school?
SEN:
Yes. My sister worked in the cannery, worked in the packing shed. In
fact, all of us during the summertime worked in the farm. I was a pear
packer and an asparagus packer. All the vegetables that were grown in
the Delta that required hand labor, we were involved. That’s how we
survived, working in the packing shed and the canneries.
ETTINGER:
Did anybody in your family end up doing a little bit of migratory
agriculture work, as well, when you living in Isleton or Locke, or not?
Were your parents going off for a while working somewhere and
coming back, or not at all?
SEN:
No, we didn’t satellite anywhere, but we generally left from Locke to
the farm and come back at night. Oh, I take that back. My father,
612
during the pear season, Lincoln Chan was one of the big farmers in the
Delta and he had orchards in Walnut Creek. I remember my dad
working in Walnut Creek for about a month for the pear season and he
stayed there and finished the crop and then he came back. Other than
that, Dad never had left the town of Locke.
ETTINGER:
Did your mother work as well during the summers in canneries, or with
all the kids was she largely—
SEN:
Mom and Dad had never missed a day of work. My older sister took
care of the kids. We took turns. Mom and Dad was always employed.
They were never unemployed. Once in a while in a severe winter they
would draw unemployment insurance. They had it during those days.
So I would say out of a year’s time they might collect, at the most, one
month of unemployment insurance.
ETTINGER:
Tell me the house that you lived in in Locke. Where was it?
SEN:
The old house that we lived in was Grandfather’s house. It used to be
a schoolhouse, a Chinese schoolhouse, and Dad converted it to be our
house.
ETTINGER:
Where does it sit? Is it on the main street there?
SEN:
No, it’s on Second Street, right behind Foon Hop, the grocery store.
It’s a tin house.
613
ETTINGER:
Give me an approximate year you moved to Locke. Was it during
World War II?
SEN:
During World War II.
ETTINGER:
Okay, so ’42, ’43, something like that.
SEN:
Right.
ETTINGER:
And were all your sisters still living at home? Was everybody in that
house?
SEN:
Yes. Let’s see. There was ten of us in that little house. Dad converted
it to a four-bedroom house and a living room and a kitchen and a
bathroom. We converted that house. It was very tight, but it was
there. So fortunately, I was the only boy and I had my own room.
Mom and Dad had a room, but all the girls were in the other room, four
to a room, three to a room. But we did all right. Then Loni was the
oldest and she left for San Francisco, and then Alice was next, I
suppose, she went to St. Luke’s Hospital to be an R.N. and she went to
San Francisco to get her education. So as time went by, the older
sisters, most of them of them went to the Bay Area.
ETTINGER:
Was that common in the Locke families?
SEN:
Either San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Sacramento. We all emigrated,
left the town. There is nothing in Locke for us young people.
614
ETTINGER:
Neighbors on either side? Were there a lot of families in Locke at that
time still?
SEN:
Oh yes. Gee, we had as many as seven, eight hundred people there,
and every one of us have large families. It was a fun town. We had a
lot of fun. Of course, you know, there was not too much we could do
there except to play kickball, basketball, and kick-the-can, and fishing.
Fishing was one of the biggest hobbies. That’s why I’m a fisherman
today, because I learned how to fish when I was five, six years old.
Swimming in the Sacramento River was common. All of know how to
swim. We’d swim in the most dangerous place you could ever
imagine, you know. It was twenty feet deep and here we’re six, seven
years old swimming in twenty foot of water with heavy current, but we
managed. We lost a few kids that drowned in five foot of water,
frogging and whatnot. So not to say there were no fatality; there was.
ETTINGER:
Who would teach you how to swim, an older sibling or your parents?
SEN:
No. Us. Got together, tied a rope behind our back and we swam from
one pole to another. If you sank, they’ll pull you back up again. I look
back, I would never let my child do that. And I was the only son, and
my uncle used to chew my mother out, says, “Why are you letting
Harry to go fishing and swimming in that Sacramento River? It’s
dangerous.” But Mom and Dad were so busy working, they
615
supposedly were concerned, but not concerned enough to stop me from
going fishing and swimming.
ETTINGER:
Well, it sounds like you have some good memories of your childhood
there, good friends.
SEN:
Yes, I thought we had a good time. And to be honest with you, some
of the friends that I grew up together are very good friends today. In
fact, I’m going to fish with Albert, which was my neighbor, in Alaska.
We’re going to stay five days there together. And Dr. Waylon Lum
[phonetic] in San Francisco, he’s a pediadontist, and I called him last
week, “Hey, Waylon, you going to join me and—?”
“I just came back from Cabo.”
I said, “We’re going fishing, not going there to read.”
So he said, “All right, I’ll join you.”
ETTINGER:
Did your parents practice religion? Were they Christianized?
SEN:
My parents were Buddhists in China, but we have a First Baptist
Church in Locke, and all of us are Christian, were baptized as
American Baptist. We went to a Christian church. But my mom and
dad never have practiced Buddhism or Christianity; too busy working.
ETTINGER:
Yes, sure.
SEN:
They didn’t have time.
616
ETTINGER:
Sure. Now, tell me a little bit more about the missionary in town. Do
you remember who was—
SEN:
Yes, one of the first one was Dr. Youk [phonetic] and they went to
Seattle. In fact, their offsprings are still alive. Then another couple,
Eleanor and— Gee, I can’t think of their last name. Crane. They’re
missionaries and they lived in Sacramento, and I think they passed
away recently. Then a Chinese couple came, Dr. Youk came in and
they practiced a while. Then there’s a minister named Dixon that
practiced. So through the years we had four or five or six ministers in
Locke. In fact, the church that I go to today was one of the founders of
Locke Church, and the Crone [phonetic] sister brought it up to
Hollywood Park, and that’s the church we go to, Chinese First Baptist
Church.
ETTINGER:
So your parents were open to having you go and be baptized and get
involved in church, but they themselves—
SEN:
Yes. They didn’t have time. They believed in Christianity, but they
never practiced it. They don’t have the time; they’re too busy working.
I really look back today and, you know, Mom and Dad, I don’t know
how they raised eight kids, educated us. I was, what, five years old
when Loni went to City College. And I graduated from City College
and Humboldt State and University of Kansas and Berkeley. Most of
617
us were educated. I was lucky because I had the G.I. Bill, so I could
go to school.
But the kids in Locke, all my compadres, I would say the Locke kids
have done very well. I would say a good majority went to Berkeley
and Cal, and my cousins did, and they’re architects, they’re engineers.
Because the school that we went to in Walnut Grove, there’s a lady
named Jean Harvey. She was one of the best instructors you’ll ever
find. She could play every instrument in the band. I played in the
band; I played the saxophone. And she was athletic director. She
could play football, basketball, soccer, and she coached us. That lady
was unbelievable. And she’s a mathematician, as well, and an artist.
She just died about five years ago. I went down to see her.
ETTINGER:
And that was at the—
SEN:
Walnut Grove Elementary School.
ETTINGER:
Wow.
SEN:
And then we went to Courtland. I have to say, we have very good
instruction in the Delta, small community and all of us got educated.
Gosh, I can’t think of too many of us that didn’t go to college. The
only kids that did not go to college were during World War II and they
had to go in the military. When they came back home, now they’re
twenty-one, twenty-two years old. Many of them did not go to college.
618
They finished high school and they went to the military, they came
back. So maybe going to work was easier than to go to school. So
during that time after the war, there were a lot of opportunities for
work. So they could work at McClellan Field, Mather Field, and they
found a trade and they worked.
ETTINGER:
Jean Harvey, was that what the Oriental school was called? Is that
where she worked or was it—
SEN:
Jean Harvey School. She was our principal.
ETTINGER:
Yes, at the Oriental school, at the Chinese school.
SEN:
At both schools. And after a while I was in Oriental school for a few
years, they consolidated. They abolished the white school. Now
they’re not segregated. I think I had about four years as such and then
we consolidated.
ETTINGER:
So third, fourth, fifth grade, something like that?
SEN:
Right. And it was a better school then because as always, education is
always has a diverse group. You learn from each other.
ETTINGER:
You were pretty young, but what do you remember about that
experience? Was there resistance? Did it lead to conflict putting the
school together among kids?
619
SEN:
Yes, we did. We had fights galore. And during the time we were
separated, we used to have intramural football and basketball. Asians
as a rule are a lot bigger and mature compared to the Caucasian people.
So when I’m six years old and a Caucasian fellow was six years old,
we’re generally bigger and we’re more agile and more athletic, so we
always had competition. It didn’t make any difference. But I noticed
that was happening. A lot of us Asians didn’t have a good background
in English, therefore we’d sit back. I flunked the third grade myself
because I didn’t speak English, so I’m a year older than the Caucasian
kids, so we’re bigger and maybe a little wiser, streetwise, not
academically. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
But there was a little rivalry?
SEN:
There was rivalry, no question about it, but very subtle. In our days
there was no such thing as big fights; it was just fun things.
ETTINGER:
You referred to Locke the first time as a ghetto in the sense that it was
an ethnic ghetto.
SEN:
It is.
ETTINGER:
You lived among other Chinese and I guess you walked to school.
SEN:
We walked to school, except when it rained and Dad didn’t have to
work, so he drove us to Walnut Grove.
620
ETTINGER:
This is really fascinating. When you were growing up as a child, did
your mother, did she always cook traditional Chinese food or did it
start to shift to American or what?
SEN:
We always ate Chinese food three times a week. Breakfast, lunch we
brown-bagged to school, but we always ate Chinese food, until my
sister went to high school and I got older and they have a homemaking
course.
ETTINGER:
Home economics, yes.
SEN:
Home economics. So my sister wanted to practice spaghetti, lasagnas,
and all these other food on us as youngsters. So that’s the time when
they started introducing American dishes in the household. Otherwise
it was all Chinese food. But nighttime, my dad and mom would set up
the dishes and say, “Alice Margaret, this is what I want you to cook
tonight,” and my sister did all the cooking. Mom and Dad would come
home and they don’t have to cook, because they’re too busy. But
basically we ate Chinese food. I would say that that pertains to all the
families. Everybody ate Chinese food. So we’re very good at
chopsticks. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
And you shopped right there in Locke?
SEN:
Yes, Yuen Chong and Foon Hop, yes. And the grocery store, usually
go to Sacramento wholesale store, like Purita [phonetic] and whatever,
621
and they bring the groceries back. I worked in the Yuen Chong store
after school.
ETTINGER:
Oh, you did?
SEN:
Yes, and then go to Chinese school, too.
ETTINGER:
You were a stockboy or sales?
SEN:
Stockboy and sales, yes. Seventy-five cents an hour. That was very
good.
ETTINGER:
And you were there working for your grandfather?
SEN:
Beg your pardon? No. At that time, no, I was just working for Yuen
Chong.
ETTINGER:
Oh, okay. Was there a second grocery store in town?
SEN:
Two, Foon Hop and Yuen Chong. Yuen Chong was the bigger one.
ETTINGER:
This is great. This is exactly the kind of thing—[brief interruption]
ETTINGER: your family living in that house growing up, your parents came home in the
evenings. Did your father go out and socialize or your mother go out
and socialize?
SEN:
Mom and Dad never had time. Go and work, come home, make sure
that we’re doing fine. We would go to New Year’s, we’ll have a
function. We might even go to San Francisco, Sacramento.
Weekends, there’s a movie theater in Walnut Grove. During the
622
holidays we’d all get in our car and go to see the movie. But
essentially, Mom and Dad never had any time. My dad insisted that
we have a television in the house. We were the first family in Locke to
have a television set. It was a Hoffman set, tiny little television, to
keep us home, because I have a tendency to go to the pool hall and
shoot pool. I’m a pretty good pool player, because that’s all you could
do. So Dad said, “No, you’re staying home. I want you to study.
You’ll stay home, so we’ll have a television here.” So Dad insisted we
would be entertained at home. And Dad was a music lover. He has a
record player, but it’s always Chinese music. I still have his records.
ETTINGER:
Did he play an instrument or did he—
SEN:
No. No, I’m sure Dad would love to, but there isn’t enough time. But
my uncles did, they’re violinists and whatnot. whatnot
ETTINGER:
Have they brought things from China? I’m trying to visualize your
house. Had your mother or father brought important things with them
from China, things that were on the wall or furnishings or trunks or
anything like that?
SEN:
Nothing. They didn’t bring anything over. Dad didn’t leave me any
artifact. The artifact I have now is my dad’s that I brought back from
China.
ETTINGER:
Explain that.
623
SEN:
When [Richard M.] Nixon went in in 1980, I was there in ’81, I went
back to China to visit my cousin who was taking care of our real estate.
Dad had some watches and some Chinaware, and you see we have it in
this living room, small little knickknacks that I brought back that
belonged to my father and my grandfather. That’s the only thing that I
inherited from the family is when I went back to China to bring it back.
ETTINGER:
Did your parents monitor what children you played with or who you
could play with, or did they have any sort of rules that you remember
as a child?
SEN:
Not really. Don’t get into any fights, and we did periodically. In fact,
the fellow I’m going to Alaska with, one of the biggest fights I ever
had was him. He was a little bigger than I was. Now, he wouldn’t do
it now, because I’m a lot bigger. But during that time we had battles
and they were very trivial things.
ETTINGER:
Typical of kids.
SEN:
Beg your pardon?
ETTINGER:
Typical of kids.
SEN:
Yes, typical. But Mom and Dad made sure that we’d behave
ourselves. “I don’t want to come home and have some parents come
here and say you did this, this, and this.” So that’s the only instruction
we had.
624
ETTINGER:
The thing that strikes me about Locke in the forties and fifties when
you were growing up is that there was all these families and then there
were also all the bachelors, boarders. Did they intermingle or not? I
mean, there’s boarding houses, right, several boarding houses, and then
you also have families. Did you intermingle with them? Is it all one
community or was it—
SEN:
No, Locke is a very small town, and in the evening they all lined up on
benches on the main street and sit and talk. The time that I
intermingled with them was when my dad hired them to work in the
farm and then I’d get to talk to them when I’m working with my dad
on the farm. But there was very little interaction between us people
and the bachelors, except that— Well, we’d do a lot of skating in the
old days, metal skates, not the plastic roller skate. And we’d go up and
down, and some of the bachelors would yell at us, “Hey, get out of our
way,” and that’s about it. But other than that, we communicated right
and we never had any problems.
Rarely is there any crime in Locke. Nobody went to jail. Nobody got
into trouble. I think the biggest trouble we had was shooting pigeons
on the railroad track and carving our names on the railroad track—they
were all redwood then—and they told us not to and we didn’t. But
nobody ever got into trouble with the law, and that’s probably the same
with Courtland and Walnut Grove and all the other little towns.
625
ETTINGER:
Now, I know there had been in the twenties and thirties lots of
gambling halls, lots of prostitution, but I guess the impression that the
1930s had been difficult for a lot of those businesses and so going into
the 1940s there was a little bit less of that. Is that true?
SEN:
No, I think there was more of it during the war, because there were
more laborers in town, bachelors and whatnot. In the little town of
Locke we had one, two, three brothels. I used to deliver to them
grocery when I worked at Yuen Chong. When we were kids, we liked
to deliver because we’d always get a tip. A dime is a lot of money.
I’ve been to all the brothels by delivering. [laughs]
ETTINGER:
The brothels, were they all white prostitutes?
SEN:
They were all white prostitute and they would only take in Asian
customer. There’s always a night watchman there, their peephole and
whatnot. The gambling hall is the same. No Caucasian could go into a
brothel. No Caucasian could go into the gambling hall. There was a
night watchman with a little kerosene stove outside and then they’re
watching the gambling hall. The brothel, they have a peephole and
they do it themselves.
ETTINGER:
So you didn’t have sort of white itinerant workers or others able to
come to town and really— I mean, those forms of entertainment were
for Asians?
626
SEN:
Asian, mostly Filipino. Filipino were all bachelors. Rarely a Filipino
would have a Filipino wife. I don’t know the immigration law, why
they didn’t bring their wives over. But I would say essentially the
heaviest customer for the brothel, as well as the gambling hall, were
Filipino, Filipino labor. My dad hired a lot of Filipinos.
ETTINGER:
Where were they living?
SEN:
They lived in labor camps in the individual farm. Every farmer had a
labor camp just to accommodate the workers. They have a kitchen and
the whole facility. Then in the nighttime when they want
entertainment, they’ll come into the town of Locke or Walnut Grove or
Courtland and buy supplies. They do their own cooking.
ETTINGER:
Maybe get brought in on a Saturday for shopping, get trucked in or
walk in?
SEN:
Yes, right.
ETTINGER:
And did the Chinese residents and the Filipino, heavily Filipino
clientele intermingle fine?
SEN:
They intermingle fine, but they never—I don’t remember. Maybe one
or two families would allow their daughter to marry a Filipino man. I
can only think of one, two family. They said, “No, you don’t marry
Filipino.” So there is that little segregation, too, but it’s subtle.
ETTINGER:
How many gambling halls were there when you were growing up?
627
SEN:
One, two, three.
ETTINGER:
One of them is what’s now the Dai Loy Museum.
SEN:
Dai Loy, right. That belonged to Ping Lee’s father.
ETTINGER:
Okay. What was the name of the gambling hall?
SEN:
Dai Loy.
ETTINGER:
Oh, that was actually the name of the—Okay. And were the other ones
also on the main street there?
SEN:
They’re all on the main street. One across the street and one further
down. My uncle owned one of them, too.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really? Which uncle?
SEN:
I’ll never forget my uncle would always ask my mom, “You know, you
got a lot of kids. Why don’t you join me in the gambling hall. It’s
very lucrative.”
Mom said, “No. No way would I take money from anybody.” Mom
won’t do it.
ETTINGER:
Was that her brother?
SEN:
Her brother, yes. But Uncle offered it to my mom, Mom said—I
remember it distinctly, Mother said, “No, you can have that money. I
don’t want it.” She just refused to do it. And Uncle felt bad for mom
628
because you’ve got a lot of kids and having a gambling hall is very
lucrative, but she refused to do it.
ETTINGER:
Especially in a town of bachelors who don’t have much of—the way
Connie King and others have described the gambling halls is that they
were more than just a place to go gamble for the men, that it was a
social life, go drink tea.
SEN:
Certainly.
ETTINGER:
Did your father recruit workers at—describe what you perceived them
to be. Were they more than just a gaming, you know, literally
gambling centers?
SEN:
It’s a social hall, gambling and social gathering. That’s their way of
life. That’s their only entertainment they had. They’re not bilingual.
None of the bachelors I can remember are bilingual; they only spoke
Chinese. So they got together and talk about, “Hey, that farm has
good—.” One of the things that was very competitive in all the farms
down the Delta is that you have to employ a good cook, because the
men would get together, “Hey, we’ll go to work here next year because
they have good food there.” So therefore, you have to have a good
cook in these farmhouses if you want good employees. So the criteria
for finding good employees is to employ a good cook and be willing to
provide a good menu for your staff.
629
I used to eat with them when I picked fruit with the men and, gosh, if
you don’t learn how to eat fast, you’re in trouble, because it’s family
style. And you better get there in time, because they always rang a big
bell and they rang it when it’s time to eat, so you run, wash up and go
and eat, and you better eat fast or else there’s nothing left on the table.
So the criteria for having good employees, to hire a good cook and
have good food, because the men will get together and say, “Hey, go to
work for McCormick or work for Chan or Wong, because they have
better food.”
ETTINGER:
And around the Locke area there must have been, what, thirty, forty
different farms?
SEN:
Oh, yes, more than that, yes. Our family had the furthest farm in the
Delta, which is Twitchell Island. We were way down on the bottom
and it works all the way up to Sacramento, the farms, and they’re all
sharecropper.
ETTINGER:
So white owners that are—it’s neighboring to their own farm or maybe
they just hold the title and sharecrop it all? The owners of the land are
white, right?
SEN:
Yes, always. We couldn’t own the land.
ETTINGER:
Right. And were they sort of distant? In other words, were the
landowners not even living nearby in many cases?
630
SEN:
They have their nice home there. Big white houses, ten-bedroom
houses. They don’t have to do anything.
ETTINGER:
But all the land is just sharecropped?
SEN:
All sharecropper. They done very well. Of course, there’s depression
time and nobody made any money; even the owner didn’t. So we had
our bad days, but as a whole, I think the prosperous time was during
World War II when the food was important, tomatoes and everything,
and onions and whatnot. The produce business had really inflated, so
everybody did very well during World War II. Maybe that’s why we
have wars. I don’t know. It’s the economy. Something that I’m not
aware of.
ETTINGER:
Yes, World War II certainly was a real boost. It was probably great for
your father’s contracting work, too.
SEN:
Yes. They can’t find laborers. All the young people were in the
military, so they have to find help.
ETTINGER:
I guess during the thirties there had been more whites doing farm work,
even in the Delta? I know in California generally the Okies and others
came and began to do a lot of the agricultural labor in the thirties. Do
you remember whites as farm workers in the Delta much?
SEN:
You know, when I was picking tomatoes or help cut celery, I don’t
remember working with a Caucasian worker, it’s always Asian, but
631
I’m sure there were a few Mexicans, very few blacks. Even in my
school, I’ve only went to school all these years, from grammar school
to high school, and I only can remember one black student all these
years. So that’s mean there weren’t too many in the area. Caucasian,
yes, no problem. But all my friends that are Caucasian, they never
worked. They never have to work. The one that I chum with every
Friday, Dennis Noble [phonetic], his father was a pharmacist and he
owned the drugstore, and Dennis never had to work a day. He was an
aeronautic teacher at City College.
ETTINGER:
When you were in high school—and where did you go to high school?
SEN:
Courtland.
ETTINGER:
Did you work before or after school during the school year or just
during the summers?
SEN:
During the summer, and when I was going to high school I worked at
Yuen Chong after school, and I worked a few hours and then I would
go to Chinese school. I didn’t have any breaks.
ETTINGER:
Did you take the bus up there? Did they bus you?
SEN:
There was a bus to pick us up at Locke and to take us back.
ETTINGER:
And so several of your sisters were probably in high school at the same
time as you?
632
SEN:
Yes, one sister, and then my younger sister went to high school with
me.
ETTINGER:
So you worked after school. Then you would go work on the farms
during the summer?
SEN:
During the summer and on weekends. During tomato season, four or
five of us would get together and get a bucket and our lunch, and we’ll
stand on the levee and wait for the truck to pick us up on Saturday and
Sunday. We’ll work on Saturday and Sunday and work on the farm.
ETTINGER:
For a day and then come back at night?
SEN:
Come back, yes. Most of our work was piecework. Nobody paid us
by the hour when on the farm. That means you better work fast if you
want to make any money. I mean, he’s not going to pay you by the
hours. I’ve never had a job in the farm that they paid me by the hour;
it’s always piecework. In other words, the faster you are, the more
money you make.
ETTINGER:
And your sisters were working, as well?
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
How were your earnings handled? Family or—
SEN:
All the money goes to Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad have never gave
us any spending money except when we needed it. They had to make
633
sure, if we had to pay for lunch, make sure all of us get paid. All our
clothing, everything was paid by Mom and Dad. So we never had to
have any money, but everything we made goes to Mom and Dad.
ETTINGER:
We were talking about your childhood generally during grade school
or sort of high school age. Did you go up to Sacramento often?
SEN:
Yes, weekends.
ETTINGER:
And where would you go?
SEN:
We would hop on the produce truck at Yuen Chong and go to
Sacramento and see a movie or go to the dentist. So we’d go to
Sacramento to see the dentist and then we’ll go to a movie. You know
it’s like ten cents for a movie.
ETTINGER:
Where would your mom, for instance, shop for clothes?
SEN:
Sacramento. We’ll go up there maybe once a month or every two
months to shop.
ETTINGER:
What section of Sacramento? Was it downtown?
SEN:
K Street. Yes, that’s where all the stores were.
ETTINGER:
And what about San Francisco? Did your family go to San Francisco
often?
SEN:
Yes, we went to San Francisco only when there’s an occasion, like a
wedding, a banquet, then we’ll go to San Francisco rarely. Gee, I don’t
634
remember going to San Francisco in my lifetime down on the Delta
more than a half a dozen times. I have uncles up there and my sister
was living out there, so it was just an occasion. Rarely would we say,
“Let’s go to San Francisco to go shopping.” There was no such thing.
If there’s a wedding in San Francisco, we have to go because it’s my
uncle’s family or somebody, and then we have to go. The Chinese are
very traditional. If you’re invited to go to a wedding or a funeral, you
will go. They’re very good that way.
ETTINGER:
Your father owned a car when you were growing up?
SEN:
Yes, we’ve always had a car. Dad said he bought the first Model T
Ford brand new. Yes, always had a car.
ETTINGER:
Did he transport his own workers?
SEN:
Yes, transported his own workers.
ETTINGER:
Did he have a truck as well or just—
SEN:
Never had a truck. We would sit six in a car, five or six. The cars
were big in the old days.
ETTINGER:
Right. You mentioned that there were a lot of ties to Sacramento and a
lot of ties to San Francisco. Were people from Sacramento and San
Francisco, Chinese people, also coming back to Locke to visit a lot?
SEN:
To work. To work.
635
ETTINGER:
Oh, to work.
SEN:
And to visit, as well. We have a Chinese Association in Locke and
annually they’ll have big banquets and whatnot and they’ll come into
Locke with all their dignitaries and whatnot. If you go to Locke, you’ll
see a building there, Bung Kung Tong [phonetic], you know, it’s the
association. If you go inside, [unclear] picture. We used to have
banquets there. We have a big kitchen in the back, and I remember
every time they had a party I was a waiter there.
ETTINGER:
Oh, really. What kind of association was it exactly?
SEN:
It’s the Tong Association. In the old days they’re very, very
competitive. There was a lot of killing in the Tong. Mom used to tell
me that San Francisco Tong, another organization, will come in and
snub out a guy in the bed and nobody will say a word. You don’t dare
say anything. So it’s like the Mafia. They had that, too. During the
early forties, I remember seeing all these bachelors going out to the
levee and practice with their pistol shooting, on the levee. I witnessed
that when I was a young person.
ETTINGER:
And they were members of the Tong Association?
SEN:
Well, just about every businessman belonged to a Tong, with the
exception of my uncle and my father. They refused. They won’t join
them. It’s a protection organization.
636
ETTINGER:
Did that cause them problems not joining it?
SEN:
Not really, because we’re really not in the limelight in the business.
We didn’t have a big business; we’re just farm labor. We were small.
My uncle might have, because he was very active in the community.
ETTINGER:
He ran the gambling hall?
SEN:
No, that was after the Tongs. There was a stage of time when the
Tongs were not existing anymore. I think after the war the Tongs
started to fade out. There wasn’t a need for them, I guess. It’s nothing
but a corruption organization. These people got together and they
formed these organizations for money. They’re not going to protect
anybody. We have a deputy sheriff in the Delta. We didn’t need them.
But it did exist.
ETTINGER:
You mentioned that your parents encouraged you to study Chinese
because you think maybe they thought you might go back to China at
some point.
SEN:
They always talked like that, Mom and Dad. They said, “You better
learn Chinese. You may go back to China.”
ETTINGER:
Did that ever seem to go away? Did there come a point in the fifties or
later when it seemed that your parents realized that was not going to
happen?
637
SEN:
I thought at that time, it was after the war and things were stabilized,
and after the war, my father and mother became naturalized citizen, so
then that type of thinking was out of the question.
ETTINGER:
They still had family. Your mother’s family was still there, right?
They still had lots of family in China.
SEN:
Grandma was still in China and we have cousins back there. We don’t
have immediate family; all of them are here. In fact, I don’t have too
many back in China now. All the cousins are in San Francisco, all
doing well.
ETTINGER:
Locke slowly, through the forties and fifties, I guess, began to lose a
lot of its Chinese residents. Was that a function of children leaving
home?
SEN:
Attrition. All the children have left Locke. They went to school and
they found jobs elsewhere, L.A., San Francisco, and the older people
got old and they died. And a lot of the older people have joined their
offspring living in—like my mother lived with me for twelve years. I
added an apartment in the back of this house. When Dad passed on, I
made sure that Mom, not being bilingual, living in Locke, I said,
“Mom, live with me over here.” So Mom lived with me for twelve
years before she passed on. So it happened to many families, the
parents went with their children. So slowly there weren’t too many
638
people in Locke, except for Gene Chan’s [phonetic] mother, she stayed
to the last. She didn’t want to leave Locke. One of the guys you’re
going to interview, Gene.
ETTINGER:
Oh yes.
SEN:
His mother insisted she stay in Locke. And even his sister, Myrtle, she
moved in with her daughter here for the last fifteen years. So that’s
how it has slowly dwindled to a few Chinese.
ETTINGER:
The gambling halls were closed up in the early 1950s, is that right?
SEN:
Yes, they were closing up. I don’t know how they got through
gambling. In California you can’t gamble, but somebody got paid off
in the sheriff’s office. Mr. Lee and a few of those people, they got paid
off. These things happen.
ETTINGER:
Of course.
SEN:
It’s harmless, really, because it’s a ghetto area and the gambling is
among themselves and the laborers. I don’t see any harm to it, but the
law says no gambling in California.
ETTINGER:
It’s been ignored for a long time, I guess.
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What about the brothels? Do you remember when they closed?
639
SEN:
I would say when I left in 1953, I finished high school and I went to
college, I would say shortly after. I would say the brothel didn’t stay
longer than maybe ’55, after I left. Because, you know, I was one of
the few teenagers leaving Locke, our group, and after that there
weren’t too many. Everett Ling [phonetic] was one of them that came
a little later, maybe two or three years later. But I would say about two
or three years after I left Locke, the brothels were closing.
ETTINGER:
When you were in high school, what were you aspiring to do? What
were you starting to think that you would like to do?
SEN:
Well, I got talked into—my background in math and chemistry was
fairly good. I got good grades. I got fairly good grades anyway in
high school, not even studying. But when I went to City College, I
took up engineering, and after a semester I realized that that’s not my
cup of tea, just not my thing sitting on a desk drawing, even though I
draw now. I draw because I like to, not necessity.
But them I ran into a guy that was majoring in ichthyology, fisheries,
and I liked biology, botany, and life science I enjoyed. So he says,
“Gee, Harry, why don’t you look into it?” And he geared me to
Humboldt State. Humboldt State is one of the finest fishery schools in
California other than Berkley. Berkeley is more academic and
Humboldt State had their hatchery and all of that.
640
ETTINGER:
More practical.
SEN:
Practical, right. So I geared myself for Humboldt State, and I went to
Humboldt State and graduated from there in fisheries. Of course, prior
to then, I was in the military for two years, Korean War.
ETTINGER:
After high school?
SEN:
Right after high school, seven of us got together, “Hey, Harry, let’s
join the military so we can get the G.I. Bill. They’re going to close
that G.I. Bill very shortly. You want to do it, you better do it now.”
So seven of us, Harold, Ed, Albert, four from Locke and three from
Sacramento, seven joined the U.S. Army and we volunteered for the
draft. So we scattered all over Germany, Japan, and I ended up in
Grizzly Flat in Sausalito. I was a cook. One of my buddies said,
“Harry, you’ve got to tell them that you’re a good cook.” I’m not a
cook, but he says, “You only work every other day, you get to eat
anything you want. You don’t have to wear a military uniform; you
have whites on. That’s the best job you can find the military.” So I
volunteered to be a cook. I was a cook all the way through the
military.
ETTINGER:
Did you go overseas?
641
SEN:
From Berkeley to San Francisco, that was overseas. [laughs] They
wouldn’t let me join the Veteran of Foreign War because I didn’t go
overseas. I was the only one out of seven that didn’t go overseas.
ETTINGER:
How did your parents feel about that, you joining the military?
SEN:
They loved it, as long as I didn’t go overseas.
ETTINGER:
But they must have been a little worried at first.
SEN:
Well, Dad coached me a little bit when I was leaving high school. He
said, “Harry, you know you’re going to have to spend time in the
military, during the draft. You eventually will. You might as well go
in now,” when I told him I was going to join with the seven and come
back and go to college. So Dad did a little coaching and said, “Do it,
get it over with, come back and then you get the G.I. Bill, too, and then
you can go to college,” which I did.
I left the military three months before my two years. You have to
serve twenty-four months. If your school had started prior to your
twenty-four months, you could leave early, so I left three months
earlier. They allowed me to do that. So I didn’t spend twenty-four
months in the military because I wanted to go to college.
ETTINGER:
When you’d gone to Courtland High School, that was integrated?
SEN:
Yes, it was integrated.
642
ETTINGER:
And then you went to City College, you went into the military and then
City College.
SEN:
City College.
ETTINGER:
But you’d grown up in a very Chinese town and then moved out into—
SEN:
It wasn’t easy, especially to come up to Sacramento. We’re country
boys. But fortunately there’s Asian in Sacramento, as well, that were a
little more outgoing than what we were subjected to coming up in
Locke. But we got together very well and we had things in common,
and as time went by, I would say the most difficult thing for all of us
leaving Locke to go to college, the most difficult thing is language.
Even today I would say I have a hard time writing and expressing
myself in the English language, even though I spent umpteen years in
college. It’s not the same compared to my daughter or my
granddaughter. Gosh, they’re a whiz. English is just a snap to them,
because they didn’t have the barrier of it being a second language.
Chinese was our first language, English was second. So it made a
difference. And even today if you talk to people like myself in their
seventies now, that were born and raised in Locke, they carry a
Chinese accent. You can pick it up right away. I happen to hang
around with a lot of Caucasian and I’ve kind of lost it a little bit, but I
can still have a hard time pronouncing the Rs. I can’t roll my Rs. You
643
can pick it up. On the telephone somebody that’s real sharp can pick
up that you are Asian. So we have that.
So in my career I wish I was a better writer, but because of the
handicap from not being able to express myself in English, to write
early in life, it’s difficult. It’s not that I can’t do it; I can’t do it as well
as I should.
ETTINGER:
When you went into the military, did your unit have other Asians in it
or was it—
SEN:
Mostly Caucasian.
ETTINGER:
And was that an issue or a problem at all?
SEN:
No, it’s to my advantage. Now I’m learning. I’m not stuck in the mud.
I have no complaints except that you do with what you have.
ETTINGER:
I have just a few more areas I want to go with, but this is great and I
really appreciate it.
SEN:
I’m trying to give you my true lifestyle in Locke and what I went
through.
ETTINGER:
That’s exactly what we want.
SEN:
I just want to be honest with you what took place and then you can
pick out what you want.
644
ETTINGER:
Exactly. That’s exactly the process and it’s really good, the things that
help us visualize Locke, what it was like, are really helpful.
Getting back to language for just a second, I know Chinese was the
spoken language at home. Was that true all the way through high
school?
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
What about with your sisters?
SEN:
Yes. Whenever I’d see my sister in high school, we spoke Chinese.
When I’d see my friends in high school, we spoke Chinese.
ETTINGER:
So when you’re outside the classroom walking somewhere, you’re
speaking Chinese?
SEN:
Unless it’s a Caucasian person that doesn’t know Chinese. Chinese
was our basic language. And even today when I run into Locke boys,
there goes Chinese again. To be honest with you, a lot of us have lost
Chinese. I happened to maintain it because Mother lived with me for
twelve years and I kept it up. And I was an interpreter for the
Sacramento County Health Department in Chinese, because being a
Chinese person and being bilingual, you might not know all the
medical terminology in the health department, syphilis, gonorrhea,
well-baby clinic, birth control, all the communicable diseases, the
average Chinese would not know them unless you learned it, because I
645
have to deal with the public. So I translate for the doctors and for all
the departments in Chinese. So I was very fortunate that this was
something I—
[Doorbell rings. Begin new file.]
ETTINGER:
Brief interruption there. I think we were talking language and that
Chinese remained strong for you because your mother had lived with
you for a while.
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
But for a lot of the others—
SEN:
And being a translator helped, yes. And I liked to spend time in
restaurants, Chinese restaurants, because I wanted to learn how to cook
back there, and none of these cooks are bilingual. So I was very
fortunate to be able to communicate with them, especially the
condiment and the different style of cooking. So you have to
communicate with them. And I picked up another dialect that’s not my
dialect. I come from Locke, that’s another dialect, and you leave
Locke and you go to Sacramento or San Francisco and it’s another
dialect. Dialects are determined where you lived in China, and within
half a mile they have another dialect and they’re significantly different.
But I’m very fortunate to be able to learn all the different dialects. I
can speak four dialects. So I could communicate with all of them.
646
And I just learned it because I have an interest in language and I like it
because I could communicate. It’s nice to speak Spanish if I’m with
Spanish workers, speak different dialect, and I can pick it up right
away what dialect you would speak fluently. Even in the Chinese
community I could pick it up and I could speak that dialect with you.
I’m not the best at it, but enough to communicate.
ETTINGER:
While we were taking that break, I was thinking about a few more
things about Locke and your childhood. On the main street of Locke
there were some brothels, there were two restaurants, several gambling
halls. What else? What other stores do you—
SEN:
Pool halls, two of them, a dry goods store. Harold Soon’s father and
the Chin owned the other one. There’s a dry goods store there owned
by the Chung family, very prominent people today, they’re all doctors
and pharmacists. I have to say the Locke boys and girls have done
very well, all professional people, doctors, engineers. Dr. Go
[phonetic]. I could name—
ETTINGER:
That’s amazing.
SEN:
Yes, there’s so many, because our parents stressed education and
everybody said, “You know, if you’re going to go to college, I’m going
to go, too.” You know, that’s just the word. And the thing about going
to Berkeley, you got to have pretty good grades, and you compete and
647
we help each other. The competition wasn’t to not help you, and we
all help each other. So we’ve done very well.
ETTINGER:
So the Chung family ran the dry goods store.
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
At one point I think you said you liked to shoot pool.
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
So when you were junior high, high school, were you allowed to go
down and do that?
SEN:
Oh yes, we wandered the whole town. I know every inch of the town,
every tunnel, every hiding place. We’d all get together.
ETTINGER:
So was the pool hall a place where youngsters like you that came from
the families would be shooting pool, but also some of the bachelors
shooting pool?
SEN:
Yes, we intermixed very well. It’s a soda fountain, too. The
summertime we’ll have watermelon, cantaloupe, ice creams,
milkshakes. One part of it is a soda fountain, the other is a pool hall,
and the other side is keno ticket, the gambling hall, affiliated with the
gambling hall, so all of us intermixed. My weightlifting room is back
in the pool hall, so we worked out at night and weight lift.
ETTINGER:
Who ran that? That was just part of the—
648
SEN:
The owner’s son. It’s just something we put together.
ETTINGER:
Did you play sports in high school?
SEN:
Yes, I was a track man. In fact, I ran in Presidio. I was a high-jumper,
a high-hurdler, broad-jumper. I did very well in athletics.
ETTINGER:
And your parents supported that?
SEN:
Oh yes. Never to play football. They won’t allow me to play football.
Basketball, fine. Track, fine. Because you get hurt and I got to work.
Everybody gets hurt in football sooner or later.
ETTINGER:
That’s true. I want to ask you something else about the town in the
forties and fifties. Was it busier and more vibrant?
SEN:
Oh, it’s flourishing.
ETTINGER:
On weekends or on—
SEN:
Weekend, weekday, the place was packed with people. Everybody
filtered into town to get grocery and entertainment. It was a lot fun for
us people, the youngsters, and all of us, gosh, there must have been
about a hundred of us teenagers and we’d get together and either roller
skate or shoot pool or gossip out in the street. So it was a fun town.
Everybody had a good time, in my opinion. Then on weekends,
weekday, we wanted to go fishing, all of us fished. Even the girls
fished. Don’t need much; a cane pole and a line to go fishing.
649
ETTINGER:
The main street and a lot of the streets were paved. Were there cars?
SEN:
Yes, very narrow.
ETTINGER:
Yes, it’s very narrow.
SEN:
You could barely get by. We parked on both sides and still a car could
go through, and when they’re halfway through, they can’t make it; had
to back up.
ETTINGER:
Was it still one-way?
SEN:
It was never one-way, never designated one-way. See who comes first,
and then this guy backs out. And there’s cars on both sides. I don’t
know how we got through. In the older days the car were wider.
ETTINGER:
They were very wide, yes. What about dating? Did you have a chance
to date? Were you encouraged to date, or prohibited?
SEN:
I never dated until I got out of high school, and it’s no fun dating
somebody you grew up with, and you know all the girls there. And we
weren’t allowed subtly to date outside of a Chinese girl. I never dated
a Caucasian, a Filipino or Japanese. My mom and dad said, “No, you
don’t.”
ETTINGER:
Even after you were out of high school?
SEN:
During high school time, and after that, they had no control. But you
know, you follow a trend. You don’t change too much.
650
ETTINGER:
Was your story similar for your friends, the other teenage boys also not
dating [unclear]?
SEN:
I really don’t know. We would never discuss that. However, all my
friends never dated other people either, and they all married Chinese
girls, all my friends. So I would say so. I can’t speak for them.
ETTINGER:
Sure. Were there, when you were growing up, a community garden?
SEN:
Yes, always. We called it the Victory Garden during World War II.
ETTINGER:
Tell me a little bit about that. Did your parents have a designated plot?
How was it arranged?
SEN:
There was an open land in the back, and my uncle had a farm back
there and a chicken coop and where we roasted our pig. There was a
shed back there. And Yuen Chong had theirs, and in between there
was a lot of vacant area, so everybody would go out there and just
stake an area and wanted to grow vegetables, so every one of us had a
little plot. Probably the biggest plot was my mom and dad, because
next to my uncle’s and they’d always established theirs. So they raised
their pigs, the chickens, the ducks, because they have a business and
they roast it. So they go to Galt to the auction and they buy it and raise
it there, and of course they have to feed every day.
ETTINGER:
Raise it around the edge of the garden there
651
SEN:
Yes. All fenced in. It’s gone now. There used to be garages there and
we have a fenced-in area and there would be chickens and pigs and
whatnot back there. But the garden area was fun. We grew
everything; asparagus, peas, beans, potato, and it was nice.
ETTINGER:
And that’s something you were tasked to take care of?
SEN:
I have to water every day. You know, you got to go to school, you got
to work, Mom and Dad are busy, but we took turns. There was seven
of us in the family. Loni’s gone to San Francisco. But we’re very
good that way. Mom insists that you make— It’s hot in the
summertime, you better water the melon, you know, and Mom and
Dad would check on us. They’ll tell whether it’s been watered or
fertilized.
ETTINGER:
Was there a hose out there?
SEN:
Oh, there’s hills bibs all over, very convenient. It’s not like that
anymore. Before it was just unreal; everybody had a plot and it was
very manicured.
ETTINGER:
That’s what I’ve heard.
SEN:
Oh, it was really nice. Too bad I don’t have any pictures of it.
ETTINGER:
I wish I could see some pictures of it. Connie [King] was telling me
that same thing, that it was just really very well groomed.
652
SEN:
Well groomed. And anybody who wanted a vegetable, they’re
welcome to it, because you can’t eat it all. You’d trade and give it
away.
ETTINGER:
That’s what I was going to ask. It wasn’t for selling commercially at
all, it was just—
SEN:
Never. Never did we sell anything. It was always for us.
ETTINGER:
So you had your supply, and probably year ‘round something was in
the ground.
SEN:
Yes, always. In the wintertime we’ll probably have turnips or
asparagus. Summertime, tomatoes, pepper. You name it, we had it.
And everybody would grow a little differently, so we could trade.
“Hey, you need some of this?” It was fun.
ETTINGER:
I’ll bet it was. It sounds like that. And who was mostly responsible in
the family? The wife, the father, or the children, or was it sort of a
woman’s work being the garden tender in the family typically?
SEN:
I’d say the women.
ETTINGER:
And did your mother seem to enjoy that?
SEN:
[laughs] I have to say my mother ran the household. My dad was the
more subtle, but every family is different. Mom ran the household.
She was tough. She had to be, raising all of us. But she could never
653
drive. Dad tried to teach Mom to drive, but she could never drive. She
didn’t have the nerve. I remember Dad trying to teach her on the farm
how to drive, but Mom never did caught on, so Mom never drove.
ETTINGER:
She must have been a very strong woman.
SEN:
Very, very strong. I can remember when I was gone and I found out
from Tommy King, Connie’s husband, “That mother of yours is too
much.” There’s a lot of tourists that come by and take pictures of
people working in the yard. “They took a picture of your mom. Your
mom chased them all the way up to the levee there and grabbed his
camera, took the—.” I don’t know how she took the film out.
“Stripped the film out and said, ‘You can’t take my picture.’” Mom
was like that. She just said, “No is no.”
ETTINGER:
That’s great. That must have been in the sixties or a little bit later?
SEN:
Mom was in her probably sixties, yes.
ETTINGER:
When did tourists start to—
SEN:
Oh, when I left Locke in ’53, I would say about five years later that all
of us were gone, there were no youngsters there anymore, so the
tourists are coming in.
ETTINGER:
And you would go back and visit your mother?
654
SEN:
Every weekend have dinner with Mom and Dad. We lived here in this
house. I built this in 1960.
ETTINGER:
We’re in Land Park.
SEN:
Here, my first house and I’ve stayed here since. I built this house.
ETTINGER:
Wow.
SEN:
So weekends Mom would call up, “Hey, you’re coming down for
dinner.” So Sunday we’d go down because Mom would have fish for
us, all the vegetables for us. And even when I was going to Humboldt
State, Mother would have all the groceries. I had three roommates,
never had to pay for food. I’ll come down every month, drive from
Eureka down to Locke to pick up all the groceries, take it up to Eureka,
and I was the cook for the apartment house. I had one, two, three,
three roommates. It was fun.
ETTINGER:
Were your parents able to stop working at a reasonable age or did they
work right up until—
SEN:
Yes, Dad had a heart murmur and he wasn’t too healthy, so Dad quit
working— When did Dad quit? It’s been so long now. Dad quit
working, I would say about five years after I got out of high school.
Probably in the early sixties he didn’t work anymore. But he did
supervise. He went to the farm and supervised the workers how to
prune trees and he did that. Dad picked up leukemia, and I think it’s
655
probably from the pesticide, because he was out there all the time when
they were spraying. So Dad died of leukemia and Mother died of old
age at ninety-one.
ETTINGER:
Your father must have died around 1980 or so?
SEN:
Something like that, yes. He was seventy-one, Dad. Mom died at
ninety-one.
ETTINGER:
And where are most of your sisters living? Where did they move off
to?
SEN:
I have two sisters in Sacramento and the rest are in the Bay Area.
Alice lives in Hillsborough, the hoity-toity. Her husband’s a
pharmacist, and my sister was an R.N. and they own pharmacies,
medical, dental buildings. They did very well. Margaret’s husband’s
an optometrist and they live in San Jose, later on in Mountain View.
They’re still alive all of them and all retired now. And their children
are all doctors, musicians. One of them, my nephew, is a professor at
UCLA. He’s a pianist. He went to Juilliard, the best schools. They’re
very talented, so they got scholarship.
ETTINGER:
Have there been physicians in Locke when you were growing up?
SEN:
No. We had to go to Dr. Barnes in Walnut Grove and to Dr. Premising
[phonetic] in Courtland. Those are our two physicians.
ETTINGER:
And dentists, you came all the way up to Sacramento?
656
SEN:
Beg your pardon?
ETTINGER:
And for dentists?
SEN:
We had to come to Sacramento. There was a Dr. Lee, a Korean doctor,
he was my first dentist and he had to fill one of my tooth. I was six
years old and I went to a dentist by myself. I had a cavity in the front.
My sister said, “Harry, you better go to see a dentist.” So I walked in
the dentist’s office, six or seven years old.
“Where’s your mother?”
I said, “Mother working.”
“You’re not going to come in here.” He said, “You’ve got to bring
your mother with you.”
I said, “My sister said I had a cavity here. Would you look at it?”
He said, “Yes, you have a cavity here, but you bring your mother.”
But he filled my teeth.
ETTINGER:
He did?
SEN:
Yes. I don’t know if he charged me or not; can’t remember. He was a
Korean dentist. That was the only dentist, but he was not very popular.
He was painful, they said. So I came to Sacramento to Dr. Chu Wong
[phonetic].
657
ETTINGER:
That’s a great story. There had been in the thirties and maybe beyond,
an herbalist or a store that sold traditional herbs in Locke. Did your
parents practice any kind of or use traditional—
SEN:
Oh, all of us did.
ETTINGER:
Like what? Give me examples of what—
SEN:
We’ll have herb tea just before the winter. Chinese believe in
preventative medicine. And if we have a fever, we will have a certain
pill for it, and if we have a headache. We practice herbal medicine.
We either buy it from San Francisco or Sacramento or even in Locke.
The pool hall has all of that. They sell herbs, too. So I would say
everybody, every family in Locke practiced herbal medicine, plus the
Western medicine.
ETTINGER:
And the herbal medicine was just—it came with your parents? It was
traditional that they learned?
SEN:
Right, they learned it from China, and it works, apparently. You know,
like Digitalis, it’s nothing but a plant.
ETTINGER:
Right. That’s right.
SEN:
And we use it for heart medicine. The Chinese were very advanced in
herbal medicine.
ETTINGER:
Yes, that’s right.
658
SEN:
And it’s safe. You know, I have a good friend, Dr. Sam Shaw
[phonetic], he’s the Deputy Surgeon General in Taiwan and he does all
the translation for Eli Lily Pharmaceutical Company. I got to know
him well, and we’ve traveled in San Francisco together and we’ll go to
Chinatown and I’ll say, “Hey, Doc, what do you think about this herbal
medicine you guys practice? You practice Western and Eastern
medicine.”
He says, “Harry, if it doesn’t hurt you, why not?”
It makes sense. Just like sugar pills, if you take it and it seems to help
you psychologically or that’s what’s bothering you, fine. So it’s one of
the best answers you could get. If it doesn’t hurt you, why not.
ETTINGER:
Was there a bank in Locke?
SEN:
Yes, Bank of [unclear]. There was a bank in Walnut Grove. There
was a bank in Courtland, too, but it didn’t do well. Dr. Go owns the
building right now.
ETTINGER:
The bank was in Locke or in Walnut Grove?
SEN:
Walnut Grove. We didn’t have a bank in Locke.
ETTINGER:
Did your parents use that bank?
SEN:
Yes. I still have bank checks from that bank.
659
ETTINGER:
Oh, wow. You mentioned there wasn’t much crime in Locke. What
passed for city government or law enforcement in Locke? It was the
county sheriff, I guess, that was responsible.
SEN:
County sheriff. There was a few fights in Locke. I remember one of
the boys is dead now, but three or four of them came down to Locke,
and Walter Goodman and a couple of the constables was eating in
Moon Café Chinese Restaurant, and the bachelor were—it’s a narrow
street and they came down and I guess they had a little ruckus about
who got the right-of-way, and this bachelor on the side says,
“B_____,” he says, “Don’t let them talk to you like that. Beat them
up.” The bachelors were telling the young Chinese kids from
Sacramento to beat the guy up, and he beat him up. So the deputy
sheriff and the constable chased them up the levee and they went back
to Sacramento. They had a roadblock at City College here at Freeport.
They caught them all. I don’t think they went to jail. So that’s the
only big crime we ever had in Locke, and it’s from Sacramento boys.
ETTINGER:
It’s funny, you would think a town full of transient workers on the
weekends, you know, heavily male, where I imagine drinking went
hand in hand with—
SEN:
Very little drinking. People, I would say, behaved themselves fairly
well and never any crime, no murder. I understand there were a few
660
things that had happened at the farm, that somebody killed somebody
for dating out his girl and it did happen. I don’t want to name these
people. I know who they are. But out of a couple thousand people and
over a fifty-year time, that one happened like that, kind of a domestic
fight, and he went to jail and he’s out now and he died a few years ago,
but he became a good citizen. So in the old days, if you had crime
done to somebody, they were very lenient in the old days. I mean the
judicial system.
ETTINGER:
Was there illegal drug use? Was opium still present by the time you
were—
SEN:
Oh, it was prevalent, yes. I have an uncle that spent all his life at the
county convalescent home that used to be on the corner of Franklin
Boulevard and Florin Road. Used to be a county building there that
housed all the people, the halfway house, from the jail to this house.
And he was a drug addict, opium, and his whole lifetime he spent in
that place. He came out for a month or two, and back he goes again
because they follow you.
We have an old man’s home in Locke where all the bachelors that
didn’t quite make it, and there’s about a dozen over there, and it’s
funded by the town. We provide them room and board. Whenever we
cook and we have extra, we bring it to the old people there and they’re
661
always men. It’s very poorly kept up, but there’s heat and a stove and
everything there, toilet facility. But we did have an old man’s home,
like we had our own little city that took care of the people that didn’t
quite make it and so forth. We’re pretty well taken care of, I mean
even the poorest. There’s no such thing as homeless. We won’t allow
it. So somebody took care of it; the townspeople took care of it.
ETTINGER:
You went back to visit your mother and father through the fifties and
sixties.
SEN:
Every weekend.
ETTINGER:
Describe just for a second how you began to see the town change. I
know that in the sixties a lot of outsiders began to move in, hippies
from San Francisco [unclear].
SEN:
Not too many. People moving here were mostly Caucasians that
moved in. There weren’t too many moving in yet when I went to
Locke in the sixties. I think they started moving in a little later than
’65, maybe close to ’70 when they’re starting to move in.
ETTINGER:
Some artists?
SEN:
Yes. ’70 or even later, ’70 to ’75. But we went down to Locke mainly
to visit my parents and make sure that they’re doing all right. At that
time they were unemployed. They just went fishing every day and take
care of the garden. They had a fairly happy life when they were all
662
alive, but when they started dwindling, one died, and there was no
companionship. So then I said, “Mom, you’ve got to leave Locke.
You can’t stay here all by yourself. Dad is gone now.” So I said,
“Come out and join us.” And the same thing happened to other
families.
ETTINGER:
They moved to join their successful children.
SEN:
See, in China, very traditional that the household of the house of the
oldest son, I’m the only son, so regardless, and I have seven sisters,
some of them older than I am, but you always look after the elders. In
China, the family lived together, two or three generation, and it’s
always the oldest son that takes care of the elders. So that’s tradition.
In fact, I read a book from an English author in Canada, up in the
library, and it’s very interesting what he studied about the Chinese
culture, is that the most important person in the family is the oldest
son’s wife. She’s the most important person. She’s in the household,
she takes care of Grandma and Grandfather and so forth. So that was
the most important person, not the son, but the son’s wife. So
therefore the parents have to choose that wife so that they could get
along.
ETTINGER:
Because she’s going to be taking care of them in their old age.
SEN:
Yes. Interesting.
663
ETTINGER:
Very interesting.
SEN:
And at a dining table, if you had a guest there, it’s not the person
sitting next to you is the guest. Across the table, that’s your guest.
You don’t sit your guest next to you; you sit them across the table.
That guy was very clever and interesting.
ETTINGER:
Very interesting. I wanted to ask you just one more thing about Locke
as you remember it when you moved there, or even maybe if you
remember visiting Locke. We talked earlier about the boarding house
which used to be called Sam’s Rooms, at the end of the street there at
the—
SEN:
It’s right across from Connie King’s. It’s gone now. The building’s
gone.
ETTINGER:
I’m talking about the boarding house that’s on the north side of Locke,
right—
SEN:
Across from the schoolhouse?
ETTINGER:
Yes. That had been run—I interviewed some of those family
members—by a Japanese family in the twenties and thirties, and
then—
SEN:
The Caucasians.
664
ETTINGER:
Yes. When they returned, it was closed. Do you remember it
operating or being open? What do you remember that building being
used for when you were growing up?
SEN:
It was used as a rental for mostly Caucasian, because I went to school
with them, people that are migrant workers that come into the Delta
and they needed a place. It’s like an apartment house.
ETTINGER:
So it was still a boarding house in a sense?
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
When you were growing up. Because I was unclear what happened
after that family stopped running it.
SEN:
Right. It was a boarding house.
ETTINGER:
It was still a boarding house.
SEN:
Yes, but mostly Caucasian. Rarely did I remember a Chinese family
there. It was originally Japanese, I think, and then the Caucasian
family and I went to school with—they were in my class.
ETTINGER:
They ran the place?
SEN:
No, no, they rented the place to live in. To be honest with you, I’ve
never been in the building. I never walked into the building.
ETTINGER:
When I interviewed Sam, who grew up there in the thirties—
SEN:
Sam who?
665
ETTINGER:
Koramatsu [phonetic]. The family that owned the—
SEN:
The boarding house?
ETTINGER:
Yes.
SEN:
Interesting. I’ve never met the fellow.
ETTINGER:
Yes, Kuramoto; I’m sorry.
SEN:
Is he still alive?
ETTINGER:
He is. I interviewed him.
SEN:
I have never met him.
ETTINGER:
Yes. I walked through there with him and his two sisters, went through
the building, and that’s the building now the state has purchased.
SEN:
Right.
ETTINGER:
And he remembered—it was a very interesting perspective on Locke
because he remembered very much feeling as an outsider, of course,
being Japanese, and so when he went to Walnut Grove, he walked the
levee road. He did not walk—
SEN:
Right, because of the war, World War II.
ETTINGER:
Yes.
666
SEN:
We can’t talk to Japanese during that time. Of course, they went to
camps. But we got along with them fine, but our parents didn’t.
There’s a lot of atrocity in Shanghai, so you can’t blame them.
ETTINGER:
Well, through the 1930s, the war had begun in Asia, so that—
SEN:
Way before we got into World War II.
ETTINGER:
Yes. And so he remembered a lot of tensions, that being Japanese in a
Chinese town was a difficult thing to be as a boy.
SEN:
I can imagine.
ETTINGER:
He walked the river road when he went to Walnut Grove. He did not
walk through.
SEN:
I can imagine. See, it was a little before my time.
ETTINGER:
Yes.
SEN:
But there was another Japanese family, Ed Cottle [phonetic], and he’s a
very wealthy caterer in Sacramento, he had a brother that had typhoid
fever and he died, and my mom said she used to go over there and help
feed him. He lived at the house right next to Star Theater, the brothel,
right next door, that’s where he lived. They were the only Japanese
family other than the one you mentioned. I knew they were Japanese,
but I never met them.
667
ETTINGER:
And then above that boarding house, I think there was a gas station, is
that right?
SEN:
Jack Ross [phonetic]. He was Caucasian.
ETTINGER:
Yes. Do you remember him?
SEN:
Very well. Good dancer. He taught us how to dance.
ETTINGER:
Really?
SEN:
Yes.
ETTINGER:
A younger guy?
SEN:
Jack is at least twenty years older than I am. So right now I’m
seventy-three; he’s got to be ninety-three. He died quite a few years
ago.
ETTINGER:
He had very good relations with the Chinese residents?
SEN:
Very good. We bought gas from him and take care of our cars. I don’t
know that he ever got married. I’ve never met his wife. An interesting
person. Nice guy, but excellent dancer, social dancing.
ETTINGER:
So where would be teach the—
SEN:
At the Chinese Association next to [unclear]. Bing Kong Tong
[phonetic] is the name of the—big Chinese calligraphy. It’s still there
and it’s kind of a meeting hall for all the bachelors. They read the
newspaper and I think they dine there, too, sometimes.
668
ETTINGER:
But he would come down there and—
SEN:
On a certain day we’ll all get together, all the high school kids, and
we’ll pick a day and he’ll teach us how to dance, ballroom, waltz,
foxtrot, the Latin music.
ETTINGER:
That’s neat.
SEN:
And never charged us. Nobody charges anybody; it’s just volunteer.
ETTINGER:
Did your parents get involved with that association much?
SEN:
No. Mom and Dad never had the time to do that. Association was
mostly merchants and bachelors, and family people. I don’t think
Gene’s family was involved. I don’t think any of the family were
involved with the Association. It just wasn’t their thing.
ETTINGER:
Unless you were a merchant or unless you were—
SEN:
Exactly. There’s no reason to tie in with them. They never had time.
They worked all their life. I look back and I think, golly, I could have
never done that, raising eight kids and work all the time, and they’re
happy. As long as we do well, then they’re happy. Their biggest
sacrifice is to make sure that all of us were educated and well taken
care of. And, gosh, when my sister had a problem, I forgot what it
was, jaundice and whatever, Mom and Dad would stay day and night,
not go to work, and make sure that we’re taken care of. That’s the way
they were. The sacrifice they gave us was unbelievable.
669
ETTINGER:
Especially moving from one country, being basically—
SEN:
Not being bilingual, depending on other people. There’s a few Chinese
down there that spoke English fluently, she died a few years ago, the
Lee family, and a few others, were very helpful and do all the
translation. And when we go to see a doctor, we have to have a
translator, as well.
When they’d go to Lodi to get an unemployment check, I was the
translator and my favorite word that they could ask you, “Well, why
did you quit your job?” And my favorite word, “The season came to
an end.” You know, packing fruit. It’s a pat question. And I’d always
get—and the next time come up and I’d give them the same answer.
[laughs] My pay was two apple turnover at the bakery next door. We
had to go to Lodi to get the check, and it wasn’t very much,
unemployment checks. But all the seasonal worker, a certain day have
to go to Lodi to pick up their check and you got to get interviewed first
why you didn’t go to work. Then they’d say, “Well, there’s work.”
Well, it’s too far to get to that job, and that’s legitimate. So that’s the
way it used to be.
ETTINGER:
Thanks so much for your time. This is great. I’m sure I could think of
lots of other things to ask you probably when I’m driving away.
SEN:
I got a little time today, so—
670
[End of interview]
671
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Printed Sources
Baum, Willa K. Transcribing and Editing Oral History. Nashville: American Association for
State and Local History, 1991.
California Department of Parks and Recreation. “Locke Feasibility Study” State of California,
Sacramento County, 1979.
Chin, Eric David. “Locke: Growing Past Our Roots” (M.A. Thesis, California State University).
Field, Sean. “Imagining Communities: Memory, Loss and Resilience in Post-Apartheid Cape
Town.” Oral History and Public Memories. Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes ed. 2008.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gardner, James B. and LaPaglia, Peter S. Public History: Essays from the Field. Malabar, Fla:
Krieger Publishing Company, 1999.
Gillenkirk, Jeff and Motlow, James, eds. Bitter Melon: Inside America’s Last Rural Chinese
Town Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1997.
Halbwachs, Maurice. Historical Memory and the Collective Memory in The Collective Memory,
trans. Francis J. Ditter, Jr. and Vida Yazdi Ditter. New York: Harper Colophon Books.
Ives, Edward D. The Tape Recorded Interview: A Manual for Fieldworkers in Folklore and Oral
History. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980.
Johnson, Susan Lee. Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.
King, Thomas F. Cultural Resource Laws and Practice: An Introductory Guide. Walnut Creek,
Calif. Alta Mira Press, 1998.
Larson, Mary M. “Research Design and Strategies.” In History of Oral History: Foundations and
Methodology, eds. Thomas L. Charlton, Lois E. Myers, and Rebecca Sharpless. Lanham:
Alta Mira Press, 2007.
Lee, Erika. At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
672
Leung, Peter C.Y. One Day, One Dollar: Locke, California and the Chinese Farming Experience
in the Sacramento Delta. ed. L. Eve Armentrout Ma. El Cerrito, CA: Chinese/Chinese
American History Project, 1984.
Levinsohn, John L. Frank Morrison Pixley of The Argonaut. San Francisco: The Book Club of
California, 1989.
Lewis, Catherine M. The Changing Face of Public History: The Chicago Historical Society and
the Transformation of an American Museum. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press,
2005.
Millard, Andre. America On Record: A History of Recorded Sound. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1995.
Miller, Stuart Creighton. The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 17851882. Stuart Creighton, Miller: Books, 1969.
Riegert, Ray. Looking in on Locke: Chinatown’s Country Cousin, Travel & Leisure, September
1981.
Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.
Schulz, Peter D. “Class I Archeological Survey, North Delta Program, Sacramento and San
Joaquin Counties, California - Preliminary Draft.” Prepared for Division of Planning
California Department of Water Resources, Sacramento, 1994.
Sommer, Barbara W. and Mary Kay Quinlan. The Oral History Manual. Second Edition. Lantam:
AltaMira Press, 2009.
The Record-Union (Sacramento), “California’s Population,” 1891.
Thompson, Paul. The Voice of the Past: Oral History. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.,
2000.
Turkel, Studs. Division Street America and Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great
Depression. The New Press, 1967.
Wallace, Michael. “Reflections on the History of Historic Preservation.” Presenting the Past:
Essays on History and the Public. Benson, Susan Porter, Brier, Stephen and Rosenzweig,
Roy ed. 1986. Philadelphia: Temple university Press.
Wallace, Mike. Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory. 1996. Temple
University Press, Philadelphia, PA.
673
Yip, Christopher Lee. “Locke, California: A History” Historic American Building Survey,
Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, Department of the Interior, Summer 1979
674
Online Sources
California Department of Parks and Recreation. “About Us,” (accessed 01 August 2012);
available from http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=91/; Internet.
California Department of Transportation.2004 Environmental Handbook, Vol. 2, Cultural.
Available from http://www.dot.ca.gov/ser/envhand.htm/; Internet.
California National Resources Agency, “Frequently Asked Questions About CEQA,” (accessed
3 August 2009); available from http://ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/more/faq.html/; Internet.
National Park Services. National Register of Historic Places database.
http://www.nr.nps.gov/iwisapi/explorer.dll?IWS_SCHEMA=NRIS1&IWS_LOGIN=1&I
WS_REPORT=100000039
_____., “National Historic Landmarks Program,” (accessed 21 February 2009); available from
http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/Lists/CA01.pdf/; Internet.
_____., “National Historic Preservation Act of 1966,” (accessed 13 March 2009); available from
http://www.nps.gov/history/local-law/nhpa1966.htm/; Internet.
_____. “National Historic Landmarks Program,” available from
http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/Lists/CA01.pdf/; Internet.
National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Who We Are,” (accessed 22 February 2009); available
from http://www.preservationnation.org/who-we-are/; Internet.
Office of Historic Preservation, National Park Services Form 10-900, “Locke Historic District,”
(accessed 21 February 2009 and 22 March 2009); available from
http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1080&ResourceType=/; Internet.
Oral History Association, “About OHA,” (accessed 10 November 2010); available from
http://www.oralhistory.org/about/; Internet.
Sacramento County Planning and Community Development Department, Draft Environmental
Impact Report: Asian City. General Plan Amendment, Community Plan Amendment and
Rezone (Sacramento County Planning and Community Development Department, 1985.
United States Department of Interior, National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places
Inventory - Nomination Form, “(The Town of) Locke,” August, 1979, revised March,
1987.
675
_____. http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/HHLS/Text/71000174.pdf.
_____. www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/locke/lofacts3.htm.
United States Environmental Protection Agency, “National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, As
amended through 2006 [With annotations], (accessed 7 July 2009); available from
http://www.achp.gov/docs/nhpa%202008-final.pdf/; Internet.
_____.“Summary of the National Environmental Policy Act,” (accessed 25 March 2009);
available from http://csusdspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.9/1327/Courtney%20Skinner%20MA%20Th
esis%20Final%20Draft.pdf?sequence=1/; Internet.
White, John. “Historical American Building Survey No. CA-2071,”(accessed 25 September
2011) available from
http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca0400/ca0495/data/ca0495data.pdf/; Internet.
Oral History Interviews
Chan, Gene, interview by Maya Beneli, February 22, 2007.
Connie King, Oral History Interview by Patrick Ettinger, January 11, 2007.
Sam Kuramoto, Oral History Interview by Patrick Ettinger, March 23, 2006.
Kuramoto Sam, Ms. Kikue Okomoto, and Matsue Tao, Oral History Interview by Patrick
Ettinger, July 5, 2006.
Lee, Ping, interview by Christopher J. Castaneda, January 11, 2007.
Pederson, Penny Lee, interview by Maya Beneli, April 27, 2007.
Sen, Harry, interview by Patrick Ettinger, January 25, 2007.