Japan and the California ProblemIyenaga, T. (Toyokichi)
History
Japan and the California Problem
Iyenaga, T. (Toyokichi)
Japan -- Emigration and immigration; Japanese -- California
_A._ They were successful, but I did not succeed. See?
_Q._ You read the Japanese language now?
_A._ I can't read it; it is too hard.
_Q._ You really can't read any?
_A._ There are three different kinds of words and letters. I can read the
easiest.
_Q._ In other words, you have adopted the road of least resistance with
the Japanese language?
_A._ Sure.
_Q._ You talk Japanese with your parents?
_A._ In a simple, broken language.
_Q._ Do they talk English?
_A._ They can't talk English. They have been here quite long, but they
have never had a chance to talk English.
_Q._ Let me ask you this; do you get along very well with them?
_A._ In my home?
_Q._ Yes.
_A._ Sure. They are my father and mother.
_Q._ (Mr. Siegel.) And you say that you don't understand the Japanese
language sufficiently well to carry on a conversation with them?
_A._ I understand them, but that is about all.
_Q._ How do they arrange to get along with you, if you can't speak the
language orally?
_A._ They just about guess what I am trying to tell them.
_Q._ In other words, you are always asking for money. Is that the
principal idea?
_A._ May be, not any more, but I used to.
_Q._ When they talk to you, you understand them all right?
_A._ Oh, yes; I understand them.
_Q._ (Mr. Raker.) Would you tell us why, you haven't, or didn't, and
haven't given more attention and worked harder to become familiar with the
Japanese language and history?
_A._ That is a hard question to ask me just now.
_Q._ I know it is, but I think you know, my boy; tell us in your own
language, in your own way?
_A._ Well, suppose we go to school five hours a day, the American school.
We attend Japanese school for two hours; that is overwork two hours, you
see, and we don't get paid for over time.
_Q._ I guess you are about pretty near right, didn't I? You are the kind
of a fellow that is going to be thinking a little about money as you grow
up, and you are going to make it in Seattle.
_A._ I haven't got a business.
_Q._ (Mr. Raker.) What I was asking that question for, I am going to put
it direct. I want you to give me your good frank answer, which I know you
will. Is it your determination when you get a little older, and begin to
think over the situation, that you want to become familiar with the
English language and understand the American ways rather than to devote
your time to Japanese ways and language?
_A._ Well, I want to be an American more than a Japanese. I was born here.
_Q._ That is one of the reasons you haven't devoted your time to the
Japanese language. How old were you when you started?
_A._ I started the same year when I went to Grammar School.
_Q._ That was when?
_A._ Five years old. Five years old I started to kindergarten, and at six
I started to Grammar School.
_Q._ So when you started to kindergarten did you start in the Japanese
School?
_A._ No, when I was six.
_Q._ And you did that from the time you were six until you were fourteen?
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