Audio recording of interview with John Nakata - abridged
Dublin Core
Title
Audio recording of interview with John Nakata - abridged
Subject
Bainbridge Island (Wash.)--History
Japanese Americans--Washington (State)
Yama Project
Description
Recording at end of record under Files.
John was a butcher in Winslow.
The interview includes the history of John’s family (parents) in Japan. On Bainbridge, the family lived at Yama & Nagaya but then moved to Winslow where John’s father opened a barber shop. Parts of the interview are about life at Yama & Nagaya, and other segments are about Winslow. John discusses many individuals, businesses, and organizations in the Japanese American community on Bainbridge Island. The interview also includes John and Pauline, his wife, talking about the meat market they ran in Winslow for many years prior to World War II.
Recording quality: Good
John was a butcher in Winslow.
The interview includes the history of John’s family (parents) in Japan. On Bainbridge, the family lived at Yama & Nagaya but then moved to Winslow where John’s father opened a barber shop. Parts of the interview are about life at Yama & Nagaya, and other segments are about Winslow. John discusses many individuals, businesses, and organizations in the Japanese American community on Bainbridge Island. The interview also includes John and Pauline, his wife, talking about the meat market they ran in Winslow for many years prior to World War II.
Recording quality: Good
Creator
Tanaka, Stefan
Source
Digitized to a master raw uncompressed WAV file with the resolution of 96,000 hz at 24 bits. Access copy MP3 file of 44,100 hz at 16 bits with reasonable enhancements made for intelligibility.
Publisher
Olympic College Libraries
Date
1976-05-28
Contributor
Yamashita, Kasumi, transcription
Hartse, Caroline, edits & revisions
Krattiger, Angela, edits & revisions
Crabbe, Jocelyn, digital editing
Rights
Olympic College Libraries. Rights Reserved.
Format
MP3
Language
English
Type
Oral History
Identifier
OCHL_NakataJohn_19760528
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Audio cassette tape. On bottom of case, handwritten is NAKATA, John, Mo, Pauline 28 May 76. No clear writing on the tape though Side 1 has something very light in pen or pencil? Cassette is BASF Performance Series. Note: In Tanaka's thesis (p. 140) he lists John Nakata 27 May 1976. In addition, in the thesis is Bainbridge Island, Washington. Hypothesis Mo. stands for mother?
Duration
11:36
Bit Rate/Frequency
44,100 hz at 16 bits
Transcription
Title: John Nakata Interview
Interviewee: John Nakata (JN), Woman (wife of John Nakata, Pauline?) (W), and Man (brother of John Nakata?) (M)
Interviewer: Stefan Tanaka (ST)
Location: Bainbridge Island
Date: May 27 or 28, 1976
JN: I don’t know just how long he was there but there was a colony of Japanese in Tacoma.
ST: I see.
JN: And then… and while he stayed in Tacoma, he heard about this Port Blakely Mill and that’s the reason he came over.
M: So that’s when he came over to this island.
ST: see. When did he come to the United States? Do you remember the year?
JN: Well, as far as we can figure, it was 18… 90…
W: That’s what we think because he kept saying “He had to go back.” He had to go back for the Russo Japanese War and also the…
ST: He had to return? He was conscripted?
W: You know.
ST: Drafted?
W: Drafted. So he had to go back twice… is what we think. He always talked about it…
JN: Russian and then… China War. You see, he was drafted from here.
W: He was getting started and he had to go back, twice! We figured that he must have come sometime before 19.. 1893. It’d have to be because the war was ended…
ST: Well the war was 1894.
W: 94… So he had to be here before that.
ST: Yeah, yeah. But he got drafted. I didn’t know that was possible if you were abroad to get drafted.
ST: Twice.
W: He had to go back twice because he was already in the army
ST: I see. So he was on reserve or something?
W: Well, I think it’s easier to call him isn’t it? When you already been in the army. He was in the army before he came for the first time.
ST: Oh. I see. I see.
W: So I don’t know what you call that. And then… when the last time he came was 1906. Since then, he started the business: the barber shop and the laundry.
ST: OK, then… Here… You’re born in 1906. So your dad worked at the Saw Mill for a while. A short while, but when he came back the last time, he opened his own place in Winslow. The barber shop. Did you have a bath house there too?
W: That’s the same location. He had a barber shop, a laundry, and a bath house but I don’t know in what order. Do you? Barber shop was original, perhaps….
JN: Yeah...
W: There were mostly the people of Port Blakely and then the few that had business or they might have worked for Caucasian families. And it was after the Mill was no more that people started drifting to the farms.
ST: I see, I see.
W: Is the understanding that I have but I could be wrong.
W: It’s too bad though that we don’t know more about our history. It’s kind of a shame, you know?
ST: Where did you go to school?
JN: Winslow, on the island.
ST: I see. What was it.. Winslow Grade School?
JN: Grade. Combined. High School. It’s an all in one building.
ST: I see, I see.
JN: And I graduated only 12, when was it? 12 or 15 or 13 students in the graduating class. The whole school, I think. From first grade… I don’t know if there was a 100. [chuckle].
W: You were the only Japanese, weren’t you? When you graduated from high school?
JN: Well…
W: You were the only Japanese. Was there anybody else?
JN: Well, I was born in Winslow so… But there was others ahead of me. I think there was one…
W: In your class.
JN: Yeah, ahead of me, there was one… Worked as a schoolboy. They work up in the Caucasian… He was from Japan. I don’t know if he graduated but he was going to high school because I remember that because teacher used to… I used to get a note from the teacher and my folks couldn’t read it so… So they’d ask him to read… interpret…
ST: So you couldn’t read or write Japanese?
JN: Read or write Japanese, no.. But I was in school long enough. They kept me… [chuckle] I should be able to…
ST: Well… it takes practice more than school. But you can still speak it? Or you could speak it then?
JN: Japanese? Well, not…
W: Enough to get by.
JN: Well, yeah.
ST: So, with your parents then. Did they speak Japanese to you and you speak in English to them? I’m kind of curious.
JN: Kind of a broken… half. Half and half?
ST: And… with you, was it the same? Did you speak to your parents in English?
M: Oh, I guess so.
W: He used to speak a broken Japanese. Sort of. [chuckle] Mix English…
M: At least they’d speak to us in Japanese. Half half.
ST: Well I see. So then your folks never learned Japanese? I mean, never learned English?
JN: No, not, not well.
W: Not fluently but they could… you know, they had a business so they could converse in the simple language.
ST: I see.
W: But not fluent.
ST: So they understood it and then they could say simple sentences that were necessary.
W: Your mother used to...
ST: I see.
W: Converse with everyone, quite a bit, didn’t she? In her broken English.
JN: I guess so.
W: She made herself understood.
ST: I see, I see.
W: And when their father started the barber shop, he said he didn’t know how to say “shave” or “haircut.” He didn’t know any of the language. Now it takes a lot of determination to start a business and not even know… I don’t know what the customers said to him! When he came to get a haircut.. Must have just pointed at his head. That’s how he started out!
ST: So then his customers were all hakujin?
JN: Caucasian.
ST: So the bathhouses then. That was for the hakujin too?
JN: Yeah.
W: Because in those times, people didn’t have much hot water. So they probably have to heat the water on a wood stove, or something you know?
ST: I see.
W: And they wouldn’t have ample hot water so it would be much better to go down to the bath house.
ST: So these weren’t like “furos,” then?
JN: No. They were American tubs.
W: You know, with the four little legs on them. Great big tubs.
M: Weren’t the hot water tanks made out of wood?
JN: Yeah, wood.
M: I remember that. 2 by 12s and then they had the big boiler.
JN: Yeah.
M: I used to fire the boiler.
W: To see that it all tied in together. The hot water for the laundry…
ST: Raised?
JN: It was quite high. Quite high. Then had a little part that… Gravity. It was quite up a ways.
M or JN?: 4 or 5 feet, maybe.
ST: You had to fill the water with the little can?
JN: No, they had running water. See, we had a tank. They had this public… this water system in Winslow. From the shipyard area. Getting water. Big tanks. Must’ve been… Seems like it was a couple hundred feet high but I don’t know if it’s… maybe was 100 feet. At least. There were two of them. Big tanks. At the shipyards.
JN: And we used that water for the laundry and… wash…
W: Did you know those Issei, they had a lotta “go get’em.”
ST: Uh-huh.
W: It’d be just like us going to anywhere. Spain or France or anywhere. Trying to start up something and don’t know the language.
ST: Yeah.
W: They really had quite a lot in them, I think.
ST: Yeah, that’s true.
W: To be able to…
ST: That’s true… Do as much as they did.
ST: So what was high school like? You just went to school with the kids and had a good time? I guess that’s the way you describe high school. That’s how I’d describe my high school. Were all the Japanese from the island going to that high school by then? You know, one characteristic which I find now, in the universities is that Japanese tend to stick together. I shouldn’t say, “all,” but you can generalize as such. Did that ever happen at Bainbridge? The Nisei would kind of stick together and… And another community would be together here and… hakujins somewhat here… Or, was it all kind of mixed together?
JN: I think we… Well, we had more or less… We… it’s wasn’t just a big group so we just mixed because… Of course, as the years went by, there were more Japanese, you know, there’d be children, Niseis together. And course when I went to school I didn’t… Well.. I think at first.. There was Teruzo (?) and myself and we just were the only two Japanese in the class.
ST: Was it different when you went to school with all the Nisei? There were certainly more Nisei.
M: We got along. 13 in our class. I think we had the largest.
W: They said that your class was one of the largest.
M: Since…
W: Before and after the largest… That’s when the…
ST: Did the Nisei tend to stick together?
W: Probably the girls did more than the boys.
M: Yeah, I think so, but we used to have our hakujin friends, you know.
ST: Uh huh.
W: I think boys played sports and that brought you together more, didn’t it?
JN: Yeah, yeah.
ST: Did you ever have contact with the Seattle Nihonjin? Nikkei? It was mostly just… the island was the community?
JN: Well, they.. I think in later years, they joined the league…
M: Oh basketball and baseball!
JN: Baseball. It’s a league in Seattle.
Keywords:
Tacoma
Port Blakely Mill
Russo Japanese War
Barber shop
Laundry
bathhouse
Winslow
Yamaguchi-ken
Oshima-gun
Port Blakely Nihonmachi
Nakao
Midwife
Doctor Shephard
Port Blakely
Takayoshi’s store
Winslow school
Hakujin
Port Madison
Rolling Bay
Bill Sutherland
Furos
Issei
Greenwood
Stafford
Sakai
Akimoto
Strawberry farming
Sumiyoshi
Takemoto
Loverich
Kenjinkai
Japanese Association
Seinenkai
Sanseis
Berry Growers Association
R.D. Bodle
Reverend Hirakawa
Congregational Church
Koura
Rumsey
Baptist Church
Buddhist
Reverend Osgood
Oyama
Saburo Hayashida
Japanese American Citizens League
Nihonjin
Clarence Arai
Ryoyama
Interviewee: John Nakata (JN), Woman (wife of John Nakata, Pauline?) (W), and Man (brother of John Nakata?) (M)
Interviewer: Stefan Tanaka (ST)
Location: Bainbridge Island
Date: May 27 or 28, 1976
JN: I don’t know just how long he was there but there was a colony of Japanese in Tacoma.
ST: I see.
JN: And then… and while he stayed in Tacoma, he heard about this Port Blakely Mill and that’s the reason he came over.
M: So that’s when he came over to this island.
ST: see. When did he come to the United States? Do you remember the year?
JN: Well, as far as we can figure, it was 18… 90…
W: That’s what we think because he kept saying “He had to go back.” He had to go back for the Russo Japanese War and also the…
ST: He had to return? He was conscripted?
W: You know.
ST: Drafted?
W: Drafted. So he had to go back twice… is what we think. He always talked about it…
JN: Russian and then… China War. You see, he was drafted from here.
W: He was getting started and he had to go back, twice! We figured that he must have come sometime before 19.. 1893. It’d have to be because the war was ended…
ST: Well the war was 1894.
W: 94… So he had to be here before that.
ST: Yeah, yeah. But he got drafted. I didn’t know that was possible if you were abroad to get drafted.
ST: Twice.
W: He had to go back twice because he was already in the army
ST: I see. So he was on reserve or something?
W: Well, I think it’s easier to call him isn’t it? When you already been in the army. He was in the army before he came for the first time.
ST: Oh. I see. I see.
W: So I don’t know what you call that. And then… when the last time he came was 1906. Since then, he started the business: the barber shop and the laundry.
ST: OK, then… Here… You’re born in 1906. So your dad worked at the Saw Mill for a while. A short while, but when he came back the last time, he opened his own place in Winslow. The barber shop. Did you have a bath house there too?
W: That’s the same location. He had a barber shop, a laundry, and a bath house but I don’t know in what order. Do you? Barber shop was original, perhaps….
JN: Yeah...
W: There were mostly the people of Port Blakely and then the few that had business or they might have worked for Caucasian families. And it was after the Mill was no more that people started drifting to the farms.
ST: I see, I see.
W: Is the understanding that I have but I could be wrong.
W: It’s too bad though that we don’t know more about our history. It’s kind of a shame, you know?
ST: Where did you go to school?
JN: Winslow, on the island.
ST: I see. What was it.. Winslow Grade School?
JN: Grade. Combined. High School. It’s an all in one building.
ST: I see, I see.
JN: And I graduated only 12, when was it? 12 or 15 or 13 students in the graduating class. The whole school, I think. From first grade… I don’t know if there was a 100. [chuckle].
W: You were the only Japanese, weren’t you? When you graduated from high school?
JN: Well…
W: You were the only Japanese. Was there anybody else?
JN: Well, I was born in Winslow so… But there was others ahead of me. I think there was one…
W: In your class.
JN: Yeah, ahead of me, there was one… Worked as a schoolboy. They work up in the Caucasian… He was from Japan. I don’t know if he graduated but he was going to high school because I remember that because teacher used to… I used to get a note from the teacher and my folks couldn’t read it so… So they’d ask him to read… interpret…
ST: So you couldn’t read or write Japanese?
JN: Read or write Japanese, no.. But I was in school long enough. They kept me… [chuckle] I should be able to…
ST: Well… it takes practice more than school. But you can still speak it? Or you could speak it then?
JN: Japanese? Well, not…
W: Enough to get by.
JN: Well, yeah.
ST: So, with your parents then. Did they speak Japanese to you and you speak in English to them? I’m kind of curious.
JN: Kind of a broken… half. Half and half?
ST: And… with you, was it the same? Did you speak to your parents in English?
M: Oh, I guess so.
W: He used to speak a broken Japanese. Sort of. [chuckle] Mix English…
M: At least they’d speak to us in Japanese. Half half.
ST: Well I see. So then your folks never learned Japanese? I mean, never learned English?
JN: No, not, not well.
W: Not fluently but they could… you know, they had a business so they could converse in the simple language.
ST: I see.
W: But not fluent.
ST: So they understood it and then they could say simple sentences that were necessary.
W: Your mother used to...
ST: I see.
W: Converse with everyone, quite a bit, didn’t she? In her broken English.
JN: I guess so.
W: She made herself understood.
ST: I see, I see.
W: And when their father started the barber shop, he said he didn’t know how to say “shave” or “haircut.” He didn’t know any of the language. Now it takes a lot of determination to start a business and not even know… I don’t know what the customers said to him! When he came to get a haircut.. Must have just pointed at his head. That’s how he started out!
ST: So then his customers were all hakujin?
JN: Caucasian.
ST: So the bathhouses then. That was for the hakujin too?
JN: Yeah.
W: Because in those times, people didn’t have much hot water. So they probably have to heat the water on a wood stove, or something you know?
ST: I see.
W: And they wouldn’t have ample hot water so it would be much better to go down to the bath house.
ST: So these weren’t like “furos,” then?
JN: No. They were American tubs.
W: You know, with the four little legs on them. Great big tubs.
M: Weren’t the hot water tanks made out of wood?
JN: Yeah, wood.
M: I remember that. 2 by 12s and then they had the big boiler.
JN: Yeah.
M: I used to fire the boiler.
W: To see that it all tied in together. The hot water for the laundry…
ST: Raised?
JN: It was quite high. Quite high. Then had a little part that… Gravity. It was quite up a ways.
M or JN?: 4 or 5 feet, maybe.
ST: You had to fill the water with the little can?
JN: No, they had running water. See, we had a tank. They had this public… this water system in Winslow. From the shipyard area. Getting water. Big tanks. Must’ve been… Seems like it was a couple hundred feet high but I don’t know if it’s… maybe was 100 feet. At least. There were two of them. Big tanks. At the shipyards.
JN: And we used that water for the laundry and… wash…
W: Did you know those Issei, they had a lotta “go get’em.”
ST: Uh-huh.
W: It’d be just like us going to anywhere. Spain or France or anywhere. Trying to start up something and don’t know the language.
ST: Yeah.
W: They really had quite a lot in them, I think.
ST: Yeah, that’s true.
W: To be able to…
ST: That’s true… Do as much as they did.
ST: So what was high school like? You just went to school with the kids and had a good time? I guess that’s the way you describe high school. That’s how I’d describe my high school. Were all the Japanese from the island going to that high school by then? You know, one characteristic which I find now, in the universities is that Japanese tend to stick together. I shouldn’t say, “all,” but you can generalize as such. Did that ever happen at Bainbridge? The Nisei would kind of stick together and… And another community would be together here and… hakujins somewhat here… Or, was it all kind of mixed together?
JN: I think we… Well, we had more or less… We… it’s wasn’t just a big group so we just mixed because… Of course, as the years went by, there were more Japanese, you know, there’d be children, Niseis together. And course when I went to school I didn’t… Well.. I think at first.. There was Teruzo (?) and myself and we just were the only two Japanese in the class.
ST: Was it different when you went to school with all the Nisei? There were certainly more Nisei.
M: We got along. 13 in our class. I think we had the largest.
W: They said that your class was one of the largest.
M: Since…
W: Before and after the largest… That’s when the…
ST: Did the Nisei tend to stick together?
W: Probably the girls did more than the boys.
M: Yeah, I think so, but we used to have our hakujin friends, you know.
ST: Uh huh.
W: I think boys played sports and that brought you together more, didn’t it?
JN: Yeah, yeah.
ST: Did you ever have contact with the Seattle Nihonjin? Nikkei? It was mostly just… the island was the community?
JN: Well, they.. I think in later years, they joined the league…
M: Oh basketball and baseball!
JN: Baseball. It’s a league in Seattle.
Keywords:
Tacoma
Port Blakely Mill
Russo Japanese War
Barber shop
Laundry
bathhouse
Winslow
Yamaguchi-ken
Oshima-gun
Port Blakely Nihonmachi
Nakao
Midwife
Doctor Shephard
Port Blakely
Takayoshi’s store
Winslow school
Hakujin
Port Madison
Rolling Bay
Bill Sutherland
Furos
Issei
Greenwood
Stafford
Sakai
Akimoto
Strawberry farming
Sumiyoshi
Takemoto
Loverich
Kenjinkai
Japanese Association
Seinenkai
Sanseis
Berry Growers Association
R.D. Bodle
Reverend Hirakawa
Congregational Church
Koura
Rumsey
Baptist Church
Buddhist
Reverend Osgood
Oyama
Saburo Hayashida
Japanese American Citizens League
Nihonjin
Clarence Arai
Ryoyama
Interviewer
Tanaka, Stefan
Interviewee
Nakata, John
Collection
Citation
Tanaka, Stefan, “Audio recording of interview with John Nakata - abridged,” Olympic College Libraries Digital Archives, accessed April 27, 2024, https://ocdigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/999.