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Date Created and/or Issued
1-25-1942
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Tulelake Colony [Tule Lake Relocation Center]
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Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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Recommended Citation
Watariahe, Masato, "Masato Watariahe Autobiography, January 25, 1942" (1942). Guy and Marguerite Cook Nisei Collection. 112.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cook-nisei/112
Transcription
Masato Watariahe
English 10B-4 Per. [period] VI
January 25, 1942
My Autobiography
1926 on a clear night I was I was born on a farm, in [Hawthorne] near by a city. The date was
March 17,1926 on St. Patrick day.
We lived in the same house for a year, and when I became one, we moved to Gardena not very far away from the first home. The house was very simple and had four room, a kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and a visitors room. The occupation of my father was farming he had to work very hard to keep up his farming. My mother was watching over us so we would not get into trouble, and she would mend our clothes if they would rip. There are six members in our family now but first there were ten. My youngest brother and sister had past away when I was about eleven or twelve years of age. My father had past away when I was living in the Maryknoll home, that was when I was about fourteen years of age.
My biggest sister is in the Sanitary [Sanitarium]
Hill creast [Hillcrest] in California because of illness. The language of my parents are Japanese but among us children we speak English. When I was 13 both my parents and my big sister was sick, so my little brothers, and sisters went to live in the Maryknoll home. My big brother lived with our relative.
The religion of my parents is Buddhist, but when I came to Maryknoll home I learned about Catholic religion.
My playmates were all kind of nationality, Chinese, Korean, Philippines, and Japanese. The home was divided into 3 groups, little boys, middle boys, and big boys. There were nine boys in the little boys room, seven boys in the middle boys group, and six boy in the big boy room. The ages of the little boys were 5 to 10, middle ages 11 to 15, big boys were about 16 to 19. All my playmates were fine boys, we [should] used to share with each other. For pets we had a dog, 6 rabbits 26 white rats and 80 pigeon all together. When we used
to come home from school, we used to let our pigeons out, and they would come home at night. Some cost up to $3.50 a piece. I didn’t have very much toys, but I had an archery set with 2 bows and 8 arrows. I had lots of radio parts which I had used to full [fool] around with. I used to made an airplane too.
I have gone to there schools, before I came to Rohwer. The first school I went to was Chapman a school in the country, I went there when I was 5 to 7, then I transferred to center [ave/one] school. When I was in the 4th grade I went down one grade. In the sixth grade I lived in the Maryknoll home. From the 7th to the 9th I went to Maryknoll school a private school. The studies I took in the ninth grade was English, religion, ancient and medieval history; Latin, and algebra. The studies I didn't like were Latin, algebra, and English, the studies I did like is history shop and band. I am not interested in talent. The church I
want to go is the Catholic. I have not join no clubs but I was in the boy scout. I like to be in a gang, Saturdays and Sunday we used to all go to gether, and go to parks, and show. The sports I like to play is baseball, football, swimming, and archery, every summer to used to stay at the beach for one month.
I am very interested in hobbies. My hobbies are collecting, wild animals, and birds. When I used to live in Los Angeles, I used to make model airplane. The boys in the home used to chip in and we would buy awhole stock of airplane materials at a time. Our airplane club was in the attic, the attic was very big it was about 40 ft, in length and 20 ft. wide. After school we used to work in the attic till about
9:30 at night. The hobbies I like is out door things, wild life. I do not care very much for movies, I only like to go in groups. It is
no fun when you sit in the theater your self. I like radio only to listen to music I do not like to hear program. Before I go to sleep I would listen to music and fall asleep. I do not care much about social gathering because I can not speak when I do talk I get nervous and do not speak loud enough so I can be heard. Reading is what I hate the most, but I like story when some one else reads it to me. The only book I read was the Jungle Book.
When my father had a farm I used to work on it, I used to drive the horses, and pick vegetable. When I came to the city, I was going to school and on Saturday I would go work for a nice lady. I used to mow her lawns and water her lawn and fix her garden. I never had traveled in my life, [be] for, but I camped at the beach for a month. One day when us boy[s] where walking along the bay, a kind
man gave us a ride in his yacht we went on the boat about 10:30 I the morning we rode though the bay and drove out to the sea. We rode on the [ ] for about 3 hour and we fished. About 5 o’clock we started home, and we came home with lots of fishes.
When we got the notice to leave our house I felt funny. We had a week to move. We had a hard time to pack up our package. Before we came to the assembly center I went to the show about 2 times a day. And we sold our cars and furniture. When we left Los Angeles in about four hours we came to our new home in Santa Anita. Everything was different. I didn’t feel like eating in front of all the people but I soon got use of it. I meet lots of friend there and when I had to move I felt sad I had to lose all the friend. I was excited when I had to go on the train,
I felt dizzy when I rode on the for about an hour. The first night I could eat my breakfast that morning. I stood up all day looking outside at the [scenery]. I never felt so dirty in my life the smoke of the train comes in the window. I think I like the relocation center but the weather in California is better. Since I came here I went out side 4 times to go fishing. I like the wild life too, and the trees, and rivers.