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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
Sugita, Chiyiko, "Chiyiko Sugita Autobiography, n. d." (2020). Guy and Marguerite Cook Nisei Collection. 98.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cook-nisei/98
Transcription
Chiyiko Sugita
Auto Biography
I was born in the city of Los Angeles, on the year May 20th 1928 in a big red wooden house that had green vines growing on the sides and on top of the roof.
[During] those years, my father was working as a gardener at Holly Wood in that time so he could [keep] the family living on his income. Every time he got his pay he would come home with some toys such as rattlers, rubber dolls, tin dishes, and stuffed animals for me to play with.
My mother during that time was taking care of the [m] [nursery] and making silk handkerchiefs for some lady. She also took care of my sister and my brothers and
us [me] by [seen] seeing that we don’t get into mischief, so we won’t get hurt and feed us so we won’t get sick and washed clothe so we didn’t have to wear a dirty ones [clothe] every time.
With my mothers care we got big, strong, and healthy.
Every day when I was small I was told that I was to play with my neighbors childrens and my brother and sister. Later on I remember that I had a fuzzy white rabbit and a [gr] yellowish brown color cat. I use to play around with them till they went away because they got tired of being touched.
When I was getting on my six years old I started the first grade. That first day was very hard because
Chiyiko Sugita
I didn’t know how to speak English very good. As I went school every day I start learning how to speak, and read, paint, and make things with some pieces of [wood]. As the years went by the studies that interested me most was social study. Thats because I was interested in studying different things. The first grade we studied different kinds of thing. Second grade we studied dairy. Third grade we studied the place of Japan. Fourth grade Mexico, fifth grade we studied Pioneer days. Sixth different kinds of papers and printing presses. And in the seventh grade we studied our community of Norwalk where I lived.
I disliked the system
they had because when the [grammar school] first to third grade had there [neu] noon hour and when were having class they would come and [bother] us and when we had noon and make a little noise the teachers [y] would come out and get us because the students [are] studying. So at noon we couldn’t make much noise.
I liked the classes we had and the beautiful buildings we had.
My talent I’m interested most in is carving from woods and modeling with clay.
The club I was in in Santa Anita was very tiresome and boring. The matter with our club was it had to many cabinet members and not enough member for the club.
Chiyiko Sugita
The club was organized in our block is named Teen Twenties. We named it Teen Twenty because were all teenage girls and live in block twenty. We now have thirteen girls which we are all trying hard to help our block with what ever we can. We have lots of fun when we all gather and play.
I am not exactly a Christian but [we] I used to go to church with my girl friends. The church we went to was called the Japanese Friends Church.
My favorite sport is table tennis for [in] door game and base ball for out door game. I’m not such a good player for any game but I shall try hard and become a better player.
Chiyiko Sugita
My hobby use to be collecting bird pictures and pasting it on scrap book. Since I cannot find any more pictures I [can] do not care for it no more.
The things I use to do to amuse myself was read book, listen to radio, and some times go to movies. The best books are fictions I think. The radio program I like to enjoy and hear are exciting and interesting things. I like exciting and adventurous kind of movies. I do not care much for social gatherings.
We always had three month of summer vacation. In those three months of vacation we worked most of the time and sometimes we went for rides to our relatives place and to the beach.
Chiyiko Sugita
One place in Norwalk was said to evacuated in April 13th so when that date was announced I could hardly believe and felt very bad because I would have to [leave] all of my friends and girl friends. The day finally came when I had to leave and the worst part of the time my girl friend came to see me off. I was on the bus starting off when some big rolling tears start running down my cheek and my last wave and I was a far distance away from [downey] and I first couldn’t forget how I felt. Reached Santa Anita about 4 p.m. after we stayed in Santa Anita half a year and made friends and played with our relatives.
Time came again when we had to move
and it was a sad time once again. Leaving on the train this time we reached Arkansas and now in this camps. I hope we do not have to move for while.