Telling Their Stories

page 5 of 10

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1-Introductions, Parents & Family

My name is Amanda, my name is Mario, and my name is Will. Today is May 17th, 2006, and we are interviewing Bess Chin in El Cerrito, California.

Please summarize your life.

I'm Bess Kawachi Chin. I emphasize Kawachi because I'm a Japanese-American married to a Chinese-American. I was born August 14th, 1922 in Alameda. I went to school there until about the fifth grade, and then I had lost my father when I was six so my mother re-married and we moved to the country, meaning Campbell, which is now Silicon Valley. I went to school there then went out to San Jose State, then the internment and went on to Heart Mountain, then went out to Saint Louis, came back here. And I've been here ever since. I'm married and have four children.

Were you close with your father?

I hardly remember him because I was only six when he died.

How did he die?

He had a massive stroke.

Were your other siblings close to your father?

Probably my older sister because she tells stories about what happened.

How old was your father when he died?

In his fifties.

He had high blood pressure?

He must have. But you know in those days they didn't go to the doctor, right?

Did you see a visible effect on your family's life style during the Depression?

See I'm too young to know, my brother or sister probably could tell you more of the effect it had on us because we still had food, we had nice clothes, we had the toys we wanted, we were not affected because we're little.

Describe your first house.

When I was a child right? That was a big house in Alameda, right next to a school. Apparently it was a Victorian house and it belonged to a widow who charged low rent because all she wanted was for us to pay for her taxes. I remember later on someone said to me, "You lived in a mansion," and I said "Oh no, I don't think so," but it seemed big to us because we were little. There were rooms that were never used because it was a big house, and there were at that time maybe four children, and my mother and dad.

How long did you live there?

We lived there until I was about ten years old, until fifth grade, that's when we moved.

Where did you move to after that?

We moved to Campbell, that's where my mother re-married and had the stepfather who was a farmer. So we moved to the country.

How long did you live in Campbell for?

How long did I live in Campbell? That would be from the time I was in fifth grade until I went to college. In between I lived—what you would call today an au pair—with an American family, a Caucasian family because my mother thought we should learn the American ways. So my high school years were with a family in Saratoga, and I was there until we were evacuated. So they were like family to me.

Did your mother ever try to immerse herself in the American ways?

No, because she was a Japanese language school teacher. She taught that after school. The days that we were growing up we went to regular school during the day and then after school we went to a Japanese language school, and there we learned the language and the culture, and that's what my mother taught. So when we were growing up, we were to speak Japanese in the house and English outside.

How did you feel about having to change whenever you went outside?

That didn't last too long. I think by the time one goes to school, you speak the same language as all your peers, we just didn't speak that much Japanese.

Did your mother learn English?

Yes she did. She did know English, and she could use it, but I think she still wanted us to maintain our Japanese culture. So this is why she would speak to Japanese with us.

Did you prefer Japanese of English?

I don't think it mattered. We probably spoke a mixture.

Did you see yourself using one more than the other?

As a child growing up? I think I would have used both, depending on where I am.

Where your parents Issei?

Oh yes. My father came and I really don't know enough about his background, I'm really trying to look into it. My mother came as a picture bride. I'm thinking now "Why?" She didn't have to come, because she was educated and she was a kindergarten teacher in Japan. Why did she come? I couldn't ask my mother, she wouldn't have told me.

So your parents met in America?

In America, that's right.

What religion did you practice?

We were Christians. My mother was a Methodist and we were also.

Were you very religious as a child?

As a child? You just go there because it's a social life, but as one grows one changes. I became an Episcopalian in Saint Louis because it strongly affected me there.

As you grew up did you spirituality change in any way?

It's only in recent times that I've been reading books on spirituality, women in spirituality, poems. It's only in recent times, recent times I mean in the last twenty years.

What does it mean that you were "expected" to do well in school, how was that expressed?

I'm trying to think, how would she have told us? My older sister was good in school, my brother was excellent, and so I am following in their footsteps, so I'm supposed to be like them.

Do you recall everyone being expected to perform well?

I'm next to the youngest, and the youngest one was sickly as a child, so nothing was expected of her.

Did you put a lot of pressure on yourself to keep to the standard that your older siblings set?

I think I did, because I worked hard in school.

Did these expectations apply to other things other than school?

I think it was mostly school.

How did your sister, being sickly, alter the family dynamic?

The older sister was the first grandchild, and of course she's the first- born so she gets things alright. And then along came my brother. Actually I have another sister who was born in Japan and left there with my grandparents, so when you ask me at first about how many I have in my family, I really pause because I don't know whether to count her in or not, but she was left with my grandparents.

So how did your younger sister alter this dynamic?

She was the youngest one, so it's always "poor thing." My father died when she was four, I was six, and she was four, so poor thing because she's lost her father. My older sister, she graduated from high school and that very night is when my father died. So these two become rather special in my mother's eye, and to this day we say, "Those two are spoiled." And me being in-between I got the full brunt of it.

How close were you to your siblings?

Very close to my brother, and I just lost him the other day, because he was five years older, he was a great reader. He said that in the attic in the house we lived in, the lady had kept books, many books apparently. That's where he learned to read the classics. He then taught me to read and appreciate literature.

Do you have any specific memories about experiences with your brother?

Other than teaching me how to read? In recent times, I could talk with him about politics, people. I depended a lot on him for just a conversation—someone to talk to and get feedback from. He was more a talker, I was the listener.