Countywide : Japanese Students Sample Camarillo

On his first visit to Ventura County from Japan this week, Daisaku Deoka went shopping at The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks and bought “The Grapes of Wrath.”

“I’ve already read the Japanese version of the book,” the 14-year-old visitor from Kota said through an interpreter. “I was told (author John Steinbeck) was born and raised in California.”

Daisaku has studied English for only two years, but he is determined to read the 581-page novel all the way through.

Since Wednesday, Daisaku and Kenichiro Suzuki, 15, have been staying with Steve and Linda Terando, one of the 12 Camarillo families playing host to 18 Japanese junior high school students here as part of a special student visitation program.

The youngsters will return to Japan on Sunday.

This is the third year that Kota civic and education leaders chose to send students to Camarillo to foster better understanding between the two cultures. Camarillo is similar to Kota in topography, size, population and its agricultural base--though Kota grows only rice.

In February, Daisaku watched a television news story about a Japanese man, Yasuo Kato, who was slain in Camarillo. But the youth said he was not afraid to visit the American city.

“I don’t think it was Japanese-bashing,” he said. “I think it was more complicated, something personal. I don’t think it happened because he was Japanese. It could happen to anyone.”

However, tour escort Takefumi Yuhara said that some of the teen-agers’ parents were concerned that they were sending their children to an unsafe place.

Yuhara contacted Gerri Jenso, who coordinated the visit from Camarillo, to obtain a report on the crime and was assured that the Kato’s slaying was not racially motivated.

As part of their visit, Daisaku and Suzuki toured the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station on Thursday. Daisaku said he was impressed with the friendly workers.

“I thought I’d be frightened, but I wasn’t,” Daisaku said. “People who work there were very kind.”

Daisaku thought carefully before giving his impressions of Camarillo: “Big,” he said. “Many trees. Awfully quiet.”