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It is July 13th, 2011 and we're here with Marion, uh, Takehara and, um, this is Maria Maldonado. and Brittney Xu for the Houston Asian American Archive. Alright, um, to start out, Mrs.

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Takehara, could you tell us about the neighborhood you grew up in, in Los Angeles in 1925? Oh, okay. Well it was mostly, I think there were mostly Japanese in our neighborhood.

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It was the 30th street and um– we, I can’t remember how long we lived there but it seemed like we lived there for a long, long time.

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But it was mostly Japanese in the neighborhood, maybe one or two who weren’t, families who weren’t but mostly Japanese. It was a very close neighborhood.

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So, if that makes any difference. And um, was your school also mostly Japanese No, no, no. ... Or was there more of a mix? No, it was mostly white.

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it was mostly white… Yeah, it was mostly white– mostly white. And how long had your parents been living in LA at the time you were born? Well, let’s see. My dad came over, he was the first one that came to Los Angeles, he came over and

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graduated high school and then went to the University of California. He was a Californian. And then my mother, was brought over when she was a baby and they lived in San Jose, California.

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And I don’t know when they got together or what happened. But uh they made their home in Los Angeles. Um, you mentioned during your presentation that your dad wanted to be

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Americanized so… Yes …You did not speak Japanese at home. That’s right. Have you ever regretted it? Oh yeah. I really have. I really wish that I could speak and write, Japanese. But I’ll tell you, like I said in

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the talk, after Pearl Harbor, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there was a period of time that we were very ashamed of the fact that we were Japanese and we tried to avoid anything that was Japanese, and tried to be as much

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Americanized as possible. So, but growing up, uh, my parents just wanted to– us to be a hundred percent Americanized. And that’s the reason why we didn’t go to any language school. And that’s the reason why I can’t speak or write Japanese.

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I can understand it. If someone is speaking Chinese or Japanese, I can tell the difference. Why do you think your parents, um, didn’t try to um, instill, um, this Japanese heritage when you were younger, before the whole Pearl Harbor attacks and everything?

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I don’t know why. I guess they just really wanted us to be, uh– I– I really don’t know why, they just didn’t really want us to go to the Japanese language schools.

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And we spoke nothing but English in the homes. But I did speak very good Japanese as a child because my grandparents came often. And they stayed with us. And um, I was able– I spoke, I

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understand I spoke very good Japanese then as a child. Were your grandparents still living back in Japan, at the time? Oh no, they were here, they were in California. They were– okay… Um what did your

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parents do for a living when you were younger? My mother did not work. My mother did not work, she was just a mother. And uh, my dad, uh, was uh,

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own– part owner of a produce company. So, was your family well off? How did you perceive your economic intake? I would say we were pretty well off.

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I would say, we were all well off. But I can also remember the depression, too. I remember the depression. Uh, because, uh, of the

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Christmases, that we didn’t have, you know, as much as we wanted. But I always felt that, uh, we always had real nice clothes. Um, when you were growing up in Los Angeles, was there also a significant, like, Hispanic

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immigrant population at that time? No…there were very few, I really- I think maybe there might be one

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or two black families nearby but uh I can’t remember any Hispanics at all. You know, it’s been a long time ago. And what was your experience at school?

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Did you ever feel any sort of, um, discrimination or, um, any sort of, um, tension between, um, the Asians and the, um, white student body? No, not, not before the war, not before the war at all. There was not at all, I mean,

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uh– of course we had our own groups, you know, and I think, uh, growing up, I think, in our– as teenagers, most of our friends were

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all Japanese. And, uh, I can’t remember – I really can’t remember ever having even thought of dating anybody that wasn’t Japanese.

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Was that your own choosing or your parents’, um, choosing? I guess it was just something, just thought of not doing . It’s really unusual you know because

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all my children are not– all three of my children are not married to Asians at all, so, that’s really unusual…when, uh, my– Ken and I first started going together, it was okay. But uh when, uh,

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we decided to get married, uh my mother had a fit because she thought that the Japanese in California were much better than the Japanese from Hawaii. And why was that? Well, she just thought that we were much better.

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And, uh, of course my dad comes from a long line of Samurai families, real, real, I mean it goes way, way, way back. And we’ve always been, you know, we are supposed to be real– we have been real proud of that.

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And uh and that’s why when Anne, my oldest daughter, she and Butch went together for a long, long time. And it was okay while they were going together and all that but when they decided to get married, my mother just had a fit.

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She wasn’t even gonna come to the wedding. She really wasn’t. She just did not think that was such a good idea. That, uh, Anne wasn’t going to marry anybody that wasn’t Japanese.

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And at the very last moment, she, uh, decided to come, she thought– then after that she just loved Butch. So she was okay afterwards for the rest of the children? And then, with my other kids, it was okay. So, Anne sort of broke the ice, I think.

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How about your parents, do they feel that you have to be going around with someone of your own nationality or...? I mean, they’ve talked to me about it before but in the end they just tell me it’s really up to you, ‘cause they realize that it’s America and I’m probably going to find

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someone else that’s not Chinese... or yeah. So anyways, um, back to, let’s go to when you heard about the Pearl Harbor attack. What was your reaction?

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Um, I read several books or authors who read– who wrote about this. You probably have read some of the books, uh, Looking like the Enemy or the other one Exiled…I’ve read,

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and I’ve read how they’ve felt and it brought back a lot of the emotions that I had felt that I had forgotten about. And I really must have felt very badly but some, like I said before, you sort of forget all those

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things and just remember the good parts, okay, but when Pearl Harbor, uh, happened, um, it really was a shock to us. Like I said, I was only sixteen. And, uh, we, we really didn’t know how to

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go about behaving. Like I said, we didn’t know whether we should go to school, uh, it was a Sunday…we uh– our parents said we had to go. And everyone was really nice.

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All our friends, our teachers, everybody was really nice. They were– they, they continued to be nice except for when, like I said, when all the newspaper propaganda came out, then we began to feel like well maybe this wasn’t such a good idea to be Japanese at all.

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And then when the evacuation order came out, uh we kept telling ourselves that we are American citizens, they would never put us in the camps.

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Did you parents ever consider leaving the United States? No, they never have, they never have. And there have been many families that have thought about it. In fact they signed papers that they - as soon as they were able to - they would go

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back to Japan, but my parents, they’ve never done that. Do you think that was just because they were raised here and the connection to the United States? Mm-hm, I really think so.

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I think they really did. My parents were very, were, I can remember they were baseball fans. I mean, my dad especially, I mean they were, both of them were baseball

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fans, they would go to every baseball game there was, you know. They would always– I can remember, we always went to the movies on Saturday night. How much was a movie back then?

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Oh, I can’t remember. Oh okay, um… I know we could go on Saturdays, for what, ten cents or twenty-five cents with something and popcorn and everything else.

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Wow. So, before the evacuation order came, did you face discrimination? For instance, stores wouldn’t allow you to go in or buy anything because you were Japanese?

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Before the… before Pearl Harbor? No, no, after Pearl Harbor, before you had to evacuate. Yeah, there was quite a bit of discrimination there. Like I said, there was a period, a time when we really

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wished that this hadn’t happened and that we looked like the enemy. You know. Do you remember your uh parents’ reaction to the um, news of the Japanese, like, relocation? They– it’s—um,

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like I told you before, they have never, never said anything against the United States government. They felt that, uh, this is something that they had to do.

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And I think that’s the reason why we have never really gotten in–my dad has never really gotten into any trouble, at all. This was the way he felt. But they never even felt like they were going to

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leave the United States and go to Japan. Mm-hm. How much time was there between when Pearl Harbor happened and the time that uh, during the relocation and everything?

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Do you remember? It’s down someplace. I can’t remember. I can’t remember. Pearl Harbor was in December, I think we

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evacuated in May. Okay, so five months? Did your family pack immediately or did they wait ‘til the last minute thinking that this wasn’t going to happen to them?

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They waited for a while, but they realized with the news reports that it was going to happen. And like I told you, most families were worried and had started burning anything, getting rid of anything that was

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Japanese. The dolls, the magazines, the books, any letters, anything, artifacts they might have. Do you remember your parents burning anything?

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No. So Uh. Go ahead. I was just going to ask, do you remember any, uh, specific items your parents really wanted to save when you realized you had to leave? Or that you yourself wanted to

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save? I kept a diary, that I still have. I thought eventually I might write a book too . I mean, there were so many books being written. But I kept a diary, and reading it, uh I guess I was

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sad from reading some of the excerpts in my diary. But my parents, I don’t—I don’t remember their having anything that they had to get rid of.

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Or if they did, we didn’t know about it. What happened to your, uh, dad’s produce company? He lost it. He lost it? Completely, he didn’t sell it or anything?

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You said he was a co-owner. So the other owner was also Japanese? Oh yeah. Okay. Can you tell us about the train ride to the internment camp?

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I was…if I can remember, um, the only thing I can remember is that our family tried to stay together. Um, I really can’t remember too much about it.

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Like I told you, the only thing I remember, getting ready for that train ride and the bus ride, my parents made us get all dressed up. We had to wear our best and my mother wore her best.

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And even a hat, I remember that. But I don’t remember too much about the train ride. I think it was– I don’t– I don’t know. I think it was long. I can’t remember.

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I really can’t. Once you got to the camp, can you tell us um what a typical day was like for you? At camp? Mm-hm. Mmm…of

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course, the first thing we had to do was to try to get, um, they weren’t really the, well, you know, we went to Santa Anita racetrack first, and that, that was pretty bad. That was real bad.

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And um, see they put us into– we weren’t there very long. We weren’t there as long as some of the other people. We were there only maybe, a couple of weeks or so.

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Some people stayed there longer. But, um, it was pretty bad. In what ways was it bad? Well, you know, when you start having to live in places where they had horses before…and the people who had been there before helped us clean it up, I remember

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that, and helped us find, uh, straw for the mattresses, and things like that. Was there running water or anything? No. Uh-uh. Would you say

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there was more of a sense of comradery or a sense of competition between the different families? Oh there was never competition. I could never say there was competition. It was always everybody

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helping everybody else. Um, in high school when we studied this, we read a book called Picture Bride and it was about the internment camps and in it, like, a girl and a guy got married in the camp and there was a wedding, and

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everybody tried to give them as much as they could in the way of wedding presents. Was there any sort of like community event like that happen when you were in camp? Probably did. It was after I left though. Probably. I’m sure there were, I mean.

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They tried to be as normal as possible. But, nobody had a lot of money. And, like I said um, my parents scraped together, all I had was $200, can you imagine going to school with $200?

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Uh that’s all they could scrape together as far as cash. But the community was helpful? Oh yeah. You

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were allowed to leave the camp to go to college, correct? Was that normal, did most of the students from your class follow a similar path? Nuh-uh. You see, from what I understand

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from what I understand, as soon as we were sent to camp, the groups like the American Friends Association, uh, tried to get, uh, as many college students out as possible. And the churches, big churches, like the Methodist Church, I

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got to get a drink of water. The churches, uh and that’s how I happened to get a scholarship. But I think a lot of it had to do with my grades

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. And I think I had to write an essay or something I was always a, a good student so that made a big difference. Did your parents place a lot of emphasis on education?

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Oh yeah, oh yes. Definitely. I mean, it was just taken for granted we were going to college, that was it. Did you feel there was any, um, certain areas of study that your parents put more emphasis

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on than other areas of study? No, but I definitely wanted to become a doctor. I was always in pre-med. In fact, um, I was

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admitted to, uh, Western Reserve Medical School and decided to get married instead. Do you remember how much tuition was when you went to college? No.

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But was it hard for you to get a job to pay it off ? I didn’t have to pay off much. Oh. Don’t forget, I was on a full scholarship. Oh okay. Oh right. And it included most of my board and room too.

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I did work in the dorm, in the kitchen once in a while. And I did work part-time in the student union. But, it was a full scholarships including mostly my part, board and room too. And that was from the American Friends…

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No, no, that was from the Methodist Church. Okay. The Methodist Church in the internment camp? No, it was the main Methodist Church, wherever they’re located. Mmm. Um,

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so, at college did you try to fit in with– were there other Japanese students there? There was only one other. Don’t forget they were all girls. The boy–the guys were gone.

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And assuming, uh, the girl uh is the one that just took me over. She was there a year ahead of me. And she’s the one that that sort of took me under her wing.

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She got me settled and got me a part-time job and helped me get my classes and so forth like that. But, I was telling my, my girls, I said people

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always ask me about discrimination or if I felt anything. The only time that I felt sort of hurt was you know when, you’re in college, in all girls, the

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whole social life is around the sororities. And most of my friends were either in the Tri Delts or the Alpha Chis. And they were wonderful to me. You know, they really were.

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I was invited to a lot of their things but I always felt that they could have, but they always told me that they had tried to bring my name up but they would never consider even asking me to join a sorority

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because of my nationality. And so I always felt that– I always felt left out in that way because there was so much going on, you know. And so I was, like I was telling

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Anne and Amy, that’s the only time that I felt that it made a big difference while I was in school… Because you know, during the war, like all the guys were gone. Just, mostly girls, just mostly girls at Simpson College.

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Which was a small Methodist college. So while you were in college, your family left the camp? Uh-huh. And, um, where did they go and is this when your dad got the job making…. Mm-hm. They stayed in Cleveland, they did not go back to California.

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Why do you think they stayed in Cleveland? I really don’t know why they don’t wan– they didn’t want to go back to California. They visited…but they didn’t want to go back and live there.

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They felt that their home was in the East, which was Cleveland. That was their home. Do you think there may have been less discrimination in Cleveland? Or do you think it’s just because that they had just spent so much time away from California?

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I think so. I think so. And my mother, the family income, I mean, she didn’t…. And you mentioned previously that your father worked to develop bombing maps correct?

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Um do you remember, um, any internal tension for your father doing this job or him mentioning it to you at all? No, no, he was just real proud to be able to do it. I’m sure it was very hard for him.

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How much family do you have back in Japan, and how close are you to them? Um, uh, see my maiden name is Konishi, and there are quite a few Konishi’s in Tokyo. And uh, we still

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correspond, and uh exchange presents at Christmas time. And uh, we’re still pretty close. I mean, it’s hard language-wise. Um.

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I write to them in English, and there’s only one cousin or I forgot what she is, uh, who was educated here. And she can speak and write English. So when I write to them in English, I write in big

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letters and put spaces and then she interprets them and translates them. And, um, when they write to me, um, they write in Japanese. And then I try to get somebody to translate it for me.

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You know, I’d go into restaurants and ask if they know how to say it. So how did you meet your husband? At school. Oh okay, uh, when I was a freshman,

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Ken came back, he was, uh already uh, in the 442nd. He came back on his overseas furlough, before he went overseas. And he– he came to visit Simpson, because he had been, uh, he had been at Simpson.

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Uh, his sister was the first Japanese who graduated from Simpson College. And he would’ve been the second and I would’ve been the third. But um, he came back on his overseas furlough. I thought he was the most conceited

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awful . I mean, I hardly spoke to him because he had all the girls around him you know, I mean . I really didn’t think he was very much at all. And uh, we met, and uh, that’s

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about it. I think we just sort of spoke to each other, that was it. He went overseas. And that’s how we met. And then when the war was over, he was uh– he still had credits.

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He did not graduate, he still had credits. So he came back to Simpson, and he finished and graduated, and by that time, I was a junior, I think. And somehow we got– with all the fighting and everything, we

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finally got together and we started dating, I don’t know what happened . And, you ask my kids, you know, we’ve been married 64 years. They said– they really don’t understand, how we happened to get together and have stayed together this long, because

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we’re so different. We are real, real different. That’s– that’s how we met. So he stayed uh, to finish, uh, graduate, and then I finished Simpson, and then we went to

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University of Iowa, we did graduate work. After the war, did your husband have any problems adjusting back to civilian life, or have any bad memories? No, because he joined the reserve.

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Oh, okay. He joined the reserve. He was uh, uh, PFC while he was in the 442nd, then he reserv– he, I think when he joined the reserve, he was promoted to first lieutenant.

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And he was in the reserve for quite a while. And he was still in the reserve when we went to University of Iowa. You both went to the University of Iowa? No, just he did. Just he did…

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… When he was in school, um, I always, like I said, I still wanted a medical field, so I took, um, courses and got certified to become a medical technician. And I worked in the hospital for about a year and a half, at the

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University. Um, at the time when your husband was, um, studying at the University of Iowa, was he– did he have a career or anything, or was he just a full-time student? He was a full-time student.

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And um, when–did he get a job once he graduated? Yeah, that’s when we went to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. And what was the job? He was a laboratory director.

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His major was in biology, and uh, biology and uh… mostly biology. And chemistry. So he got a job right away at the hospital in Johnstown,

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Pennsylvania. Our um, Anne and– and John, our first two children, were born in Iowa City and Amy was born in Johnstown. Were you working at the time, or did you…? No I was– I worked.

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I worked with uh, with uh Anne, I think almost ‘til the day before I had her. Wow. … Do you remember your salary at the time?

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No… Did you enjoy your job? Oh yeah, I really liked it. Um when you moved to Pennsylvania, did you continue your job as a medical technician? Or did you take time off ?

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No. I didn’t work at all. I didn’t worked from then on. I didn’t work until uh Amy was a, uh… was it Amy or Anne? Let’s

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see…’til Anne went to college. ‘Til Anne went to college, I stayed home. But when we realized—we were a couple in Maryland—when we realized that we were going to have three

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kids in college at the same time—you see I had, uh, those three in four and a half years. MM and Wow, okay. And so they’re real close together, so that all three were going to be in college at the same time.

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And we could not afford that, even on his salary; he was making good money, but he– we couldn’t afford that. And so, I decided I had to do something, I had to go back to work. And, at that time, it’s hard to believe this, but at that

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time, it was hard for me to go into nursing school. They didn’t really take older people into nursing schools—I didn’t have my– I considered myself old. And so I thought the next thing to… to do was to become

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a teacher. And so I uh went back to school and got my—see I had no teaching experience at all—Mateo, get down. Off, off off off! Come!

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So I got my uh, uh, master’s and my teaching certificate at the same time. It took me about a year and a half. Why did you decide to try, um, nursing and then eventually teaching, rather than

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continue as a medical technician? I think be– maybe ‘cause we– I figured teaching would be the best thing with– when you have kids. And so that’s the reason I went ahead and got my master’s.

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Um, what age group did you end up teaching? Um my master’s is in early childhood—I ended up teaching kindergarten. I loved it. I mean, I really did. And uh, it was hard work but I was younger then, you know, I was

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in my thirties. I mean you could get down on the floor and, and you know, it was easy. And even then, um at that time—I was up north—uh when you’ve got little kids, okay, kindergarten kids, you’ve got to dress and

00:33:46.260 - 00:33:55.580

undress them, you know, even tie their shoes, you know . It’s a lot of work! And usually kindergarten’s only half a day, so usually you

00:33:55.600 - 00:34:05.990

had two classes, a morning class and an afternoon class. Well that means setting up two classrooms. You know, two sets so. But I really loved being a kindergarten teacher.

00:34:06.710 - 00:34:21.460

I ended up teaching um, mostly, 3rd grade– 2nd and 3rd grade. So how did your family move to Somerset? In New Jersey? My family didn’t.

00:34:21.750 - 00:34:33.730

It was just Ken and myself. Oh. Oh, that was after your daughters were already in college. Yeah. Was it for your husband’s job? Yeah. Mm-hm. But you continued teaching.

00:34:33.940 - 00:34:48.530

Yeah. Was there a salary difference between Maryland and New Jersey? Gosh. He’s talking… he is. … Uh… I

00:34:51.790 - 00:35:06.850

would say it was more… I’m not sure. It was hard to get a job in New Jersey. It really was. And, uh, I finally got a job as a uh instructor for uh– uh what’s the

00:35:06.890 - 00:35:18.030

university there, in New Jersey? What’s the big university in New Jersey? Um. It starts with a ‘V’. Gosh, my memory’s terrible.

00:35:20.480 - 00:35:34.340

I was in a demonstrating, demonstrating school there. Teaching kindergarten and 1st grade. But um I didn’t like it. I didn’t like teaching in New Jersey at all.

00:35:34.370 - 00:35:48.400

I hated it! And so, uh, the, uh, when Butch’s—when Anne’s husband Butch was admitted to Rice, we came for a vacation, and I loved Houston.

00:35:49.080 - 00:36:02.750

I mean it’s different then, you know. I loved Houston and uh, Anne took me up to, uh, the uh, office and they hired me immediately. But then you know, uh, Ken had to go back and try to sell

00:36:02.850 - 00:36:17.540

our house and, uh, he couldn’t sell the house in New Jersey. So I stayed with Anne. And I had a dog there, she– Patsy was my dog. And we stayed with Anne for about a year, until he came down to– came to

00:36:17.890 - 00:36:34.150

Houston. Do you remember how much the house eventually sold for? We made money on it, I know that . Okay. What did you dislike about New Jersey? I hate to say that on the, uh .

00:36:34.260 - 00:36:48.120

Oh okay. It’s fine. You can turn it off and I’ll tell you. Um, we’ll ask you afterwards. Um, so, let’s see… So you came to Houston?

00:36:48.170 - 00:37:05.860

Was that when you started teaching um in ’76? Mm-hm. I taught in Spring Branch. And did you feel um, welcomed into Houston? Were the people friendly? Oh yeah.

00:37:07.070 - 00:37:14.080

I loved Houston. I even like the traffic. It wasn’t bad at all! Did you like the weather?

00:37:14.420 - 00:37:30.510

No, the weather I could do without . As long as you have air conditioning. Um, did Anne and her husband have children at the time, when you were living with them?

00:37:30.750 - 00:37:49.220

No. No? They had a dog. They had a dog and when Anne got up to— is it Meredith or Michael? I think it was when they had– when she got Michael– Michael, Michael was very allergic to dogs.

00:37:49.480 - 00:38:07.460

And then I– they gave me Bojangles, that’s the dog. Do you remember your reaction when you found out that your daughter was interested in marrying someone of Caucasian descent rather than someone of Japanese descent?

00:38:08.530 - 00:38:20.890

No, it didn’t bother me because Anne —like uh you, you heard her talk, I mean, she and Butch went together since they were in 10th grade. Wow. And so Butch was always around.

00:38:21.310 - 00:38:39.510

It was just that, when they decided to get married, that my mother is the one that just was against it. So… Um, you’ve lived in a bunch of different parts of the United States. Um, do you remember any, um,

00:38:40.010 - 00:38:53.090

significant differences between any of the, um, places and how you were treated in these different cities? I loved the middle west. I still love the Midwest. I think it was different – it was different from the East,

00:38:53.580 - 00:39:07.090

New Jersey, and uh Houston at the time was just as nice as people in the middle west. It’s – they’re still all right, they’re all right, but they’re– it’s just not the same.

00:39:07.260 - 00:39:20.140

I mean, when we first came to Houston, we’d go to open houses and they’d– the houses were open! You could just walk in and look around, and we wouldn’t even think of doing something like that now.

00:39:22.970 - 00:39:36.650

Yeah… Um, so, uh when did your parents pass away? Uh, gosh. Um, my mother passed away when she was 75.

00:39:36.710 - 00:39:53.030

Oh okay. And my dad passed away when he was 89. And, uh, he lived here, with me, for a while. But, uh, he had a, apartment in, uh—he and my mother were living in one of

00:39:53.630 - 00:40:09.980

these retired homes, a really nice retired home, and he kept that even when he lived with me, he kept up his apartment. And uh he wasn’t real well, but he didn’t like being here, he wanted to go home.

00:40:11.240 - 00:40:24.330

And uh I think he knew he probably was going to just pass away, so he went home to Cleveland. And, uh, one morning they found him, and he had fallen, I guess, and had a stroke.

00:40:28.680 - 00:40:42.680

So… Um, you seem to have a really, uh, strong sense of extended family? Do you think this is something from um, your background and your heritage? Mm-hm. I don’t think there’s a divorce in our whole

00:40:43.120 - 00:40:55.740

family that I can think of. In both the Wilsons and the Takeharas. Um, you mentioned that both your parents were dead by 1988 so they couldn’t qualify for the

00:40:55.740 - 00:41:07.080

$20,000 that was given to the internment survivors. Um, while we were studying, our teacher told us that some critics thought that this amount was insulting, because it’s paying for, like, discrimination

00:41:07.560 - 00:41:20.510

with money. So do you have an opinion on this? No, I was just glad to get the $20,000. ... But it’s sort of sad.

00:41:21.160 - 00:41:36.880

Um, we didn’t want it as much as my parents would’ve. I mean they really went through a lot.

00:41:36.880 - 00:41:58.860

Um, how do you feel you um, raised your children different than um, your parents raised you? Did you have um, for instance, more emphasis on your heritage? No, I think…I think I raised my kids the

00:41:58.860 - 00:42:17.810

same way. Uh, we were always very, uh, associated– we have always associated with the church. Um, all three of my kids always had perfect attendance going to sc–

00:42:17.830 - 00:42:32.140

church. You know. And I don’t think that’s happening with their kids. So, oh. But uh, we, we, we really uh, raising my three kids– we really emphasized they were going to– they had to be good at school, education-wise.

00:42:35.750 - 00:42:48.370

Did you encourage them to learn Japanese? Or to get more in touch with their culture? I tried. Okay. Um, my grandsons are very fluent in Spanish. Oh wow. They really are.

00:42:48.420 - 00:43:01.310

And it’s going to help them. But it’s only because their housekeeper was always Spanish, spoke nothing but Spanish, and they had to learn. And so as a baby, from the time, uh, Amy went to

00:43:01.370 - 00:43:12.620

work—I think she started working when the kids – Darrell was six weeks old—she always had someone, but they spoke nothing but Spanish. And so the kids grew up, so they’re both fluent in Spanish.

00:43:12.980 - 00:43:24.210

They would love, I think, to be able to speak Japanese. And they’re very proud of their heritage. They really are. Both of

00:43:28.350 - 00:43:40.190

them are. Um, I know your husband wasn’t interned during World War II because he was from Hawaii, correct? Um how do you feel his attitude toward the United States differs from your own, or are they similar? His attitude? Mm-hm.

00:43:41.630 - 00:43:53.280

I think it’s different, probably maybe because he’s been in the army. He really fought for the country. You know? What about your brother? I remember you mentioned that he felt differently.

00:43:54.150 - 00:44:10.970

He felt differently– he was, he was in the army, and he went through– he had good college education. And uh, but um, he just doesn’t appreciate going to the reunions of the relocation camps and things like that.

00:44:13.780 - 00:44:29.740

How often do they have reunions? Well, we’re supposed to have one in September, uh, but uh, my husband is not that well, and we’re gonna to save his energy until we go to the big one in Washington for the

00:44:30.010 - 00:44:45.340

Congressional– Congressional medal of Honor. We only went to the one two years ago, and he enjoyed that. Are these events more of um, celebrations or remembrances, or more solemn?

00:44:46.110 - 00:45:00.010

No, they’re not solemn. It was really just to get together. And they had quite a good turnout. … And they have, um, um, I should show you my other thing

00:45:02.250 - 00:45:19.980

that’s here…I have an album of all the things that they’ve done. Do you recognize any old friends from the reunions? To tell you the truth, most of my friends are died—have died.

00:45:20.170 - 00:45:43.390

My very – my two very best friends are gone and Ken’s, all his friends have died, you know? Don’t get—we’re, you know, I’m 86 and he’s 88. Um, after 9/11, um many in the United States harbored,

00:45:44.030 - 00:45:58.630

um, kind of hostile feelings toward the Muslims? Um how do you feel the treatment and, um, the US government’s reaction to this hostility differed from that of, um, the treatment of the Japanese, and you think they did an adequate

00:45:58.670 - 00:46:15.160

job? You mean, do I think they should’ve been interned? No, I just mean… —no, not at all, I mean, um like, from the way I understand it, um, there was a lot of um–

00:46:16.160 - 00:46:27.640

Resentment, I guess you mean. Yeah there was…there was ev-. There still is. Yeah. Mm-hm. And… Like what would you say to someone who has um these hostile feelings, for

00:46:27.660 - 00:46:40.280

instance, against like all Muslims? Well, I feel sorry for them, because it’s only because some of them really—it’s from their looks. You know, and that’s how what happened to us.

00:46:41.860 - 00:46:56.450

And um, I’m very sympathetic as far as that’s concerned. You know. Because that’s exactly what happened to us. It’s–because you can almost um point them out, from the

00:46:56.500 - 00:47:17.910

way they look. So, like I said, here’s a thing like looking like the enemy. Do you have any more questions? No. Is there anything you would like to add, that we didn’t cover?

00:47:18.180 - 00:47:38.040

Any specific portions of your life? Nuh-uh. Um. Like I said, everything, I mean, everything’s been okay. It’s been okay. Um, I just wish my husband were in better physical shape, but then if you see

00:47:38.150 - 00:47:52.460

what the rest of them look like, um, he’s really in not in bad shape at all. So. But he, he suffers from depression, mainly because he can’t get out to golf.

00:47:53.400 - 00:48:05.540

I mean it’s too hot. And then he sleeps most of the morning, and if he can get up in the morning, you know. But, uh, once we can get him out on the golf course, he’ll be okay.

00:48:05.540 - 00:48:19.510

Do you think, uh this is partially a result of the war? Or, um… No. No, it’s just his age. He’s had three strokes. This is…one in – April 3rd was his third stroke.

00:48:20.000 - 00:48:30.250

Oh, wow… Well I guess that’s it. Yeah, I think, yeah. Well thank you very much for your time.