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My name is Brian Hammer. I am— Yes, Dr. Hammer— With the Rice University Houston Asian American Archive, and I’m

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here today in Sugar Land, Texas with Mary Tipton. Sugar Land is near Houston, and today’s date is March 23, 2012.

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And it’s my pleasure to be here today to learn more about your life, Mary, and to look forward to looking at your photographs, and etcetera, so thank you. Could you—could you

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please state for me your full name, including your—your uh, maiden name? My name’s Mary Yayoi Shigeta Tipton, and I’m eighty eight years old, was born in Canada, 1924,

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and right now, I’m living in Sugar Land. Have been here for approximately—I guess eight years now. I’m not too sure about that. Where were you born in Canada?

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British Columbia, about three miles from the forty ninth parallel, in the district of Surrey. And it’s Southportmann, I think they call it. The south of the Fraser River, about fourteen miles south of

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Vancouver. I think it was at that time. We were way out in the country then. At least I think it was. But now it’s pretty much a city.

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It’s a—a suburb of Vancouver practically, I guess. ‘Cause it’s expanded so much. Sure. What was it like, uh, when you were young there, in that place? Oh, there were a group of Japanese community there.

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This is what, uh, this is all about. This is done by Dr. Michael Hoshiko, and uh, he took ten years or so traveling all around, and he’s got all of the Japanese family’s

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history. And uh, including our family, here. This is the way it was at that time. May I take a photograph? Oh, yes.

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Thank you. So—and what is this showing? You’ve— This is my father’s general grocery store that he used to have—he had built himself. He had five acres of land out there, and uh, at

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first he—we had to—I mean, they had to clear it. You know, Douglas fir trees. Cut the big old trees down, and then dynamite the stumps out, and that type of thing.

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And then they planted strawberries. There were a lot of strawberry farmers in that area, and the Japanese community was quite large at that time out there.

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And then he began—he had done a sort of internship with a—a Japanese man in Vancouver when he was a teenager. And as a wholesale grocery—

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grocery store wholesaler. So he decided he was—when he came back to Canada, he went back to Japan. His—my grandfather went to Hawaii

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first, and lost my step—my grandmother and uh, I think there was a child. It was too soon after the birth of the baby, and that was a rough traveling two weeks in the hold of a ship or something.

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And she passed away when he got there, so he had to turn right around and come back to Japan. Then he decided he’d go to Canada because U.S. had just closed all Japanese from entering.

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What year was that, approximately? Approximately early nineteen hundred something, I think. He had gone to Hawaii to work on the—they were encouraging people to leave Japan, I guess. I mean, the people were getting

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too many on the island— I don’t know — I’m—this is all sort of—I’m just reading back on stuff. But anyway… And he went there to Hawaii to work or— He was planning to work on the—the plantations there,

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I think, my grandfather. But when he lost my grandmother and had to bring a little baby back home to Japan. He had already left my father in care of his,

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uh, brother, my father’s uncle. And so now he left two boys, and he went—he was going to go back to Hawaii, but U.S. had closed all

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Japanese from entering the U.S. So he took the next boat out, and it went to Canada. And so he started working in the lumber camps, there were Japanese people there, and distant relatives there, I think.

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And uh, then my—my grandfather was ready to go back to Japan, and uh, this relative lost his wife, and he was in need of funeral expenses and things like that.

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My grandfather couldn’t loan him anything—my father was a teenager, had saved up some money. So he—he bought half of the ten— acre piece of land this relative had, and

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just left it there because my grandfather said, “You’re the oldest son. You can’t stay in Canada.” And uh, so he just left that land and went back to Japan with my grandfather.

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And then he was married in Japan, joined the Air Force in Japan, but he was a little bit older than the other—what do you call it, the young people that

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join the Air Force. And he caught pleurisy, and while he was just—back in those days, I guess all you could do was rest and take it easy. They didn’t have type of advanced medicine and things like they have now.

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But anyway, he got to thinking about that piece of land he left behind in Canada. But my mother already had given birth to my older sister at that time. And she didn’t know it, but he

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said he was leaving the baby with the grandparents and we’re going to Canada. I found that out when I was about twelve years old what had happened. ’Cause I kept looking at this family picture, and there’s a little Japanese girl right here in the middle of the

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formal picture. This one doesn’t have it. Because I remember when we took this picture in New Westminster, and later on there was a big photograph, family photograph, in our living room, and there’s a

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little Japanese girl with a kimono on, right in the middle. They just superimposed it on. I kept thinking, “Who is that person. I know she wasn’t there when we took that picture.” You know.

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Well, it turned out that it was my older sister, and they put that picture in there so she would be part of the family. And she died shortly thereafter—after this picture was taken.

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And so my next younger sister is uh, four years younger than I am. She’s—all the rest of my sisters — that’s her —still live in Japan. Because we all—they

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took seven children back to Japan in 1940, October of 1940. Grandparents said that my older sister was eighteen years old, getting too many marriage proposals. It’s too big a responsibility, you’d

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better come home. So my father sold his five-acre piece of land and uh, the grocery store, and he had a 76 gasoline stand. He was planning to open a little café.

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Because King George Highway had opened through from Seattle to Vancouver, and it was just a wonderful opportunity for him, but there was nothing he could do, so he was able to sell his property, and uh, took seven kids.

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My mother was Catholic, you know, so the children kept coming. They left two babies. One was uh—she was, I think, approximately a year and a half or two years old, and the other one was a premature infant.

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So I have two gravesites in Canada. I put a new fence on there, but… How did your father come to own that five acres, do you know? He bought that from that relative that was needing the money.

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So uh, he didn’t have the money to loan, exactly, but he said, “Would you buy my land?” I guess I—I’m not real sure about that—how it happened, but anyway. It’s my neighbor.

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Was that—was that considered a lot of land compared to your friends? Five acres, you know, is not that much. But compared to Japan, yes. You know in Japan the maximum you have is about

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two. After uh, General MacArthur, and they’d redistributed the land, you know. I think our family did have quite a bit of land, but during the war the— the airfield took over most of my grandfather’s property.

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And so they lost nearly all their good family property. Where was that land in Japan? It was in uh, Kumamoto.

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It’s a small village uh, in—I don’t know what part of Kumamoto it was. Somewhere in the middle, I guess. But he did have some Shigeta land.

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Shigeta is—in Japanese, it means kind of a—a green rice paddy, you know, verdant or very healthy. So that’s how come you know my forebears in

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my father’s side was a farmer. Shigeta, ‘ta’ is ‘rice paddy.’ But anyway… Very interesting.

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It was five acres of land. I think he first grew strawberries on there along with all the rest of the folks that had strawberry farms, there’s pictures of all the neighbors that had

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strawberry farms , you know, I think those are strawberry farms. And uh, I showed these picture to uh, Neva and Sut Oishi.

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And uh, Neva was born in Mission, I think, British Columbia, which is not that far from where I was born. And they come to JACL. They’re the ones that sort of begun the JACL here in Houston, I think.

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But uh, anyway, he was—he was thrilled to see this picture because a lot of these people have moved to Raymond and Taber, Alberta, and that’s where Sut Oishi was born, I

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think. And—and all—it’s so strange that I should meet them here in Houston after seventy—some odd years. And he is close friends with the youngest child of that next—door neighbor that

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I grew up with. Uh, their name is Sassa, and—who is this? I forgot. I think this is the father of the person that did this book,

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I think. I don’t know. I’m upside down anyway. But uh, he knew these people after they moved.

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You know during the war, Canada went through the same thing U.S. did. I mean, they moved them inland, lost all their property, and all this kind of stuff.

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I never experienced that part of it because we left in 1940 because of personal reasons, you know. And that happened in 1942, I believe. Some part of 1942 when

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everybody had to leave their stuff, and they were taken to the Hastings Park, horse stable, and all that kind of stuff. And then move further on inland. If you had the money, you could travel further

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inland. Some of them didn’t. They landed on beet farm—sugar beet farms. I have friends—my next-door neighbor girls. I think they all had to work on the sugar beet farms and things of that nature.

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How did—did you—did your family keep in touch? Were they able to keep in touch at all with anyone after they left Canada? Like, those first few years. Well, our ship that we went back to Japan with—that was the last

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sh—uh, Japanese ship to leave Canada. And it’s—it’s in Yokohama port now. It’s a tourist thing. It’s still there.

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And that was the last trip they made from Canada. And uh, they didn’t make any more trips out. And I don’t know if they were

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able to stay in touch. I don’t—I don’t remember them. All I remember is my parents talking about—something about being loaded on the back

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of a truck, and something or the other. I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, busy working on the rice fields, planting rice and hauling stuff on my back and all that kind of stuff.

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It’s a totally new experience, you know. And I vaguely remember something. They must have heard about it, but I don’t think there was much communication.

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And uh, how did I get back in touch? Umm, I think when I came back to U.S. after marrying my husband in Japan 1951 is when we were

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married in Yokohama. And uh, we came to the States—Fort Knox is where he came back to his career service.

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So uh, I think I got a copy of The New Canadian, which is a publication by the second generation Japanese in Canada, and I read about some of the names on there. I don’t know how—how—how did I get—I’m—

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That’s very interesting. Yeah. Uh—huh— How did I get back in touch with everybody? I’m not sure, but I still am in touch with my next-door neighbor’s

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youngest—youngest uh, member that’s still left. Now, she wasn’t the youngest, but she was younger than I was. Right next door, you know.

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And uh, this Sut and Neva in Raymond grew up with her younger brother, who was just a baby when we left 1940.

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He lives in Alberta, and Sut and Neva have their— Neva’s mother still lives in Alberta, I think. And they—they’re the ones began the JACL here, I think. You must have met them.

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I’ve met Sut—yeah, I have. But anyway, uh, I forget what I was talking about! Well, that’s—so tell me about the—so you lived in

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uh, British Columbia for quite a number of years as a child... Until I was sixteen years old. So tell me about—tell me what was school like? Well, school was like—just you know.

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Uh, I have school pictures. Simon Cunningham School. Let’s see. This— there’s my brother in here.

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My next-door neighbor. Let’s see. Which is—upside down—I can’t… You can—yeah, you can a... This is my last year in school.

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I was in the eighth grade. And uh, Mr. Margerison was the teacher. And I had been in touch with

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uh—she was a next-door neighbor. But they’re all gone now. They’ve passed away. I know this was Geraldine, Lindsey. She lives in Winnipeg.

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She lived across the road from us. And uh, Her brother is a retired neurosurgeon in Florida. He used to be a neurosurgeon in Green Bay,

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Wisconsin. I think they were those that had friends in Chicago, or relatives in Chicago, and they were able to move. And they were a

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little bit better off than some of the rest of them. But they lost all their belongings, too. And I think her older brother still lives in California. I think he’s a cardiologist or something.

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He’s of course uh, retired long since, and… So it looks like quite a few students with Japanese communities. Oh, yes. There were quite a few Japanese in that community. And I

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still remember some of these. Jack Cato. Henry Hawk. Fred—I forget his last name. John Pidruchny.

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They were from—Po—they had Polish background, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. England-Rosemary Montgomery was from England.

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You know, they were all from all over the.. Were there other Asians around? Like Ja—Chinese, or... We didn’t have any Chinese in our area.

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There were in town. But there weren’t any out in—I think most of them had businesses in town. I think the Japanese were the ones that uh, did the land. And how did you em—the produce that were grown.

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Those were sold in your own stores, or were they—where were they sold? Like the strawberries. They had a uh, association, a strawberry association.

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And they took the—the farmer’s crop uh, to uh—I’m not too sure. I might just let you take this with you, and you can read basically the history of the Japanese Americans.

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And they have even a map and all that stuff. But it tell—you know, I don’t remember a whole lot about... That’s fine.

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No—that’s okay. I’m just curious. That’s fine. Yes. They had an association, and uh, they... So is it Japanese Farmers’ Association—or far—like, Japanese Strawberry— Yeah, Strawberry Association, yes.

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And in that community my father decided—at first he had strawberries. Then he had chickens. I think he had over three thousand laying chickens.

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They even had a little incubator that they hatched eggs and things of that nature. And then he turned—he planted a uh, orchard in our five

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acres of land, and he grew asparagus in between those lines. At the time we left Canada, that was what was growing on our property.

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He had already built the store in front of the uh, property. So it’s right on the property, then—okay. That’s nice. Okay. Yeah. I went back there in 1991

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or 92. Ninety-two—the fifty-year reunion? And this friend of mine who did this book said, “Mary, you need to go.” I was living in Ozark, Arkansas at

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that time. I think. And uh, my husband had passed away. Otherwise, I couldn’t have left him, you know. He was eleven years my senior, and his health wasn’t

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all that great, so. But I think it was 1992, it was fifty years. It was a fifty-year reunion in Vancouver. Of reunion of what—of?

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The people that had left British Columbia and gone to Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan, Ontario, Toronto, U.S. All over. And as many as could

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had gone to have this reunion. Fifty-year reunion, I believe is what it was. At Hotel Vancouver. I think it was. And I met up

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with the friends I had been talking to on the telephone and writing letters but saw each other. We’re all old women, you know? Were people in the town—were they—were many of them from the same

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place as your family in Japan, or were they from all over? No, they were in that—the neighborhood in Surrey. They were neighbors there. Sure, sure. But were they— But most of them—well, I wouldn’t say most of them.

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Some of them came from Hiroshima, Shigoku, Tokyo area. You know. They came from Japan from different areas of Japan. But uh, the ones that we were

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neighbors with—they were the distant relatives. Some I think like old aunts or sisters or something like that. We were related in a kinda

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convoluted way. And uh, they had four girls and one son. And I grew up thinking they were my—you know, like we were sisters or something.

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I called their older sister ‘nie-san,’ you know, which is ‘elder sister.’ Until I realized we weren’t really of that. But at sixteen, I hated to leave Canada.

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I felt like I didn’t wanna go at all. Just old enough to be attached, you know. We were, in fact, we were talking about if Germany had already started something in Europe,

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I think. And some of us teenagers had gotten together, and we were talking about what are we, you know? Well, we’re Canadians. We’re Canadians is what I remember distinctly.

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One of the older brother of my friend was going to the University of British Columbia by then. I think he was that age. And we were talking about it, and I remember we

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were all definitely we’re Canadians. So if ever Japan was involved, we’d be on the Canadian side. There wasn’t any question

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about that. We sang “God Bless”, you know, “Long Live King George,” I think it was, when we were still in school. We said the Lord’s Prayer

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every morning, you know, at school. And then it became Long Live the Queen when Queen Elizabeth became—of course, I wasn’t in school then. She was—she’s about two years younger than I am.

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Queen Elizabeth, the mother queen, I guess. No— No, it’s Queen— Yeah, Queen Elizabeth. Yeah. Not the elder—

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Queen mother. Yeah. I don’t know if she’s still living or not. I don’t think so. She’s gone? I think so. I remember doing a sketch of the two princesses Margaret and

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Elizabeth when I was in the uh, grade school, you know, and the teacher wanted to keep it. How did you—how did you learn about the Queen in school? What did they— We were Canadians.

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Yeah. British history is what we learned. We didn’t know anything about the United States. I wouldn’t have known where Kentucky was if—had my life depended on it. Because we studied British history—English history, and all of the—you know.

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Did you learn about colonialism and things that the British Empire, or... Well, I think New Westminster was called the Royal City, I’m told. I think the capital was there at one time.

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Now it’s Victoria, BC on the Vancouver Island. But I think New Westminster was supposed to be the first capital of British Columbia.

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I don’t remember. I don’t remember all that kind of. The name makes sense, though. Westminster, yeah. Yeah, New Westminster. And uh, let’s see.

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I was fourteen when I graduated the eighth grade, and my parents were already planning to go back to Japan, I guess, because I remember my eighth grade teacher came to see my father and tried to encourage them to let me continue

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my education. And said I was very bright or whatever and that I needed to continue my education, but he said in Japan the girls didn’t need education that much if we get married, all that stuff. So I ended my formal education at fourteen at grade eight in

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Simon Cunningham Elementary School. That’s all the education I ever got. The rest of my brothers and sisters after they went back to Japan were young enough that they were enrolled in school, and they grew up like,

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you know, the regular Japanese community. But uh, I was too old to go to school, I was already sixteen. And the way life was then, it was

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already austerity program. China, I guess China was being invaded by the Japanese, and I dunno. When I read back about it and see how the

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general population was manipulated, I just—makes me sick. The military was in power, and uh, everything was geared towards Emperor Hirohito.

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You’re supposed to—you didn’t dare leave a picture of the emperor on the ground or anything like that. In fact, while I was living there in southern Japan, my brothers and

00:27:47.480 - 00:28:02.950

sisters had gone to school, and they had a bus running. And they had the flag on the front—you know, they had this rising sun flag on the front of the public bus. One of the flags fell, and

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the teacher was riding on the side of the door there, you know. She flung herself over that flag so that it would run over her instead of that flag.

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That’s how they— that’s how fanatically they were teaching us, all of us, to be, you know. And you dare not do anything that has a picture of the emperor or anything.

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You don’t desecrate it, you treat it with—yeah. I remember after the war ended, and I was interpreting for the Marines that came in. And uh, he was uh, search and destroy platoon.

00:28:47.210 - 00:29:04.320

I think he was in the search part, and the other group was for the destroying and getting rid of all the booby traps and what not that they were feared would be. I had some very interesting experience about that, too. But I remember he was—his name was Howard Weldon.

00:29:04.320 - 00:29:22.590

He was a second lieutenant from Birmingham, Alabama, and he asked me, “Mary, do you think your emperor is a god?” I said, “No! I didn’t. I grew up in Canada!” I couldn’t believe, but that’s the way they were being taught. And my brothers and sisters when they went to school,

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they had to bow before the picture of the emperor, repeat this whatever-it-is that they repeated, you know, before they could go into the classrooms and that kind of stuff. I tried to get my older sister

00:29:36.770 - 00:29:56.390

to send me a copy of that because I remember it says, “— what was it now—.” Anyway, “loyalty to the emperor, be obedient to your parents” or “honor your parents” or something like

00:29:56.650 - 00:30:10.640

that, etcetera etcetera etcetera. It sort of reminded me of the Lord’s Prayer, just—you know, sort of. Because it was all mixed in there. You know, just Japanese and Confucius stuff and all that.

00:30:10.660 - 00:30:30.080

I think they just got it up together so—and they indoctrinated everybody with that. When we were children in Canada, when my parents would—especially my father, when they were gathered together, they would sing the

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“Kimigayo.” You know, that’s the national anthem, and I remember having to sing that. And it still is, I think, but I gather Japan has changed tremendously, and the younger people do not have that

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uh, I don’t know if they even have a sense of direction anymore, even though the emperor is still living there. I mean, he’s still alive.

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I bet he wishes he wasn’t an emperor. I’m reading this—all these history after I settled in here, you know. What did you parents think when they went back to Canada, do you

00:31:12.450 - 00:31:25.640

know? Back to Japan to—about these things that you were experiencing, do you know? I just think they just took it for granted. I think it was—they

00:31:25.640 - 00:31:38.070

didn’t question the emperor worship type of thing. And our family was Buddhist, you know. My mother was Catholic, but my father’s family was

00:31:38.140 - 00:31:49.730

Buddhist, so it was a weird situation, really. My mother—I don’t know— she came from several generation of Catholics. She was born, I think,

00:31:49.820 - 00:32:02.590

in Nagasaki, and that’s where the Portuguese first came and had all these Catholic. So my mother’s side of the family have a lot of— they’re still Catholics, even to this day, and the atom bomb

00:32:03.540 - 00:32:20.850

was dropped on Nagasaki, also. So some of them lost their lives there. And uh—but there’s—I think they say there’s a different atmosphere in Nagasaki compared to Hiroshima with the atom bomb.

00:32:21.410 - 00:32:34.650

Because of the Christian influence in Nagasaki, the attitude towards the atom bomb is different, and um, I don’t know.

00:32:34.880 - 00:32:46.700

I think God allowed it to happen just to let the human race know what they have, you know. And, “This is what happens. I mean, I let it happen so you can see so we

00:32:46.720 - 00:33:00.810

should never have it again.” Because it’s a complete destruction. I went to Hiroshima four years after the bomb was dropped, and the dome was still on that thing.

00:33:01.180 - 00:33:12.330

And when we were getting married, I had to get my health exams, you know. It was in this Red Cross building. The doctors were still—you could walk the stairs and see the shadows on

00:33:14.230 - 00:33:28.270

the steps, you know. And there were ramshackle business going on. The planks—well, when it rained it would be muddy, and these makeshift stores and stalls, you know, that kind of thing, when I went to

00:33:28.910 - 00:33:39.670

Hiroshima. Why did you go to Hiroshima? Well, it was a change of jobs because the military government team were leaving Miyazaki City. Ah, the governing part, you know, and the

00:33:39.730 - 00:33:53.740

rest was going to be occupation, I guess. And there—I went to see a American family that I knew that would help me get a job. So I went to Etajima.

00:33:54.770 - 00:34:11.770

And that was where the former naval academy used to be, I think. And they changed that into a specialist school for American soldiers. And they used the building that my husband worked in was a

00:34:11.880 - 00:34:28.040

warehouse at the time that had every supply that American families would need, from tablecloths, pepper shakers, salt shaker, that kind of stuff. A to Z, they had everything, and they stored it in this

00:34:28.070 - 00:34:44.900

warehouse. And this warehouse used to be a model warship at one time. And all the buildings that were the naval academy of Japan was changed into the specialist school for the Far East command, I think

00:34:46.180 - 00:34:59.610

communications or something like that. And my husband went to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey to study radar and microwave and that type of stuff, so that was where he was sent later on.

00:35:00.270 - 00:35:10.540

That’s later on. I’m getting all messed up. Anyway, well, let’s go back to when you first arrived in Japan. You were sixteen, and then you—what was the first thing you did? Did you immediately start to work?

00:35:10.650 - 00:35:22.790

Or what were—you were working the fields, is that right? Or? No… What were you doing? Well, I remember thinking when we docked at Yokohama, everybody had black hair.

00:35:23.040 - 00:35:32.410

Everybody looked like me. Everybody looked like my mother, my father, my aunt, my uncle, whatever. That struck me.

00:35:33.050 - 00:35:50.220

We didn’t have very many grandparents in Canada, you know. And we didn’t have that many relatives. Some of them had, but we didn’t have gran—In fact, that’s one of the main reasons that I was able to accept being

00:35:50.220 - 00:36:06.020

back in Japan was that I had a sister I never met. She was two years older than I was, I had grandparents and step-grandmother. And when we first went, we went to my grandfather’s—my father’s home

00:36:06.670 - 00:36:20.330

in Kumamoto. But they had lost their property to the airfield, you know. Japan was invading China, and it was all very much—food was rationed already.

00:36:20.660 - 00:36:35.170

And I remember my sisters and brothers and I were thinking—my grandmother had prepared special meals, you know, like bean cake and tofu and that kind of

00:36:36.140 - 00:36:48.450

stuff. We didn’t like it. All we could think of was ice cream and cake and pies. So that was actually wanted to ask so— And we didn’t realize what a sacrifice they had made to prepare

00:36:48.590 - 00:37:00.530

that meal for us. They only had about a pound of sugar that they saved all year long, just to use for this occasion. And we didn’t appreciate

00:37:00.620 - 00:37:13.900

that at all. So—so it sounds like your diet in Canada was quite different. It was more half-half. We ate mush in the morning, which was

00:37:14.110 - 00:37:28.580

oatmeal, and uh, sometimes it’d be rice. My mother cooked half and half. And she learned to bake cakes, and she had a—she used to bake Christmas cakes, fruit cakes.

00:37:28.640 - 00:37:39.530

And that was what they distributed to the friends. But they always did have rice at least once a day, I guess. And the rest of it was

00:37:43.190 - 00:37:56.980

uh—well, since we had a chicken poultry farm, on occasion we’d have chicken fried chicken or something. But when there’s a big family, you know, one gets a wing, one gets half of a drumstick.

00:37:58.270 - 00:38:07.630

Bananas are cut into pieces, we get couple or three slices of banana apiece. That kind of—but we didn’t starve or anything.

00:38:07.630 - 00:38:21.640

We had plenty to eat. How would you—when you were in Canada, how would you compare your family’s economic situation to your neighbors and your classmates? I think we were basically average. There were some neighbors that

00:38:21.820 - 00:38:35.890

a little bit better off than we were. But my father was fairly active in the community, and he was a little of a—at the time, I think he was a little bit of a leader type in the community, and helped organize—I

00:38:36.530 - 00:38:50.150

do remember when I was about twelve, I think it was, and Japan was going to leave the League of Nations. They were upset. The people--the leading members of the community--and they went

00:38:50.190 - 00:39:05.150

to the consulate in Vancouver to protest the leaving of, you know, Japan from the League of Nations. I remember that fairly clearly. And uh—But uh.

00:39:05.150 - 00:39:20.670

Why were they protesting that, do you think? They didn’t want Japan to leave the world community thing. They—we needed to get along, you know. And I—I didn’t know the reasons why

00:39:20.790 - 00:39:35.130

they were leaving the League of Nations. I’m just now beginning to find out, reading backwards, you know, something about like. Right now, I’m in the middle of a book about how Emperor Hirohito, how

00:39:36.040 - 00:39:47.180

much he was responsible or not responsible for World War Two. And uh, according to this writer, Harold Bintz or somebody. Anyway, he feels

00:39:47.180 - 00:40:03.240

like he was more responsible—should’ve been tried. Well, I don’t know about that. But you know, uh, some of the things that I’m thinking of probably is tainted with things I read since

00:40:03.240 - 00:40:19.150

I left Japan. Back when I was in Japan, I didn’t know what was Pearl Harbor? What was Pearl Harbor? We didn’t know. Our train—we lived on—Miyazaki is the southern island of Kyushu on the Pacific coastline.

00:40:20.800 - 00:40:35.490

North is Oita, South is Kagoshima, and this strip of land that faces the Pacific Ocean, that’s Miyazaki Prefecture. And uh, it was supposed to be the

00:40:35.610 - 00:40:52.470

third landing place for the Marines if the war had continued. But Japan was already down to nothing, I think, anyway. The military had a lot, I gather. Because if we grow, like, say ten sacks of rice

00:40:53.340 - 00:41:05.720

harvested, seven or eight of it would be military. They’ll give us—let us keep about two sacks for a family of eleven to twelve people. We run out of that, and so we’ll ration that.

00:41:07.380 - 00:41:22.850

And uh, I remember thinking—there was a B-29 that was drop—came down not too far from where our home was, and the Japanese military police had headquarters in the town that I lived nearby.

00:41:24.390 - 00:41:41.460

And uh, when they were captured-- there were nine of those people captured--I remember thinking about all that, too. And I’m still trying to find out. There was one young crewman that was injured in

00:41:44.210 - 00:42:01.160

the uh, B-29 when it was shot down, and he died while I was downstairs being used as an interpreter. How did you—sorry, go ahead. Well, I’ve been trying to find out about the people in that

00:42:01.430 - 00:42:18.140

plane, you know, because they were brought to the—and I started to tell you this, was that uh, they might have felt they were being treated pretty badly, you know--bare foot on an oil floor, it was March, and cold,

00:42:18.650 - 00:42:33.620

and they were being fed. But I remember thinking, “Wow, they’re eating white rice and vegetables and fruit” and we were eating weeds, and my brothers were picking up grasshoppers out of the rice

00:42:33.620 - 00:42:47.200

field for protein, boiling seawater to get our salt. And good sweet potatoes all went to the military, we were eating the roots. And we boil that root, and it’d be a kind of a bitter, bitter molasses-like thing.

00:42:47.220 - 00:42:59.000

That was our sweet. It was pretty bad. How did the military come? Did they just came to your home and said, “Give us your—give us your rice?”

00:42:59.000 - 00:43:11.270

There was a whole system, I think. We grew squash, you know, there’s—I can find those squash now in 99 Ranch down here, and I keep thinking, “Oh my goodness.” Remember loading our—this

00:43:13.970 - 00:43:30.270

uh—we called it rear-car, whatever, but we—it’s a wagon that you pull with a couple of handles in the front, you know, and piling it up with these squash and taking it to the warehouse, and uh, We’d have to eat the bad ones, you know, the leftover ones or whatever.

00:43:31.170 - 00:43:43.680

But farmers were able to eat somehow, but there were people who were coming out from the towns and cities looking for something to buy or trade or something, and…

00:43:45.850 - 00:43:58.780

And did you also know—so no one in your family was in the military, though, is that right? My brothers were too young, and I remember my brother was about twelve years old at the time the Marines came in.

00:43:59.280 - 00:44:13.160

And I think he was in the village when the Marines first came in, and evidently in this group of people that were gathered there, this young Marine was trying

00:44:13.220 - 00:44:28.550

to find a laundry or dry cleaners or something. And my brother spoke up in English, and said, “There’s a laundry, you know, or dry cleaning establishment just on the...” They took him under his wing, their

00:44:28.660 - 00:44:46.090

wing, you know. Took him to their headquarters in the next town. And I remember him telling me, “I’m so glad I’m not old enough to go to the—have to go into the service because I would have had to shoot my classmates,” or something, is the way he felt.

00:44:47.140 - 00:45:03.560

But he was much younger, so he didn’t have to get into. But other than that, our immediate family, there were all girls, and my brother was—my two brothers were twelve and six or something like that at the time, so…

00:45:03.560 - 00:45:18.870

I remember, it seems to me at dinner the other a month ago or so, you were mentioning you also remember seeing soldiers going off to war. Is that—? Yes, they—the train runs right along the coast. Japanese national

00:45:19.270 - 00:45:37.190

train tracks. Our home was on this side, and our land was on this side, and there was a pine grove and the Pacific Ocean, you know. We were right on the—where our rice paddies and sweet potato fields, the train just ran right by, you know.

00:45:37.330 - 00:45:50.040

And of course, we would watch these soldiers being sent off to China or Manchuria or wherever it was they were going. And uh, the train station wasn’t too far from

00:45:50.110 - 00:46:04.090

our home, about a mile and a half. And uh, so either coming or going and we see these flags being waved, you know, and of course we all bow and say, “Bonsai,” and stuff like that to send them off to war, I

00:46:04.300 - 00:46:18.180

guess. And then of course, we’re still working on the farm when the war ended. And I remember my sister and I would be out on the rice paddy, and we’d have branches tied to our

00:46:19.490 - 00:46:31.650

waists, you know, to camouflage because planes would come over and shoot at the railroad station, and shells would drop in our yard. They dropped three bombs

00:46:31.690 - 00:46:44.670

on the school where my brother and sisters were going, and my brother had come home for something, and he was going towards the school when the bomb, the B-29

00:46:45.710 - 00:47:02.610

was coming over. And he hid in the ditch, and he could see the bombs coming down. And it dropped—three of them dropped on the school and killed three—three teachers—five teachers, I think--two men and three women. And uh, a

00:47:03.000 - 00:47:18.750

couple of the teachers were expecting, but they have a kind of a memorial thing. It’s all in the brush now but when I went back to check on it not too long ago.

00:47:20.100 - 00:47:35.160

But the reason for that, I would assume, would be that during—when the school’s not in session, the local #4 people, you know, the soldiers—the leftovers or whatever—would train

00:47:36.390 - 00:47:51.790

there. So if a reconnaissance train, whatever the planes are that comes over to check it, they see these military drills being held in the schoolyard—school. Can’t blame them.

00:47:52.080 - 00:48:02.900

Towards the end of the war we could see the American warships on the horizon. And they had a anti —aircraft gunman—this big old thing,

00:48:03.890 - 00:48:19.470

right in the hillside behind our home. They had two of those, I think. And there was a Japanese group of soldiers that was assigned to that, and the only person that seemed like they had any sense was a young

00:48:20.280 - 00:48:32.600

officer that was in charge of them. The rest of them are dregs from the farmlands and what-not, they don’t know what they were doing half the time. And I was thinking if the war hadn’t ended, our place would

00:48:32.600 - 00:48:47.400

have been bombarded from the ship. We’d have been smithereens, you know. That’s a weird, weird… What did you—so when you were in Japan during the war, what did

00:48:47.400 - 00:48:59.880

you hear about the war, like the United States or? Everything was controlled by the military. , I think they called it. or something. And everything was

00:48:59.960 - 00:49:14.850

controlled by the military, so it’s just one here, a plane that went down, they glorified everything. And the military were arrogant . Oh my goodness. And some of the soldiers that were

00:49:14.980 - 00:49:27.490

stationed in our area, the wives would come, they would be wearing their kimonos and come out to the farms to try to buy stuff. And they would talk down to my mother, you know.

00:49:28.390 - 00:49:39.480

And my mother just smiled and just let it go. But they didn’t know she could speak English. She’d been in Canada for seventeen years or more and uh,

00:49:41.070 - 00:49:52.620

had dealt with them, you know, customers and all that kind of stuff. And here these young wives of the soldiers had come to the farm and think my mother’s a farmhand,

00:49:52.970 - 00:50:08.790

you know, whatever. But I remember, we stepped aside when the soldiers came walking around. Oh my goodness. And the—the military police had their headquarters in that town, too, and that—they used to

00:50:10.000 - 00:50:23.860

come out to our house to check. We had an old radio from Canada, and they were trying to see if we were involved in that type of thing. They pretended to come out to see my sister and me.

00:50:24.690 - 00:50:35.810

You know, we’re young women, you know. Supposed to be sort of the good-looking girls out there on that farm. But their purpose was to check out my

00:50:35.940 - 00:50:52.590

father and our household and see if we had any connections with the— but it turns out that my father was able to talk to the captain of this uh, kempeitai, the military government, and he told them about

00:50:52.590 - 00:51:04.790

his experience in Canada, that the Canadians and the British, you know, the US are alike. And they were just people, just like, you know. They’re not like what propaganda was.

00:51:05.120 - 00:51:16.240

There were a lot of—I gather there were a lot of families that were sending their wives and children up into the hills and stuff like that. They were being told

00:51:16.270 - 00:51:29.280

that they were going to be—whatever they did in China, that’s why I think they had this thing about that the Americans were going to be doing the same things or something. But my father was telling them,

00:51:29.440 - 00:51:46.660

“No, they’re not like that.” And so I was told a lot later on that uh, because of the treatment they received when they were captured in Tsuno, that these people that went back to the US, that

00:51:46.850 - 00:52:05.540

they have gone back to the US, and they had told them that they had received good treatment in our town, when I was doing interpreting and stuff. But anyway—it uh, made a little bit of difference, and I remember I was

00:52:05.560 - 00:52:17.930

being questioned by the Counterintelligence Corps, I guess the CIC, about my involvement, you know, and I told them— Involvement in what? Interpreting for the kempeitai.

00:52:18.950 - 00:52:31.500

For the B-29 crewmen that were captured and all that. Right, right. Well, when they were talking to me, they realized I wasn’t doing anything, you know, like Tokyo Rose stuff, but that’s what they had

00:52:31.520 - 00:52:42.670

planned for me, I gather. That if—if the troops are gonna be landing, they were gonna use me, I think. It never came to that, but I would’ve

00:52:42.700 - 00:53:00.900

been used that way. And uh, the war was ending, and right after the war ended we had a typhoon come through. It was after the war the atom

00:53:00.940 - 00:53:15.590

bomb was dropped. I didn’t know what the atom bomb was dropped—what it was. I mean, they had posters on the telephone poles, you know, something about this. In fact, they dropped leaflets over, and we had—

00:53:15.930 - 00:53:28.280

they were about this size— You mean the Americans? Or the Japanese? The American planes dropped these leaflets warning the Japanese people, but we—I think when we read it, it was in Japanese.

00:53:28.280 - 00:53:43.120

I couldn’t read Japanese. And uh, they were in these, you know, the pink and yellow and green little flyer things, and they were just this size, you know. And they fluttered down in our yards and everything, and I

00:53:43.250 - 00:53:58.860

think they warned the Japanese people that uh, to surrender, or whatever, that there was a bomb to be—going to be dropped. We just—I think my parents just read it and thought it was propaganda or something. I don’t know.

00:53:58.860 - 00:54:11.560

I remember those papers being dropped. I remember the shells coming down from the planes. I watched these Japanese planes, and uh, I think a P-38, one that has those two—

00:54:13.190 - 00:54:23.050

they’re planes with two bodies like that. They’re reconnaissance planes, I think. I don’t know what you call them. I’m not sure. But I think I know what you mean, but I’m not sure—

00:54:23.080 - 00:54:39.990

But there were two or three of these hinomaru Japanese planes just whizzing around this one plane that’s taking pictures, probably that’s what they were doing. Right overhead, you know, we were looking

00:54:40.030 - 00:54:51.960

through the woods. We hid in the bushes, you know. And there were some farmer people that were shot at, you know. We dyed all our clothes.

00:54:52.880 - 00:55:05.940

My sister dyed all our clothes with white. We didn’t wear white at all and all that. That was getting close towards the end of the war. And I like—we started talking about the soldiers going off

00:55:05.940 - 00:55:22.330

to Manchuria to Chi—all those Chinese. I didn’t know what was going on then, either. I read now, and I feel disgusted with the whole situation. And to think that the average Japanese people, they were

00:55:22.430 - 00:55:36.920

being squeezed tight of everything. They took all our metal and you know. Our family was farmer, and they had a short sword. The farmers were allowed shorts, so they were about the third class or something

00:55:37.420 - 00:55:52.610

like that. They were held basically— ah, they were regarded better than the merchants or the artists. Now, it’s turned around this way, but uh—our family sword was there, and it was about

00:55:52.840 - 00:56:06.280

this long. The short sword. I remember that my father didn’t want to turn the whole thing in. he just broke the you know and left about that much of it so he could chop wood with it and gave that other piece.

00:56:06.670 - 00:56:21.130

And then little ceremonial iron teapot sort of thing. All that they confiscated every metal piece we ever had, and I remember that’s where they all

00:56:21.180 - 00:56:36.920

disappeared to. And uh, sweet potatoes, they were using that to produce alcohol, I guess, for planes or whatever, I don’t know. It’s crazy.

00:56:36.920 - 00:56:52.500

Crazy world. And I saw where the Japanese, in the beginning where they were the leading—when we left Canada, they were singing songs of that thing.

00:56:54.350 - 00:57:10.670

The great Asian something-or-the-other, the sky is going to open up, and Japan was going to lead. Well, in a way, when you think about it, the British and the Dutch and the French and all

00:57:10.750 - 00:57:27.070

were trying to control a lot of things in the Far East. That was what they were still in that mode, I guess. And—and Japan um, they didn’t

00:57:27.250 - 00:57:42.390

make a very good toehold in Christian ’cause I was in the Southern Baptist church in Arkansas for twenty-some odd years. I didn’t realize how it began. And then later I became a Methodist.

00:57:43.550 - 00:57:55.980

And I’ve been a Methodist now for close to forty years, I guess. But I began as a Japanese Catholic mission in Vancouver. A priest would come out to

00:57:56.090 - 00:58:11.170

visit our farms and lands, and they built a small Catholic church. I think they called it a Saint Theresa, I’m not sure. And I got my Holy Communion and all that stuff when I was twelve.

00:58:12.390 - 00:58:21.170

Did you get a catechism and everything? Catechism and all that. What did you get on your? You got a— Made garland, a crown-like thing with the flowers, you know, and

00:58:21.170 - 00:58:35.620

the veil. And my mother had to sew on a long sleeve because you have to have your arms covered, and she had made me a white dress, but it had short sleeve. She had to sew on another length on there. I was about twelve years old, I guess, at the time.

00:58:36.460 - 00:58:48.830

And the girls that, they were Czechoslovakian, Yugoslavian, Mary and Frances Drinka, John Pidruchny, Polish background. And the neighborhood got together for,

00:58:49.300 - 00:59:04.250

and the nuns would come from Vancouver, and come out, and we had this— I knew I was never going to be a Catholic, though. Why was that? Because when you have to—you know, for a holy confession or whatever, first confession.

00:59:05.750 - 00:59:18.170

The thing that laid the hardest on my whole life was turned upside down, but I would not relate it to any human being. I could tell God about it, but I wasn’t going to tell another human being about it.

00:59:18.940 - 00:59:33.880

Would be telling on somebody, you know, kind of thing, and it was just—I just knew I wasn’t going to be a Catholic. So I’m not. And you said your father’s family was Buddhist?

00:59:35.210 - 00:59:47.310

Buddhist. Uh-huh. And did that influence your home life at all or growing-up life? Well, yeah, in a way it did because he became a nominal Catholic in order to marry my mother. You had to be a Catholic to marry my

00:59:47.520 - 01:00:00.320

mother. But he wasn’t a genuine converted Christian type of whatever. And he had a troubled life anyway. I mean, he lost his mother when he was just a child, you know.

01:00:01.000 - 01:00:15.450

Brought up by an aunt, and his childhood— my mother’s childhood was bad, too. She lost her father. Her father was one of the first assistant train

01:00:16.390 - 01:00:25.070

station manager or something, in Japan when the first trains came through. And uh, so she didn’t have a mother or a father.

01:00:25.070 - 01:00:38.030

She was given to her aunt and uncle in Korea to be raised until she was sixteen or something. And they both had a unsettled childhood. I grew up basically in a stable

01:00:39.280 - 01:00:53.230

father, mother, and sisters and brothers family when this major thing happened when I was about ten or twelve. And uh, I don’t want to put it on anything

01:00:54.510 - 01:01:13.790

like that, but . It wasn’t—It was—I find out now that it’s not that uncommon, but, you know, it’s just turned my world upside down. And when I finally, my husband proposed,

01:01:18.480 - 01:01:29.580

and I—he asked me to marry him, my brother came to visit, and I just started crying and crying. I couldn’t stop.

01:01:29.880 - 01:01:42.060

They didn’t know what to do, my brother and my future husband, you know. They were sitting there and didn’t know what—I don’t know if that was after we were married or not.

01:01:43.170 - 01:01:59.720

But anyway. It just seemed like a flood had opened up. I never dreamed that I—That anybody considered me worth being married to, you know. And my husband would say, “All I can promise you is I’ll—you’ll have

01:01:59.830 - 01:02:16.660

enough to eat, food on your back—I mean, clothes on your back, and a roof over your head.” And I was already twenty-seven. He was—he lost his wife after seven years of marriage, but he was

01:02:16.680 - 01:02:24.860

gone four years in north Africa and Italy. And she was a very sweet girl, I think. Very much in love with him and all that.

01:02:24.900 - 01:02:37.910

Wanted babies so bad and couldn’t have them. I was totally opposite. I was small, I was kind of feisty. Anyway. I don’t know what I started talking about.

01:02:38.540 - 01:02:46.280

Where was he from in the US? From Arkansas? Or…? He’s from Tennessee. From Tennessee. Okay. Uh-huh. He was from Alamo, I think.

01:02:46.340 - 01:02:59.630

And his parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee and operated a hamburger stand near Overton Park or something. So he wouldn’t eat hamburgers anymore. He said he cooked enough of those things that he didn’t want—he never finished grade

01:02:59.670 - 01:03:14.720

school, either. But he was very adept at—he built our house, he knew about electricity, and he studied refrigeration. I don’t know what all, you know.

01:03:14.760 - 01:03:22.950

Where was your house, in Arkansas, you mean? Or where— He was from Tennessee. Yeah. He built the house. Where was that? We built it in Waldo, Arkansas.

01:03:23.820 - 01:03:33.580

That’s south, south corner. Southwest corner of, near Magnolia. Magnolia, Arkansas. We had twenty acres of land there.

01:03:33.910 - 01:03:44.880

And he built the house. We tore down the old farmhouse that was there, that had that porch in between, you know. Old- fashioned. That had that porch running through.

01:03:45.710 - 01:03:59.320

They had fireplaces on there, and of course the thing was, floors were slanted, you could see the ground through the cracks in the door. And when we tore it down, I was the one that climbed up to tear all the stuff down.

01:03:59.590 - 01:04:11.980

I helped. And he built the house that we lived in until the kids left home. And uh, I climbed and did the shingles on that new house, too.

01:04:12.470 - 01:04:22.140

Because he couldn’t do it. And how did you meet your husband? I met him in Etajima. I was working as an interpreter and typist

01:04:22.830 - 01:04:32.730

and worked in the office, the warehouse office helper. Your tea and what not . It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

01:04:32.850 - 01:04:46.120

So how did you first—so you’ve been—you were an interpreter? Yeah, I was working in his office. How did you first become an interpreter? Well, since during the war, the Japanese military

01:04:46.690 - 01:05:04.240

police. They knew I was Canadian-born and spoke English. And then when the first part of it, I went to work for the Japanese police. And uh, while I

01:05:04.240 - 01:05:21.820

was with the police, they had to deal with the new Marines that came in. And they were having a problem in the office, and I just happened to come by. And this—they had an interpreter, a Marine interpreter. But his Japanese was very

01:05:24.080 - 01:05:37.300

stu—studi—what is it? St—st—not natural, right? Yeah, it’s not the ordinary conversational type. He was very, very, very good Japanese.

01:05:37.980 - 01:05:54.660

But it was, like, was a convoluted sort of explanation about electrical something-or-the- other. And he didn’t know quite how to say that the light bulb was out. And they were trying to get that light bulb, new one put

01:05:55.090 - 01:06:09.370

in. And so when I walked in there, I asked him what was the matter. He said, “Well, the light bulb is out. We need a new one.” And uh, so I told

01:06:11.290 - 01:06:23.260

him that was what it was. But uh, anyway, that’s how they started using me on these. They had uh, the first group of Marines

01:06:23.260 - 01:06:39.870

that came in were—one was a—they searched out these, I never knew there were all these holes in the side of the mountains, and they were looking for. In fact, at the police station, there’s a man that came dragging in this hand-pulled wagon.

01:06:40.780 - 01:06:50.990

It was loaded with ammunition. He was digging in his yard to plant a hotbed or something and came up on all these shells. They were live shells.

01:06:51.540 - 01:07:02.080

When he came rolling them down the in front of the station, the Marines, the just went, “Oooh!” And they told me to, “Get back! Get back! Get back!” And

01:07:02.150 - 01:07:14.180

it was just live ammunition. This man didn’t know what he was—had dug up those. Bring it to the police station, you know. Well that was the sort of thing that they were beginning to do.

01:07:14.500 - 01:07:24.750

And I didn’t know these, all these underground soldiers’ hold, you know, tunnels where they had people to defend the Kyushu Island, I suppose.

01:07:26.870 - 01:07:35.770

I got into some of them, and they were just like moles. They had whole places dug under the hillsides, you know, that kind of stuff.

01:07:36.870 - 01:07:49.970

And I know they had gathered up all the Japanese swords, the traditional home handed down generation. And they would slip that thing where the handle is, and they had this ivory or gold or something, little things on there.

01:07:49.970 - 01:08:07.620

It’s okay. Thank you. My pressure, I don’t wanted to run because I know that . But my pressure is low, and I smelled coffee, I didn’t know how—

01:08:07.940 - 01:08:20.300

BH+ It’s okay. Thank you. I ride that bicycle in the park, and I feel bad. So sorry. My legs are shaking. Yeah, go ahead.

01:08:20.330 - 01:08:33.250

Thank you. Do you want any tea? Green tea? You have green tea? Yeah. Very appreciate. Thank you.

01:08:38.900 - 01:08:51.890

I’ll pour you some, too. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I appreciate. You’re welcome. But anyway.

01:08:53.780 - 01:09:09.630

I watched Japan change, and uh, I remember when I was working with the Japanese telephone company, and they were contracted to do the switchboard for the American military government team.

01:09:09.740 - 01:09:21.240

And I was looking down from the upstairs window, and they had a festival coming through. One of those “wasshoi wasshoi”

01:09:21.350 - 01:09:35.180

stuff, you know. The god being brought down the street. It was that festival day for that particular god, and I was just curious, and I was just looking, and I said, “Oh, they’re going to have a matsuri.”

01:09:35.690 - 01:09:51.440

Well, the young people there were still in the old mode. This is after Japan had lost the war, and I had no intentions of being disrespectful or anything. I’m not that Japanese to—to

01:09:53.300 - 01:10:05.640

be bound, you know, to that. And so I was just looking out the window and thinking, “Oh, they’re having a festival,” and I was looking out the window. The young people said, “What are you doing, looking down at our god?” They threw a rock

01:10:05.990 - 01:10:15.580

at the window and busted the window, glass window. And I thought—I was really angry then and , “Who’s gonna pay for that glass?” I’m not gonna pay for it!

01:10:15.990 - 01:10:28.350

I wasn’t showing any disrespect or anything, was not my intention. And a friend of mine, she was a fellow worker there, she had been YMCA—YWCA’s how come she knew English.

01:10:28.480 - 01:10:40.280

And she was a widow. Her husband was overseas in China somewhere. He never did—he was gone. And she raised two or three sons by herself.

01:10:41.240 - 01:10:50.270

But she was one of the switchboard operators, too. And uh, she went with me to the

01:10:50.400 - 01:11:04.530

police station, and they were fingerprinting me and everything, you know. And she told them that this was not right, she was not intending anything. They turned around and start bringing tea out and

01:11:04.530 - 01:11:17.410

apologizing and everything you know. ‘Cause I was getting furious. I thought, “What’s the matter with you young people? You don’t know what, you know, that Japan has lost this war.

01:11:17.910 - 01:11:31.090

You’re not in any position to tell me what to do, what I’m supposed to do or not do.” So when you first, you know, returned to Japan- You went to Japan with your family, and you lived there-

01:11:31.090 - 01:11:39.700

We lived on a farm. Yeah. And how did people treat you as sort of— Well— ‘Cause you were—How did they see you? They saw you as Japanese?

01:11:39.720 - 01:11:54.470

They saw you as— Oh, yeah, they saw—my older sister was born and brought up in Japan, and she taught me all the graces, you know, of a young woman. And my Japanese, she taught me Japanese, how to use it. So when I go to a store, I had to memorize what to say in Japanese.

01:11:55.580 - 01:12:06.110

You know, “Konnichiwa. Gomen kudasai. Nani nani ga arimasuka?” And then, “Domo arigatou gozaimasu. Ikura desuka? Domo arigatou gozaimasu.

01:12:06.470 - 01:12:16.920

Sayonara.” I have to memorize that, is the way it first began. But she was—she and I became very good friends. I mean, she’s my best friend in the

01:12:16.920 - 01:12:31.540

world. We still talk to each other about an hour on the telephone, ‘cause she and I have shared experience that nobody else knows. Yeah. And she was told by my grandparents that she could leave them and join

01:12:32.720 - 01:12:45.440

her family. She has lots of brothers and sisters in Canada, so if you want to go, you need to go. But by the time she was fifteen, she’s realized if she left, that would leave two old people, and she didn’t

01:12:45.440 - 01:12:55.170

want to leave them at that time. She grew up calling my grandmother “mother.” And, you know. She didn’t realize she had—well, she did in a

01:12:55.360 - 01:13:10.340

way, but not really. And she went through the normal school, you know, and she went through a jogakkou, you know, and learned how to do sewing and proper sitting and manners and

01:13:10.430 - 01:13:27.600

everything else. So when we went—when we went—I went to Japan, I had a built-in tutor-like, and we became more than sisters, even, ‘cause she taught me everything. And I would tell her about our life in-in—and even now,

01:13:28.240 - 01:13:39.470

she thinks that she had missed out so much, you know. I said, “It’s not all that good.” I had three kids hanging on to me, and some are wetting and dirtying

01:13:39.470 - 01:13:57.430

their britches, you know, and the kids would see me coming, and they’d scatter. They didn’t want all these little kids hanging on to play in the neighborhood. —being the only one. So you mentioned when you first went back to Japan,

01:13:57.750 - 01:14:12.570

one of your first impressions was, “Oh, everyone has black hair, dark hair.” Everyone looked similar to your family. Yeah, it seemed like family. The whole thing was family, you know. ‘Cause you go to school with blue-eyed kids, or green-eyed, blonde-

01:14:12.570 - 01:14:23.340

haired, redheads, you know. Kitty Preston was redheaded as she could be, and uh, I still remember some of those children. They were good

01:14:23.430 - 01:14:35.870

kids. They all-we all got along very well. But most of the Japanese children were top of the class. We—we were the number-one

01:14:35.890 - 01:14:50.920

students in the class, you know. And when you have that, it’s not- You don’t let anybody put you down too much. There might have been. And I think when I came to the States, I

01:14:50.920 - 01:15:09.040

already had that background, so I didn’t feel any, what you call, prejudice or what—on occasion at a gro—at a department store, somebody might, you’d be standing there waiting to be waited on, and a tall American lady, you know, with blonde whatever might come by, and they’ll go to that lady

01:15:09.460 - 01:15:20.530

first. That kind of thing has happened maybe a few times, counted on one hand. But otherwise, it didn’t bother me anyway. I didn’t let it bother me, I mean, it didn’t matter.

01:15:20.800 - 01:15:37.120

And uh, I mean, I went—my sister- in-law took me to the Southern Baptist church in Waldo, Arkansas, and the church had a nursery, and she thought I would be able to listen

01:15:37.140 - 01:15:50.420

to the sermons a lot more if the children were being taken care of. My youngest was only two years old at the time when we bought the farm and settled down, my husband retired from the service. And he went to

01:15:50.480 - 01:16:05.860

work for Firestone Coated Fabrics in Magnolia as a security guard. And I finally got to where I would go to church, you know. I wanted to all during this time but never was able to be settled enough to where I

01:16:05.960 - 01:16:16.040

could take my kids and go anywhere. And I knew I wasn’t going to a Catholic church. Because I knew I wasn’t a Catholic. I’d never make a

01:16:16.070 - 01:16:31.450

good Catholic. So the church didn’t need me. Anyway, I stayed in that Southern Baptist church all the while I lived in south Arkansas. And then when my kids grew, they finished college, and they started teaching and doing other things, you know.

01:16:32.430 - 01:16:46.330

My daughter, oldest daughter, worked for AT&T, and she moved to Lake Mary, where they had the headquarters in Florida, and she’s retired now from AT&T. But she was in communications.

01:16:47.470 - 01:17:02.340

My middle daughter that lives here is still a nurse at Shriners Hospital, and she’s been a nurse for over thirty- some odd years. And her husband is a foot and ankle surgeon at the

01:17:02.470 - 01:17:18.800

doctor’s office near West Houston Medical Center. He’s a doctor—he’s kinda has a lot to do with the Dr. Scholl’s scubra podiatric medicine, and he helps—I think he’s on the board or something, I don’t

01:17:18.970 - 01:17:36.080

really know. They live right here on Lexington, and that’s how come I settled here. And they have two children, and they were nine and fifteen. And now the fifteen-year-old granddaughter is in

01:17:36.360 - 01:17:53.750

University of Houston, and my grandson is going to school in—he drives himself to school now, and he’s in the eleventh grade, I believe. But they’ve grown now, but I was here and was able to help out a

01:17:53.810 - 01:18:09.200

little bit in the first couple of years. Then I wrecked my car, and I wrecked—I had two wrecks, and the third one when I scratched the side of the repaired new vehicle, I thought, “It’s time to quit.” The blood pressure

01:18:09.330 - 01:18:22.710

medicine and stuff, they do something to you, I think. And sometimes I wouldn’t even know the street I was coming on when I’d been doing that for several years, and I think, “What street is this?” You know, that kind of weird thing.

01:18:23.340 - 01:18:34.170

I had no business driving a car. There’s this tree there that’s just recovering now, I had a scrape on there like about that big on Settlers Way corner. Now the—It’s healed over ‘til

01:18:34.230 - 01:18:50.210

it’s just about that much left, but the, you know, scar on the—I just missed the fire plug by about that much. Well, anyway… So you worked, when you were quite young, you were working as an

01:18:50.210 - 01:18:59.470

interpreter. Well, I was already— Twenty, early twenties— Yeah, twenty-one, twenty-two at the time. And then after you were married did you work, or did you…?

01:18:59.470 - 01:19:11.780

No, I didn’t work. I just had my first daughter was born in Kentucky, Fort Knox. And my second daughter was also born there, and

01:19:12.300 - 01:19:22.890

then we went to New Jersey. He was sent back to Japan. I went back to Memphis to stay with his mother, my mother-in-law, and my youngest

01:19:22.910 - 01:19:39.440

daughter was born in the naval hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. And then when she got old enough, I went to join my husband in Japan, took the three kids. It was Christmas of nineteen-fifty-six or seven or something like that.

01:19:39.590 - 01:19:48.900

I never will forget that, taking three little babies. All the way to Japan, wow. Yeah, on the train. Had to change trains at St.

01:19:49.270 - 01:20:01.630

Louis or somewhere and then Fort—Travisn Air Force Base. I think we got on the plane there. Okay. Where is that located? Near San Francisco, isn’t it?

01:20:01.790 - 01:20:15.540

Yeah, okay. Travis Air Force Base. Right. Then we stopped at where—Hawaii, just overnight. And I had the children all bundled up because it was Christmas here, you know.

01:20:15.620 - 01:20:27.650

And when we got to San Francisco, there’s geraniums blooming. And then when we got to Hawaii, it’s summertime! My poor kids, they were just

01:20:27.880 - 01:20:43.000

dripping with sweat, and then we didn’t—Hickam Air Force Base —and we didn’t get off the air base, you know, we just went. And then we stopped at Wake Island. At Wake Island, the pilot came to

01:20:43.000 - 01:20:58.890

me, and he said, “Let me help you,” and said, “I’m the one that flew you over here.” It was just a military plane with a bare metal floor, with the hammocks or whatever you hanging things, you know. What do

01:20:58.890 - 01:21:14.720

you call those things that you carry injured people? Oh, uh… Whatever. But they have those things to be hooked up on the side, you know. And the floor was metal, and the seats were just

01:21:14.770 - 01:21:24.550

plain old seats. And the soldiers were on there— Like a stretcher. Like a stretcher kind of thing? Stretchers, what I was talking about. I couldn’t think of it. But

01:21:24.550 - 01:21:38.550

anyway, and the smoke, they were all smoking, and he apologized about the smoke but that there was nothing he could do about it, and the kids had caught colds, and of course that makes the ear hurt when you get on the plane.

01:21:38.810 - 01:21:50.800

Two of the kids, one was still nursing, she was only three months old. And the year-and-a- half, Wanda, the one that’s a nurse here, and my oldest was just three, three, a little over three

01:21:51.050 - 01:22:00.640

years old. They both had colds, and they were crying and crying. But I made it!

01:22:00.890 - 01:22:14.750

And this pilot came, and he helped warm the bottle up for my baby, you know. He was very nice. What was it like coming to the United States after

01:22:15.160 - 01:22:24.850

the war, as a Japanese person? First, I came as a Japanese, you know, ‘cause I didn’t get my citizenship. I had a Canadian citizenship and was a Japanese subject,

01:22:25.210 - 01:22:38.200

but when I went to Japan, I lost my Canadian citizenship. And when I married my husband I was a Japanese subject. And then when I came to the States, I finally got my citizenship when my youngest child was

01:22:38.330 - 01:22:52.290

just a few days before she was born. In Memphis, at the immigration office. I took a test and got my—well, that was because we were going to go back to Japan, and it would facilitate things,

01:22:52.650 - 01:23:04.170

so my husband had written to ask them if they could do something about. So there were about eight of us that were given special citizenship in the different time of the year.

01:23:04.210 - 01:23:19.030

You know, they normally have a big ceremony and all that, but there were about eight or nine of us that were given special citizenship at that time, in Falls Building in Memphis, Tennessee. And then uh—then I took

01:23:19.120 - 01:23:29.370

the kids and— Did you feel like it was any different coming back, living here after the war or? No, It was more like coming home. It was more like coming home.

01:23:30.470 - 01:23:46.480

And uh, at Fort Knox, there were other Japanese that were married. We lived in Japan on Etajima when we were first married. We lived there for almost—when I first met him, I was living

01:23:46.910 - 01:24:02.240

with an American family. Captain Zamenic and his family. And then when we got married, we moved to a rented house on this island.

01:24:03.380 - 01:24:17.880

And uh, we’d go to the commissary, you know, at the base, and they would look at me and tell me I’m supposed to go to the other. But I said, “No. I have my ID

01:24:18.020 - 01:24:31.880

card,” you know, I was married now. So I went through—and there were, when I first saw the American people that, the families that came for

01:24:31.930 - 01:24:47.400

the military government team, there were a few of them that sort of acted a little like, “Oh-,” what is it, “Japs,” or whatever. What did they call us, anyway?

01:24:48.050 - 01:25:00.110

But it didn’t bother me because it was their shortcoming, not mine. And they gradually became to be friends, you know. And they all were very very nice afterwards.

01:25:01.410 - 01:25:16.140

I even looked up a family after I came back to living in Arkansas. He had retired, Captain Royce Eaves, and I went to see them one time, I think it was—I

01:25:16.850 - 01:25:32.360

was able to get their address and went to see them. But by that time, I had lived in Arkansas for quite a number of years. But anyway—I don’t know, I think it was like coming home to me. And there were

01:25:32.420 - 01:25:44.450

Japanese girls that married in Japan and come to the U.S., and some of them had married Afro-American soldiers. And they didn’t know what they came to because back then it was still segregated.

01:25:45.920 - 01:25:55.380

That was one thing that bothered me. They don’t have that in Canada, or didn’t. And when I came to the U.S. and came to Memphis: Black and White.

01:25:56.200 - 01:26:05.060

Well, what am I supposed to do? I’m Yellow. I’m not Black, I’m not White, I’m Yellow. But I had to go toilet . So I just went,

01:26:05.270 - 01:26:20.880

well, my husband’s White, so I guess I’ll go in the White. But that was a shocker to me, and then when we bought our property down in south Arkansas, our next door neighbor had eighty acres, and they were Black folks.

01:26:21.600 - 01:26:34.500

Yeah, and their children went to this school. All my kids went to the regular White school. They were the first Asian sort of background kids. They were mixed but they were—

01:26:34.520 - 01:26:48.460

Right, right, right. And I only now am finding out that they did face a certain amount of aggravation. You know, some kids would poke pencils in their back and tell them to sit at the back of the bus and stuff like that.

01:26:49.090 - 01:26:59.640

But once they got into school and got the hang of the school, they were top students, you know. So it didn’t bother them anymore. And they all

01:26:59.970 - 01:27:09.010

graduated in the top of their classes, you know. Both two of my girls got scholarships, and the other one did work-study. They all did real

01:27:09.120 - 01:27:22.460

well. My youngest got a Firestone Scholarship. That was about forty-five for the whole world, you know, the Firestone. And my

01:27:22.600 - 01:27:32.710

oldest got an alumni scholarship for Memphis State. And my middle one, she just did fine. I mean, she’s probably makes more money than the

01:27:33.060 - 01:27:48.790

other two —The teacher doesn’t make much money. My youngest just retired, after thirty years of Spanish. She had Spanish and French and uh, art. Something art, I forgot.

01:27:49.270 - 01:28:02.790

She dropped the art first, and then she dropped the French. For a while she taught all three classes in high school. But uh, then she settled on Spanish, and got her masters in Spanish.

01:28:02.790 - 01:28:16.470

Went to University of Madrid, came out with an A, even amongst the students right there, you know, the native students. And uh, her group in high school, they went to—she took them

01:28:16.520 - 01:28:32.620

to contests, let them know that they’re doing okay, and they came home with a lot of awards and trophies and things. She finally retired last year after thirty years, but she’s also teaching some classes in the

01:28:32.780 - 01:28:46.870

community college yet. She said she still needs to earn a little bit more. How did you come to learn more about their experiences at school? Just now they open up and tell me.

01:28:47.230 - 01:28:56.090

I think, I thought, well, they didn’t have too much trouble. They never told me about it, ‘cause they would say—I would tell them, “Well that’s their fault.

01:28:56.370 - 01:29:06.250

Just don’t worry about,” you know. So there wasn’t any use in telling mommy about it. She did—they just—if they get scolded at school, they get scolded again at home, you know.

01:29:06.580 - 01:29:22.380

That was the kind of—yeah. But they were all good kids, and they did well in school, and they’re successful and… So you mentioned, you know, it’s a little bit confusing ‘cause you

01:29:22.380 - 01:29:37.570

weren’t White, you weren’t Black, you were sort of in somewhere in the middle, I don’t know— Yeah, I always felt like that was not the way it’s supposed to be. And my sister-in-law would laugh at me when I’d say Mr. Broomfield.

01:29:38.110 - 01:29:54.380

He was a neighbor who owned land, and he was active in his community, and they had a Black church, and he was a deacon, and I don’t know anyway. And I—he was old enough to be my father, and I called him Mr. Broomfield. They just called him “hand.” And they said, “You don’t

01:29:54.430 - 01:30:10.420

call him Mr. Broomfield.” I was, well, “I am.” And when my children—our only neighbors at that time were this next-door neighbor, they had a daughter and a son, and they went to a different school.

01:30:10.830 - 01:30:22.410

“Separate but equal,” but it wasn’t so. But whenever they had a birthday, I just invite those children and have birthday cake and ice cream and whatever. Just a little bunch of, you know, just three four

01:30:22.500 - 01:30:37.230

kids is all. In fact, there was only three of mine and two of them. And uh, the mother, I think, she had a bit of pride, in the fact that I think she had some Indian blood in her.

01:30:37.480 - 01:30:49.900

So that, I think, made a difference in—Hazel Ferguson is her name. But I think that gave her a little bit more of a self-pride or dignity or whatever.

01:30:51.030 - 01:31:04.200

‘Cause they never—they were very very nice, and we got along just fine. And they let us around our gas line from the main Arkansas gas line, that pipeline that went through.

01:31:04.630 - 01:31:17.050

We had to, we can attach to that, and we didn’t have to get the propane tanks, but they let us come across their property, and they’re the ones that bought our property when we sold it to move to Ozark.

01:31:17.840 - 01:31:27.600

And said, “You sure you want to sell it to us?” And my husband said, “Why not? I mean, there’s nothing—” You know, he grew up in Tennessee and played with the children,

01:31:28.470 - 01:31:43.220

and he didn’t have the—that sort of ingrown prejudice. He was a Southerner. There was a Southern bit about him, but in his personal behavior, he

01:31:43.220 - 01:31:56.380

didn’t have this prejudice, you know. And maybe that’s why he didn’t find it very difficult to marry a Japanese woman. I don’t know. His first wife was from Fort Benning,

01:31:56.910 - 01:32:09.290

Georgia, wherever that— Colum—Columbus or somewhere. Yeah, and she lived with his mother-in- law while he was gone to World War Two, for four

01:32:11.010 - 01:32:25.150

years he was gone. When he came back, she had a kind of inherited heart problem, and she passed away at a very young age, twenty-nine or something like that, I think. And he only mentioned her once or twice, he says, “I blame

01:32:25.220 - 01:32:38.890

myself,” you know, for having left her, I guess, alone and all that stuff. And but anyway, that’s all he ever mentioned of it. But there were no children involved. ‘Cause she kept losing them, that was one

01:32:39.650 - 01:32:56.560

thing. Yeah, and when we settled down on that farm in Arkansas, I was busy growing black-eyed peas and sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes and making sauerkraut and— Did it help growing up on a farm—or a strawberry farm—for you, or

01:32:56.560 - 01:33:09.720

not really? Well, no, I was a farmer in Japan, too, and I worked on a farm in Canada, too, I mean. I had to shovel a lot of dirt there and uh, work with chickens and what not.

01:33:10.250 - 01:33:29.490

And then in Japan, it was hard hard work. Barefoot and frozen ground and we were straw slippers and grass raincoats and bamboo hats, hauling stuff on our back, and, you know, cutting rice and pumping that trestle

01:33:30.100 - 01:33:40.660

thing that takes the rain off and all that kind of stuff. I went through all of that. It was a good learning experience, but I think the physical exercise, too, is why

01:33:40.770 - 01:33:57.020

I’m still fairly healthy for being eighty-eight. Everybody thinks I’m about twenty years younger than that. Yeah. I’m not surprised. But, anyway. I go to YMCA. My friend—I have a friend who comes and

01:33:57.050 - 01:34:09.740

picks me up and takes me over there every day, and I do the SilverSneakers exercises and that kind of stuff. I don’t drive anymore, so I’m not active in church like I used to be.

01:34:10.250 - 01:34:25.740

I was in the Southern Baptist, I was a program chairperson for the little women’s missionary union for twenty-some odd years while I was there. Then I became a Methodist and became the United Methodist Women, and uh,

01:34:27.280 - 01:34:45.670

they asked me to serve on the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Women. And the Texas Conference president was a lady that lives in Sugar Land not too far from where I live right now, and

01:34:47.100 - 01:35:01.330

she and I served on the nominating committee. Since nineteen-ninety-six to year two-thousand, I think, and when she was coming to Sugar Land to live, she wanted me to take, become in charge

01:35:03.430 - 01:35:17.750

of uh—what do they call it? Uh—Asian—something. Try to encourage the Asian women to join the United Methodist Women.

01:35:18.510 - 01:35:33.920

But Texas is so big, the churches are far apart, and the Asian women tend to not go out and participate too much. Of course, the Koreans are very active in the Methodist Church.

01:35:34.360 - 01:35:47.410

In fact, the very head of the United Methodist Women is a Korean lady for several years. I don’t know if they still are or not, but, Anyway.

01:35:47.700 - 01:36:02.930

And you moved here from Ozark, Arkansas, is that right, about eight years ago. And what was it like moving from a smaller town to Houston? Oh. I have a lot of fun here. I have an upstairs neighbor who

01:36:02.930 - 01:36:13.030

likes to go to ballet and opera, so I bought a season ticket and wherever he goes—he’s a young man, not married, and don’t plan to be, I guess.

01:36:13.530 - 01:36:26.500

He doesn’t mind taking this old woman with him. And so I’ve been to—I’m not going to buy a season ticket this time, but I’ve been going to the opera, and I was able to see Madame Butterfly for the first time, Houston Opera.

01:36:28.190 - 01:36:42.130

Last year or year before or something. And then I belong to the Japanese Association of Greater Houston, which is the Japanese group, you know. And then I belong to the JACL, the Japanese American Citizens League,

01:36:42.460 - 01:36:56.960

and so, and then, I do go to church. My neighbor is from Iran, and we met at the complex exercise room and invited her, and she drives, and she—at the time I

01:36:57.060 - 01:37:13.330

was driving, too, but I invited her to church, and she became a member and became a Christian there, and she still goes, so. She works as a babysitter at the Presbyterian Church, so I take her mentally challenged daughter, teenage daughter, and we go to the service at

01:37:13.750 - 01:37:27.850

Missouri City Methodist Church. And uh, but I don’t take part anymore in all the other activities much because I don’t drive anymore. After wrecking two cars and scraping up third time, I

01:37:27.970 - 01:37:42.390

thought it’s time to quit. I used to take my neighbors to the doctor’s office and things like that, but I could’ve get somebody hurt, you know, and you don’t even know—I’ve had horns honking at me ‘cause I made a turn from the second lane instead of in

01:37:42.440 - 01:37:56.200

the lane that’s supposed to turn, you know. I start making turn, and—I think it’s green, and it’s not, it’s red. Tell me about your membership in the JACL.

01:37:56.200 - 01:38:14.970

Uh, that. How did I start going there? Uh, JACL. Was it Donna? Donna Co—How did I start going to JACL? When you were in Arkansas, were you part of any organizations like

01:38:15.020 - 01:38:29.880

this at all? Oh, no. No, there wasn’t that many Japanese around. There were some Japanese wives, and on occasion we might have met, but most of them lived near Fort Smith, and I lived about forty minutes.

01:38:30.580 - 01:38:45.640

And if it’s nighttime you just don’t go out driving. And we met a few times, and I had one or two friends that were Japanese that would come and visit. But they would try to speak in English, and it was

01:38:45.640 - 01:38:59.790

a mixture, you know. But there weren’t that many Japanese in Arkansas, but we had a few that we were friends with, you know, they had come and married American soldiers or something.

01:39:05.320 - 01:39:21.040

But I didn’t use Japanese that much. And I was—they were afraid when I went back to Japan that they might need an interpreter, but I didn’t lose my Japanese that much. But now I do have Japanese friends, and since I learned my

01:39:21.160 - 01:39:31.740

Japanese in Japan, they don’t realize that I’m—I was born in Canada. I can speak English, oh, well, an eighth grader.

01:39:32.220 - 01:39:45.290

My grammar’s terrible. But uh, I stayed with the JACL because they speak in English to begin with, and they’re second generation, third generation, fourth generation.

01:39:45.590 - 01:40:01.880

My kids—my daughter here is not too interested in it, but my oldest and my youngest if they were here they probably would be part of it. But my middle one is too busy with her nursing career and her husband and the children. Her two, daughter and son, my grandson.

01:40:02.680 - 01:40:13.560

I have one grandson in Florida that’s graduating next month. May, I guess, but he’s gonna have his recital. He’s taking classical guitar and jazz.

01:40:14.190 - 01:40:28.800

I think what his future plan’s, he hopes to teach in college. Yeah, but he likes it. He’s very good. He doesn’t mind practicing; he’s

01:40:29.440 - 01:40:44.000

practicing all the time. I have his picture here somewhere, but anyway. And then we met at the Congressional Gold Medal dinner a month ago, and what does that mean to you, having a medal like

01:40:44.750 - 01:40:59.870

that? I think it was long overdue, and it’s too bad that so many of them have already passed away without being recognized. I mean, when you think about it, your father, your mother, your brothers and

01:40:59.870 - 01:41:09.970

sisters are in a camp, with guns pointed inwards, barbed wires around, no freedom or anything. They’ve got Rohwer and Jerome in Arkansas, and

01:41:10.490 - 01:41:19.490

it’s riceland, mosquitoes, and all that kind of stuff. I heard about it, and I thought, “Oh, my goodness,” you know. One time I was told

01:41:19.580 - 01:41:34.810

there were eight thousand of them in each of those camps, I think. But I just heard about it, and I think I’m so glad we worked hard to get them recognized. The Tuskegee Airmen, they’re the same thing.

01:41:35.410 - 01:41:49.120

They’re finally getting recognized, but that’s long after most of them are dead and gone, you know, it just- You don’t know how deeply they felt for the country they’re born in.

01:41:49.990 - 01:42:03.990

There wasn’t any division whatsoever. We’re proud of our nation—you know, our heritage, the native heritage that we have, but we’re still—like I say, I’m still a Canadian by

01:42:04.100 - 01:42:12.310

birth, nothing will change that. I’m Japanese by heritage, I’m a Cana— U. S. citizen. So how do I do that?

01:42:12.630 - 01:42:27.330

Become a Christian. That’s what I say. And a Christian, I think, if you’re a true Christian, I think that will unite the world, and I believe that. And I’ve been to—I went to trip to Israel.

01:42:27.610 - 01:42:38.550

And this just—this just a little bitty old country, you know. And it’s like Arkansas lost all its trees. It’s just rocks and woods and stuff like that, and

01:42:39.060 - 01:42:52.330

the people are people, you know. They’re still digging here and there in actual place where Christ had walked and all that. There’s only one place that they told us, “These are the actual steps that Christ

01:42:53.350 - 01:43:03.510

walked on.” It’s marble steps on the way up to the where he was—the Last Supper or something? I forget. I don’t know. But I’m—they said,

01:43:03.630 - 01:43:14.930

“This is the only place so far where Christ’s actually stepped.” And I kissed that rock. I’m a Christian. I believe. I wouldn’t be

01:43:15.010 - 01:43:25.110

where I am now if I hadn’t been able to believe. I mean, I would’ve killed myself long time ago. But I’ve lived.

01:43:26.260 - 01:43:45.290

I’ve been an older sister to a bunch of younger brothers and sisters, and you take care of them, and they just look up to me and, you know. And I did help the families through the hard times, and they still kind of have

01:43:45.330 - 01:43:58.970

a special regard for me, which—now I’m not doing anything, but they still—I still have five sisters. My two brothers are gone. In Japan.

01:43:59.480 - 01:44:14.050

My older sister’s still there, and… Do you feel like your perspectives are different at all because you’re here and your siblings are there? Ah—no—I don’t

01:44:17.220 - 01:44:29.510

think I would. I would live in Japan if I didn’t have children here. But my children are here. My grandchildren are here, so. And the world is just a world, you know.

01:44:29.600 - 01:44:40.820

Physically, now, my niece lives in New York, and this and that, and they’re all—she was married to an Italian young man. And now she’s—they had—they didn’t

01:44:41.550 - 01:44:56.930

quite make it. After five years, she married a Japanese man, a fellow worker, and have their first baby. But they’re still friends with—she still goes back to Italy to visit the former in-law, mother-in-law,

01:44:57.040 - 01:45:11.330

when she had surgery or something. You know, and uh, there’s some Japanese stuff that the ex-husband wants, she gets it and gives it to him and whatever. That kind of thing.

01:45:11.540 - 01:45:22.910

But the rest of my family are all in Japan. But you know, the e-mail or facemail? I find out my nephew is on there in Japanese, and he sends pictures on there,

01:45:22.910 - 01:45:29.350

and I think, “Oh, look at that! That’s the beach over there close to our home in Japan,” you know. It’s just getting to where it’s, you

01:45:30.610 - 01:45:39.310

know, it’s just close. And telephone, you just pick it up and you’re talking to your—could be the right next door. It’s just that clear.

01:45:39.460 - 01:45:51.490

Used to be the under-the-ocean type and wavery and fade-out and all that kind of stuff. Now you can just talk through like you’re next door or something, so. The world changes so fast.

01:45:51.760 - 01:46:04.610

People aren’t able to change as fast as the technology and everything is making change. But I see we’re all the same human beings. We all respond to the same sort of good and bad, you know.

01:46:05.030 - 01:46:15.240

And that’s why I believe that the Christian faith is the answer to the world. That’s my belief. Okay. Well, thank you so much for everything.

01:46:15.240 - 01:46:29.920

You didn’t ask. I just told you a bunch of stuff. So are there any other photos you would like to show? Yeah, this is— that’s Donna . And her father

01:46:30.020 - 01:46:43.050

was born in Greeley, Colorado. Her mother was born in California, I think. This is in Japan. And this is my sister in Japan.

01:46:43.530 - 01:47:00.660

And he’s a doctor, I believe, that went to Japan with an old neighbor of mine that uh—this is the gravesite in British Columbia of my two uh—I think

01:47:01.530 - 01:47:23.200

this is a different one. They sent me this. People who I found out wrote about the New Westminster. And I had this stone put up and found

01:47:23.270 - 01:47:41.460

out there were two other people buried on top of that lot. It’s in the Catholic section of the Royal Cemetery, in New Westminster. And so I called the priest, or a friend called the priest, and so I talked to him and said, “My sister’s buried there, but there’s two more

01:47:41.540 - 01:47:54.560

people buried there on top of on top of her.” I put their names on this rock, so that’s who’s buried there in that same plot. I’m quickly take your photograph while I still can. Oh, my goodness. I don’t think I look .

01:47:56.960 - 01:48:13.170

Great. Thank you. But anyway. Let’s see. I like this, this Obama. I like the Obamas. This goes back to when we were children, when I was

01:48:13.250 - 01:48:26.780

little. And uh, that was at the Vancouver Airport. This is the ship that we went back to Japan in, and uh, it’s still there as a relic in

01:48:26.870 - 01:48:39.130

the Yokohama port, and it’s a tourist thing. This was my second year in school, I think. Mrs. Blackman.

01:48:39.430 - 01:48:52.600

She’s—these are all the different grades. That was the Catholic Communion that we had. This is a peace auction.

01:48:53.310 - 01:49:08.370

Bellingham. Bellingham, Washington? Mmhmm. It’s right on the border. Yup. They used to have a Buddhist school. I didn’t go to the Buddhist

01:49:08.740 - 01:49:21.600

school, but the Buddhists, they taught Japanese. Oh. So, okay. Did you study Japanese at all? No. None at all. Only what my sister taught me.

01:49:22.390 - 01:49:33.690

And uh. So at home, you spoke English or? In the house, we’re supposed to speak in Japanese. But it was broken Japanese.

01:49:33.710 - 01:49:49.710

And we all wanted to go outside because we couldn’t speak freely. This Dotty Carr was a friend of all the Japanese girls back then. I still talk to her, she’s in British Columbia. She was in the military.

01:49:50.240 - 01:50:01.530

Japanese— She looks very energetic. Yeah. She was a pretty girl. Of course now, she’s—this is back when my father first came to—passport picture, I think. And uh—and

01:50:10.150 - 01:50:22.730

these were my mother’s mother and father, I think. I’m not too sure. I’m the—I think I got them out of my older sister’s album and never returned it to her.

01:50:23.240 - 01:50:36.850

This was our home, taken from our window. It used to snow like that. We had grocery store, and uh, this was close to when we left Canada.

01:50:36.850 - 01:50:54.350

We went to the White Rock to uh, last visit. These were growing years. This is—she lives in Winnipeg. I talk to her all the time.

01:50:54.640 - 01:51:11.720

Her niece lives in Austin, Texas. The father, her brother lives in Florida. He’s that retired neurosurgeon. But—that’s when I first met my sister in Japan.

01:51:12.570 - 01:51:29.880

Oh. Let me try to take a photo, if I can. And I was part of the youth group, you know, in Japan. And uh, this was my sister and

01:51:29.900 - 01:51:46.270

my—that’s me. And we did neighborhood work, like fixing the walk or the farmer’s—we had a big log that crossed this little river, and whenever we had a big storm, it would, you

01:51:46.270 - 01:51:56.610

know, get washed aside. They had it attached on one end, but it would. So we would push it back so that the farmers could walk across it, you know, with the loaded stuff.

01:51:57.380 - 01:52:11.150

That’s the first time my sister dressed me in Japanese kimono. This is after I was married. My sister came to visit, in—in uh—this

01:52:11.170 - 01:52:18.880

was the house that— Where was that? This was in Etajima. Okay. Etajima, okay. Military family—

01:52:18.920 - 01:52:34.560

This is the housing that they had. It was American-style homes, I think. That—my husband took that when I was first starting to work for him. And this was taken at the family—I had just moved

01:52:35.270 - 01:52:54.850

there, and these girls were the maids that worked for this family, the captain’s family. This is when he came to visit me, my husband. When he first—I went there in December, and he came over in January. And

01:52:56.760 - 01:53:07.820

uh, that was when I came to the U.S. And that’s my sister-in-law and my two nieces. Was this in Tennessee? This is Memphis, Tennessee.

01:53:08.850 - 01:53:23.640

They were living in Memphis at the time. And this is my mother-in-law, and these are my three girls here. And she had a boarder with her little boy.

01:53:24.480 - 01:53:37.900

In Memphis, Tennessee. He was a southern journal here. He died.

01:53:38.480 - 01:53:47.410

This is my grandson, only that’s—he’s about five, six years ago, I guess. The guitar player? No, this is the other one.

01:53:47.410 - 01:54:04.330

Let’s see, I had the other one. Well, I’m taking up a lot of your time. No, you’re not. Are you sure—you probably would like a drink.

01:54:04.470 - 01:54:16.930

Would you like some tea? No, no, no that’s okay. You sure? I don’t need anything. This is my grandson that’s graduating, University of Southern

01:54:18.210 - 01:54:28.390

Florida. And I’m going to his recital. Oh, okay. Great. May I offer you— Oh, no. I don’t care for it. Thank you. And this is that,

01:54:28.940 - 01:54:40.000

remember? Yes. I saved that. And uh, this is a catfish they caught in Ozark.

01:54:40.050 - 01:54:50.690

I just took a picture of them at the dam. He’s got a big old catfish there. I catch catfish in the back of my—this is the dam at Ozark.

01:54:51.700 - 01:55:02.290

And they had a seagoing vessel from Germany come up through this lock and dam, all the way to Muskogee, Oklahoma. Really? Is that the Red River? What’s the— Arkansas River.

01:55:02.460 - 01:55:21.990

Okay, right. Okay. And Ozark is on the topmost bend of the Arkansas River, a small town. This is my grandson in Florida, in the kitchen. My friend in California sent me this.

01:55:22.460 - 01:55:34.820

She remembered some of the kids that were in there. I think it was Audrey Bolivar that sent it to me. I think she passed away not too long ago, I’m afraid. She had—her family had a big

01:55:35.910 - 01:55:47.550

chicken hatchery. This was a map of where we lived. May I try to take a photograph off of that? I don’t know if it’ll

01:55:47.660 - 01:56:05.940

come out, but—that’s very—that’s great. Let’s see. Surrey… Trans-Canada Highway, I think, and this-this is

01:56:06.030 - 01:56:21.520

what came through. I think they did another highway further on inland, I’m told. But our property was—I forget, I could point

01:56:21.550 - 01:56:36.280

it out to the parcel of land, even, you know, where we were. This is White Rock, where that beach picture was taken. And this is the Fraser River here.

01:56:36.280 - 01:56:48.230

And New Westminster was on this side. And this was just about four miles to get to town, whereas it’s all city now. And it’s

01:56:49.890 - 01:57:07.120

uh, my sister’s funeral picture was in here. He is the one that did this book. He’s a professor of audio something,

01:57:08.940 - 01:57:20.340

I believe. Albert Tsumura was staying with him and his wife every time I visit Vancouver, but he passed away last year.

01:57:21.020 - 01:57:33.130

This is his wife—Mike’s wife. She’s a regional librarian, but they’re both getting so they can’t drive anymore, I gather. But he’s the one that put this book together.

01:57:39.970 - 01:57:52.910

That’s the cardiologist, the older brother of those three that lived across the road. I was born on their place. In the chicken house. It was an old building that

01:57:53.630 - 01:58:07.160

they had—they had lived in it, and then they built a house. You know, when my parents went to Canada, they didn’t have any house on their property yet.

01:58:08.090 - 01:58:20.920

So they stayed in this little old building where the chicken feed was put in there. That’s why I say I was born in a chicken house. But it was—it had newspaper on the walls, you know.

01:58:21.500 - 01:58:37.860

And uh, Sassa, Sassa, Sassa That’s the strawberry fields that most of them had.

01:58:49.380 - 01:59:01.140

Sassa should be in here somewhere. Sassa, he—the one that—well, I wonder why. Sussahsussah. Ah, I see.

01:59:01.550 - 01:59:14.610

It’s over this way. Sassa—he was in the service. Nakamura. I don’t know him, though.

01:59:17.270 - 01:59:37.210

I talked to one of these boys the other month, I think. They’re in Calgary, are they? Uh, they live in—evidently, that’s where he does live, I don’t know. They were just little kids when I left.

01:59:37.240 - 01:59:47.590

I didn’t know these other—the children—girls. I just knew the oldest boy, I think. This is the school I went to. Simon Cunningham.

01:59:50.400 - 02:00:07.420

As a matter of fact, you can just take this book with you if you want to.

02:00:12.190 - 02:00:21.720

He used to live with us. And then he married and brought her. She was a nurse, and she was expecting this baby when we left Canada.

02:00:21.940 - 02:00:43.960

I was going to show you… So you know, do you feel like the war affected the children, the

02:00:43.960 - 02:01:00.940

young people, your friends who were Japanese, because they were sent away, sent out of, you know, put in—sent away from the coast in a way that you weren’t affected or? In terms of your—your future in some

02:01:00.940 - 02:01:15.630

way? Uh. I’m sure. I’ve only—they’ve all had gone through quite a bit of rough times. When they uh, were

02:01:15.630 - 02:01:29.910

sent inlands and all. But they all have—because they were des—what do you call it? They were separated

02:01:29.910 - 02:01:50.160

and all that, they had no opportunities to become doctors and professors and things of that nature, I think. That was my mother, when I went back to visit with my sister. That was in 1992, is when I

02:01:52.510 - 02:02:11.190

went back. She lived to be a hundred years old plus five days, and uh, I was trying to find this. Where is that man in here?

02:02:11.250 - 02:02:21.140

Yeah, here it is. No wonder. It’s stuck. This is our next door neighbor. My father took this picture.

02:02:22.070 - 02:02:34.080

And this is what they had to do when they left their home, they had to leave home. The Sassa girls and the sugar beet field. That’s Ruth and Nancy and Dorothy.

02:02:34.610 - 02:02:46.960

Dorothy still lives in San Jose, and I just see her—talk to her quite often. And this is their half-sister, Toshiko-neisan, that’s what I called her Toshiko-neisan,

02:02:47.390 - 02:02:59.990

too. This was his second wife. Second wife, I think. And this is Roy, who lives in Raymond, I think, who’s friend of Sut and Neva Oishi.

02:03:00.560 - 02:03:13.420

This little boy. And this was probably about the time we left Canada, and I was between Frances and Nancy. I came—my age was right in here.

02:03:14.850 - 02:03:27.230

And this—Dorothy still lives in San Jose. The rest of them are gone. And Nancy died. So did Ruth.

02:03:27.860 - 02:03:37.310

And Frances is gone, I never did get to talk to her. But Roy still lives in—in Raymond, Alberta, Canada, I

02:03:37.610 - 02:03:50.860

think. In fact, they came here to the festival about seven/eight years ago, I think. I think. But I remember when my father took this picture because we lived next door.

02:03:51.240 - 02:04:02.150

But they’re the ones that—but uh, this is the other, second wife, I think. No, it’s the same one. But her mom died, I think.

02:04:02.720 - 02:04:14.750

And then he remarried, and she’s the mother of all these children here. And that was Mrs. Sassa. I don’t know how old she

02:04:14.800 - 02:04:27.350

was when she passed away. But I don’t know what all these things are. I can’t read Japanese, either. That’s all part of the stuff that they—

02:04:27.350 - 02:04:37.760

and some of these people I know and some I don’t. There are a lot of them I don’t. And this was my family’s. Right. And we had this old Nash.

02:04:38.740 - 02:04:54.330

Oh, yeah. It was a fancy car, back then. But it was barely moving when we left Canada. It was blue smoke coming out of the back.

02:04:54.430 - 02:05:08.240

That 76 gas station that looked like orange crush. You know, the oran—we pumped it up, and every night we had to let it down. And these are part of the trees that he had planted, and there were fruit coming on to them.

02:05:08.590 - 02:05:20.000

He had McIntosh and—what was that other— Delicious apples. Yellow and red Delicious apples. And they were

02:05:20.140 - 02:05:29.500

getting pretty big, but none of that’s there anymore. I mean it’s gone, long gone, you know. And the property, the last time I saw it

02:05:29.560 - 02:05:47.330

they were building a multiple building over on the property, and it’s only five acres of land that’s narrow like this, the ten acres’ been cut in half. And so when they put this big old land on there—big old building, it takes about all of the—from here to here, you know, they

02:05:47.330 - 02:05:57.130

don’t leave much leeway. The old creek that used to run is still there. That was so strange for me to see that. And they cut off this

02:05:57.230 - 02:06:15.350

part because they expanded the highway, and so the land has just shrunk a lot. ‘Course when I was a child, it seemed like a long ways from the front of our property to the back end of our property. Are there Japanese families living in the area now, do you know?

02:06:15.650 - 02:06:27.820

I think—yes, I think there are quite a few. In fact, there was one man there who served in World War I, so he never had to leave his

02:06:27.870 - 02:06:42.840

place. He was a veteran of the Canadian Army, and I think he and his family never had to leave, I don’t believe. Some of these people are

02:06:43.120 - 02:06:59.700

kids I went to school with, but I don’t remember. Articles of Agreement, Certificate of Indefensible Title, I don’t know what all this is. I’ve never really really been able to look through some of these things. But you’re welcome to look at this if you like.

02:06:59.700 - 02:07:12.750

I mean, I don’t mind you— So the title of this book is— Who’s Who: Pioneer Japanese Families in Delta and Surrey. These are the districts south of—

02:07:13.220 - 02:07:22.580

Delta and Surrey. South of Vancouver— New Westminster. I was born in Surrey. And Delta is the one that’s

02:07:22.660 - 02:07:35.440

closer to the mouth of the Fraser River, I gather. And the Annacis Island was where we saw the first air show. The bi-planes. It was Annacis Island somewhere in this Fraser River.

02:07:36.290 - 02:07:45.270

Right in the middle of it or somewhere. I don’t know. Great. Well, fantastic. Yeah. It’s a lot.

02:07:46.140 - 02:08:00.320

Yeah. It’s amaz—it’s great that you have these books. I’m glad. This is already in the libraries, you know. I think he did a wonderful job in it because nobody knows

02:08:02.600 - 02:08:15.860

how this place was. Now it’s just a city, with avenues and streets where our little country roads were, the gravel, you know, the gravel roads. The grader used to

02:08:15.920 - 02:08:31.590

come and scrape and some places that weren’t cut through yet and all that kind of stuff. Talk about what’s that fellow that was asleep for twenty years and woke up. I don’t know—Rip Van Winkle?

02:08:31.590 - 02:08:40.800

Rip Van Winkle. It’s a lot different than that, even. Oh, my goodness. It’s just fifty years, you know, everything changes.

02:08:41.710 - 02:08:54.790

Even in Japan when we first moved there, it was beautiful. The Pacific Ocean, it had sandy bars and gravel and all of that. Well now it’s just rocks, and

02:08:54.790 - 02:09:08.170

they have huge concrete things so that it won’t wash away. It’s just huge giant—what do you call those that children play—Jacks. They look like jacks.

02:09:08.210 - 02:09:21.830

They look like giant jacks, the concrete things, and they’re all on the coastline. And uh, they used to be tall pines, and there would be clear land underneath, you know, with the sand and the

02:09:21.890 - 02:09:31.980

pine needles. And I think there were some kind of mushroom-type-of- thing, and I think they’re truffles or something. They were—we just gathered and ate them, you know.

02:09:32.710 - 02:09:43.800

I gather they’re really rare stuff, probably. Nothing like that is left anymore. All the pine trees are gone because the pine beetle got into it, and even back then,

02:09:44.320 - 02:09:56.330

my father took home one of those logging saws, like two ends you know that you. And he was hired to cut down those pine trees that were several hundred years old.

02:09:56.620 - 02:10:12.360

And so there’s none of those pine trees left. It is just the rough, wild, rocky shrubs and vines and everything. I couldn’t even go down to the beach the last time I went

02:10:13.110 - 02:10:26.570

over, and it used to be beautiful down there. And they have a motorcar, the one that runs about three hundred/four hundred miles an hour or something. They had built that experimental

02:10:26.570 - 02:10:39.240

railroad track, ended at our place. And then the politicians said there’s too many pig farms and chicken farms on that way, so it’s not good, so they moved it on inward.

02:10:39.670 - 02:10:52.990

But they’re using that elevated railroad track or the monorail—whatever—as uh—They have sunlight something for energy. Solar energy? Solar energy.

02:10:53.050 - 02:11:03.990

I think they’ve got stuff on that, and they’re using it for some—that’s the last time I saw it. My brother already had solar power for heating up bathwater.

02:11:04.640 - 02:11:17.370

So did my sister in Tokyo. They all have these on the roof where they utilize our solar system to— It’s common outside of the United States, I think. Yeah. US is just so slow in those kind of things.

02:11:18.470 - 02:11:29.800

And the bathrooms, oh, my god, restroom, the toilets. They're fancy. I sat on one, and it was warm, and I jumped up, I felt like I was sitting on somebody.

02:11:30.180 - 02:11:43.800

But it’s heated, you know. And the door opens when you—when you open the door, the lid goes up, and uh I said, “What’s happening?” I just open the door, and it

02:11:43.850 - 02:11:55.920

just opens up for you. You know, the lid comes up on. And when you close the door, it shuts itself off and automatically flushes and all

02:11:55.920 - 02:12:08.120

that kind of stuff. Oh, my. My sister’s house especially, she’s got all kinds of modern stuff, but— That’s great. Somewhere in here was my— that’s

02:12:09.690 - 02:12:23.670

part of the—they used to come out and—from the Vancouver summertime. They come out to pick strawberries, to earn money. And uh, let’s

02:12:31.630 - 02:12:49.950

see. There was something else, one in here. Where was that? These are different people’s funerals. Big people in Japan and

02:12:50.430 - 02:13:10.510

different— Strawberry growers. Yeah. Okay. I have my baby sister’s Catholic burial. Let’s see

02:13:14.680 - 02:13:35.070

here. Should be—he was a big merchant and so there’s an awful lot of people at the Buddhist temple when his funeral took

02:13:37.420 - 02:13:51.630

place. This is my baby sister’s. That’s my father. And I remember she got to go, and I didn’t get to go, and I was thinking, “I

02:13:51.630 - 02:14:06.750

wanna go.” But I didn’t know that it was a funeral. You know. So she said she got to go, and I couldn’t even go, but they had these- And he, my father, worked for this man who had the wholesale.

02:14:07.240 - 02:14:19.800

I guess that’s Mister—no, this is Mr. Hinatsu Mrs. Hinatsu. And I think he still lives in Ontario, Canada. Some of these people I

02:14:19.830 - 02:14:31.190

don’t remember. But that’s my little baby sister’s. The one that you took a picture of. Do you feel Canada and the United States handled that after the war differently?

02:14:31.730 - 02:14:47.250

Towards Japanese citizens. I haven’t heard too much how they—I think, you know, they made

02:14:47.290 - 02:15:02.300

reparations. They gave each—each one that was affected by it more generously than did the United States, though, I think. I think. I don’t know, but it’s seems to me like that they did pay—of

02:15:03.520 - 02:15:18.920

course, Canadian money’s not as worth as much as US money, at that time. I don’t know what it is now. Japanese Yen and US Dollars, they’re just— it’s not much use trying to go to Japan now, my dollar won’t

02:15:20.000 - 02:15:32.120

go very far. I’m thinking of trying to go back to visit, but uh, I don’t know. Well, thank you very much. It’s been a wonderful couple of hours. I’ve just yakked and yakked and yakked.

02:15:32.120 - 02:15:44.960

It’s been great, so thank you very much. Great. You didn’t—probably a lot of questions you would’ve preferred to ask, but I just rattle on. You get an old woman talking, and you can’t stop ‘em.