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This is Dae Shin Ju. And I am Sarah Craig. We're here today on June 5th, 2012 at the Chao Center of Asian Studies conference room on Rice University campus to interview Nancy Saibara-Naritomi

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for the Houston Asian American Archive oral history interview project. Hello, how are you? Oh. I am glad I’m here.

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I’m happy. Made it. Ok. So we are gonna start the interview with um with you introducing about your family and your childhood. So could you tell us about your family and how they came to the United

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States from Japan? Oh, okay. Uh, my great grandfather made the decision to, to come to Texas and he was already in Connecticut. Uh, he, he was a uh senator in uh Japanese government.

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And, uh, independent, ran on independent. And um after that he was a um, a President of uh a Christian university in Kyoto and then he became a Christian and he decided to learn theology, so he moved to Connecticut to a university.

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But at that time he was in his forties, and it was very challenging uh doing university work of theology, uh, uh, at that age to learn English so he kinda gave up and decided to go back to Japan.

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Uh before he left for Japan, the Chamber of Commerce of Houston, uh, people approached him and said, ‘Please we have trouble with uh getting rice industry going up because, uh, we have uh hurricanes and you Japanese, you have lots of typhoons, which is similar, but you produce lots of rice.

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So could you please come to Texas and bring your friends and come and grow rice?’ So great grandfather, uh, decided in made a decision and he sent a letter to his wife and he was hoping she would agree and so he was waiting—I read the diary so—um, somebody

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translated it for me ‘cause it was in Japanese. And uh, uh yeah, so she sold everything and she brought his parents so one, two… three, and my grandfather just graduated uh, uh, high school and he had gotten

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um passed examination for uh, Rikkyo, uh, University, which is St. Paul’s University, a Christian university. And he was all ready to, uh, he already bought the uniform and he was ready

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to go in and become a ship engineer. But he got the letter and he is gonna come and become a rice farmer in Texas, so at that generation said, ‘Yes, you know, hai, yes’ and never say ‘No, dad, I don’t, I

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don’t dis-I disagree with this’ and they didn’t do that at that time. So he came, and he thought it was a very, he said, my grandfather said, ‘he didn’t think much of the idea.’ Uh. Anyway, they came by ship and um so… and some

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of my great grandfather’s cousins also came and, uh, they took, um, from the, from the west coast they took a train to Houston and every time it stopped, and not every time but when they were hungry some—they would take turns. One would run out and buy bologna and crackers and get back on the train.

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So by the time they got to Houston, they were pretty constipated. And, cause that’s not really good for you. They did not have good food, at that time at the train station. And uh, um, uh, they, uh, the

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railroad company was very eager uh to help the Japanese rice farmers. So the railroad, um, um, what was his name? I can’t remember, well he, he, railroad people helped him select places to grow rice

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and, um, make their farms and, um, uh the Chamber of Commerce was very happy and uh they were welcomed—very much welcomed. And so in Webster, Texas, which is next to NASA Space

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Center, uh there was a community of Japanese uh, uh at that time, uh, 1903 was when my grandfather came. Uh. So 1904 to Houston, 1903 to Connecticut. Uh so in 1904, little by little,

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more and more immigrants were coming. Uh very interesting, um, you know, Kobayashi family, uh, the, um, Kagawa family. Um I think Ms.

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Kagawa was 98 or 99—99 when she passed away. Uh, she had 12 children. Uh, uh, they did rice farming, yeah. And then, the Kobayashi family,

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she lived til 102, 103 and Riki I believe was a uh a professor here at Rice. Um, um Kobayashi uh anyway, I can’t remember. Anyway, there were other—many other families.

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Ok then, then having enough money, uh, to buy the land, so they rented the land. So they, um, um, no they bought some land but the…for, for

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starting the, the farming they borrowed money. So. Half paid uh in advance, and after the harvest, they would pay the other half. So that was the first year, that

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was how they did it. Because great grandfather was a lawyer and, uh, uh but self-trained. Not, there was no law school at that time. And uh, uh, now—now being a senator in Japan at that time was a zero, uh, zero payment.

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Uh it was volunteer, volunteer, like, like you know like George Washington, Jefferson, those people—they didn’t get paid. Um maybe we should return that way . Anyway, uh and, uh, yeah, and medical insurance they have now, and it

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should it should be everybody should have medical coverage. Ok. Anyway, I’m getting, I am digressing. Let's see, what else, labor, labor. Ok, so grandfather had to learn English and he came and he did not have,

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uh, he had a little bit of English cause he went to a junior high school at St. Paul’s in Tokyo and he went to uh high school there and uh his wife who later came you know, as kind of, uh, with her

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parents and a trip to visit uh, and it was supposed to be just one week and it turned out well, finally on the last day or it was two weeks, I can’t remember, uh grandfather took her for a course on buggy ride on the

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area that now that it is NASA Space Center because that was, uh, Saibara farm, they had a nursery business there. But then, but then they sold it later on. So on the last day he proposed and

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so um her parents left for Japan without her and all those dishes and kimonos and all the things she brought and koto, shibura, and those musical instruments. She, so she was prepared to come

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and get married, I think. You know because in her family, it was Christian too, which is kind of rare in Japan at that time cause they had um, in the um, 16th century um the, the, they had a, uh it

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was taboo to be Christians. So they—they killed lots of Christians and they would go and take a cross or a picture of Jesus and say, ‘Step on it’ and the people who didn’t step on it, they got killed, immediately. So, there was—because they heard from sailors, from

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Portuguese sailors that the history of western world is first the soldier comes, first the priest comes in, and then the soldiers come in and then you are a slave. And so that’s why they killing Christians.

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So Japanese Christians had to become secret Christians and um and my grandmother, um, and uh my grandfather both raised us as Christians and, and they learned English from missionaries in, in Japan in, in the schools they went to. And so uh they spoke to their kids—my father and my

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uncles and my aunt—in English. So my father and my uncles and aunt are very few, um, unusual, um, example of, of Japanese immigrants who don’t speak Japanese. You know they , yeah so, I remember a story my aunt coming home from

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Webster um either elementary or junior high and, uh, she heard, uh, her mother holding Uncle Eddie by the ear and saying, ‘Konnichiwa’ which means ‘Good afternoon.’ ‘Konnichiwa!’ She was just yelling all

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repeatedly and he was going ‘uh-uh, uh-uh’ so there were a little uh trouble. Well anyway but my grandfather did have to learn Spanish because the workers were Spanish and he had to learn in English too.

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So the first uh year, I don’t know how many—how many months, what he did was, he took the train to Ball High School in Galveston and he had a little uh apartment, upstairs apartment and he went to high school for one year. So, uh, he was already one year ahead of all

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the other kids. And when the math teacher was, needed a substitute teacher then my grandfather who was good in math or he liked math, he wanted to be a ship engineer. Well, he would uh teach the class. That’s what he did so he could learn English see, but the other

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classes that well that helped him uh English. Ok, anyway so for one year he did Ball High School. And uh so, um I saw pictures of the farm, um, they produce lots of rice.

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And they had, they had brought rice with them on the—on the ship. Ok. And this rice was called Shinriki—uh the power of god, ok— I think that’s right. Anyway, and so he gave that

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part of the rice to Texas A&M and at Texas A&M, they were trying to breed hybrid that would be tougher against the, um, the—the harsh conditions here uh in and so they came and they made, uh, ‘Blue Rose,’ which ‘Blue Rose’

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is what I was raised on. And ‘Blue Rose’ was the rice that was stronger, um, against disease and uh, uh harsh condition and it was uh all through my elementary, junior high. I don’t think I learned any other, ate any other kind of rice than Blue Rose.

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But it’s not, it’s not, I don’t see it anymore in the store. So, anyway, that’s…One of the main purpose of my great grandfather—the reason why he decided to come, uh to Texas was

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another reason. He believed there was going to be a population explosion in Japan and there would be no food to eat. And so he decided that he is gonna come and his family helped the Texas rice industry at the same time trying to make surplus, um, food that he could send back to

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Japan in case there’s gonna be a starving. Alright, and then he went around uh Manchuria, and the Philippines, and Korea and Japan—all around Japan—asking immigrants—people to be an immigrant,

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‘go to other countries’ and they did, they did go. His uncle, his cousins, they went ‘make lots of food and send it back to Japan when Japan is gonna have an ex—explosion—you know—they need

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food.’ Well, great grandfather died in 1939 at the beginning of the World War II and then his big dream was crushed because at the end of the World War II, we had, uh, uh grandfather had a bumper crop—lots of rice—and he was all ready to send it to Japan—this uh

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surplus. And the Japanese government said, ‘Stop, do not do it. Then you will make the price of rice in Japan drop and then Japanese rice farmers will starve.

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And just because of a free—anyway—I don’t really know to m—to what extent that really would have happened. But it was a big disappointment for my grandfather because that was the big dream—you know—and that’s why the family

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came. So they couldn’t do this. All they could do was put boxes and some food and can things and send to his own relatives and people he knew. But he could not send rice, uh because the government

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stopped it. And the government did the same thing to his cousins who were in the—uh, they were in the Philippines—I think the Philippines—and they had lots and lots of eggplant and they wanted to send in to Japan—you know, the surplus—and Japanese government would not do this.

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So, yeah, politics got in the way. So what was your grandfather’s name? I’m sorry. I don’t think you mentioned. Oh, grandfather, uh, which one.

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Uh. Ok. Grandfather’s name is Kiyoaki Saibara and he’s the one that wanted to be a ship engineer. But he became a Texas rice farmer. Ok. And my great

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grandfather was Seito and he was the uh Congressman and self-made lawyer and, um, decided to bring the whole family to, um, Texas. So this was a family business, right?

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Yes, family of farms. Yes. So your gra—great grandfather started it and your grandfather— Carried it out. Carried it and then your—what about your grandparents—your parents? Oh my parents.

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Ok. My father, uh a—along with his brothers—uh Uncle Robert, Uncle Ed—uh they worked on the rice farm. And uh. No. Well, uh, uncle Robert he left uh to uh, uh he didn’t, well I don’t know how far—how long—Uncle Robert… Uncle Robert went into uh

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Texas A&M for, um, engineering and he uh was in uh a, um, cadet corps—cadet corps—in uh, uh World War II in Germany. So it was very short but all the other guys were… But he was ahead

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of them. He told me they were in Leica? Lei—somewhere in Germany and they were fighting and they went into uh a factory to clear it out—to make sure there’s no Germans in there—and then he noticed that people under him—the men under—were stepping

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on all over these Leica cameras. And he said, ‘Hey, don’t do that! Th—those are cameras.’ And they said, ‘Oh, back home I got one of these’—you know, the accordion type camera; very, very

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old- fashioned on big tripods. Said, ‘I got one of these—these are ’ and he said. Well my uncle said to that soldier, ‘With one of those Leica cameras you sell it, you can buy

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ten of those accordion cameras.’ So they were fighting and then my uncle noticed, ‘Oh, where is everybody? Where is ’ He started looking for his men and some of them were in the Leica factory bagging all those cameras and stealing them .

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I don’t know why I’m telling this story. Anyway, uh this is and he said it repeatedly happened. He had to go back in the factory and catch them because they didn’t know—um they didn’t know.

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Yeah. My—my uncle, my uncle told me, um it was the first serious conversation with my uncle; otherwise it was all happy and gay things. But it was, I was fifteen years old.

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It was the graduation of my cousin Paul at Texas A&M and we were sitting in the lobby uh waiting on my aunt and my cousin to come join was and he was looking at the newspaper it was My Lai Massacre in Vietnam was on

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the front page. And he put down the newspaper. He said, ‘This My Lai thing, this My Lai thing.’ And then he said, ‘you know,’ uh. Then he started saying in, in, in Europe walking along the road he said,

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with tanks and all kind of people, soldiers. Civilians would come and join them and walk together with them, side by side. Maybe they thought they had safety, you know?

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But then every once in a while, they would hear an order like—you know—I don’t know what, uh some kind of shout. And then, all the soldiers would run on the left and, and jump off the road and the plane would come by and mow down all those civilians—those women

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and children—and I said, ‘Uncle, that is—that’s murder!’ He said, ‘Nancy,’ and he had his hands up, he said, ‘That’s what war is!’ And I, I said, ‘Th—that’s murder!’ and

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then my aunt suddenly appeared and she was upset because we were late for the ceremony and she said, ‘Robert, I told you to meet at certain time—at certain time.’ And then uh she, she kept marching by; she didn’t stop. She—she went

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going to the place where we were supposed to be and then my uncle leaned over just when my aunt was crossing in front of me and he said, ‘Your Aunt Rola is wearing a wig.’ And I—I just froze .

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And, and um my uncle had a lot of sense of humor. Uh, he picked that timing to tell me. But anyway um, uh, that’s the first time I heard something serious about war.

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Okay. My uncle. Ok. W—we diverged, diverged, anyway. Ok. So, um, so your parents were uh parents worked at the farm…? No, no just my father did.

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Just your, your father? Yes, and m—my Uncle Ed. Yeah. And my Uncle Robert opened up a television repair uh and, uh, shop, you know.

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So did you grow up in a farm? No, no. I was born in Pasadena, Texas. Uh… Ok. And, uh, uh… Dad, uh, uh um let’s see uh... Dad married my mother.

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He met mother through a friend in, uh, in Rio Grande Valley. Um. And, uh, this, this is small community of Japanese in the Rio Grande Valley and they had a club that was called Valley High Lows and in Houston we had a club—it was called the—the Lone Star Club.

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And those two clubs dispersed but they, they were in my childhood, they were meeting in for holidays or for Easter egg hunt or um, uh social, social, socializing. Ok. And so— Do you know when they dispersed?

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Ah… Ooh, maybe in the seventies or sixties. Oh, I don’t know when they did. Ok. Everyone got um too, too tired, too old and too many—too busy I guess.

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Um, so, um my yeah my father met her at, at, at there, see. Oh, about labor, labor ok. My father was working for my uncle for a

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while and then he opened up his own welding business. He was a welder; he liked to work with his hands. And he liked to fly and, um, uh he liked to fish. I mean, he had so many hobbies.

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My father loved to do all kind of things. And uh, uh he, um—let’s see—he—he worked for short time for Brown and Root in NASA. And I r—I say this because of a very interesting experience

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that just uh influenced me for the rest of my life. Um… he was fired. And, um, before he was fired, it was like this. Uh.

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The new supervisor came in, a very young one, and went out to the coffee caddy and emptied out and put it in his pockets. And my father said, ‘Hey, don’t do that. That is not right.’ And then he was told he doesn’t need to come to work anymore.

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He needs time to find a new job. And um his contract would not be renewed so he doesn’t need to come back to work at all. He will be paid for two months until he find a new job. So uh I was, uh, uh in

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junior high school. It was my first year, sixth grader, I was a sixth grader. So I didn’t know what to put on the form—where is my father working? So I asked the teacher, ‘Can I call my parents?

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I don’t know what to do here.’ And so she said, ‘Oh! Children! You don’t know where your parents are working? You should know that!’ You know, so. Anyway, dad said, ‘go ahead, go ahead and put down Brown and Root cause they are still

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paying me for two months. So I remember mother, mother would look—you know—uh watch daddy come home and daddy would say, ‘No, nothing today.’ Cause he was looking for work, you know. Ok. So uh and I had

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no idea that a job had a relationship to the food on the table. I had no idea there was some kind of relationship , very naïve. Ok. So anyway uh d—dad was fired for, for a silly thing like

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that. And uh and then also—what are the thing? Oh yeah—um, somebody stole my grandfa…my father’s uh barbecue pit that he had welded together out of scrap metal. And then it was found by

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some teeny tiny little Texas town. And, and they—the sheriff called and they said, ‘Hey come pick it up.’ And so when he went to pick it up, he was given a big storage, storage fee. They had chained it to a fence outside and it was, um—uh anyways, it

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wasn’t covered or anything. And they were charging him an enormous amount and I forgot what it was—so, uh, he, he said the sheriff wants. I said, ‘You know, this is not fair, Daddy.

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Uh this is your property and they are charging you an enormous amount of storage fee and this is wrong.’ And he said, ‘Can you come with me to face this Sheriff?’ and I said, ‘Oh, this time, uh, no’ because I was pregnant at that

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time. I don’t know whether the first or my second baby. I think it was my second and I said, ‘I’m just too tired to this. But tell them you will call Marvin Zindler.

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And Marvin Zindler was a famous—um, a, I think it was Channel 11—uh a sort of a consumer advocate. He passed away. He was the same age as my father. In fact, they had a same class together at Sam Houston

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State. Uh, uh that was before Marvin did all the facial, uh face, uh, surgery and changed his nose and, uh . But anyway Marvin Zindler was—was a wonderful person. He died 2007 or

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2008. I can’t remember, yeah. Ok, so is the family business still going on? Oh, no. Oh, no. That, that stopped at 1968 uh or maybe earlier. Uh, uh my grandfather

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retired from the rice industry and three months later he had a stroke, uh drove himself to John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, cause that’s, uh that was near Webster, where they were living. And uh, and the doctor said, ‘Well, take it easy’ and then he had a stroke two weeks later and that was

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really strong one. He had aphasia, aphasia—can’t—can understand but can’t speak. Mm-hm. Ok and a little bit of dementia, too. So, I became sort of like a babysitter sometimes for my grandfather. It was the reverse when I was growing up, you know.

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Change—changed position. And uh, um, his, his wife—uh the third, third, third wife. And uh, she married him like when I was two or three years old so uh we were very close, um.

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Uh anyway, she was doing community things like—flower arranging and um, she would go take off kind of kimonos and don’t go to school and dress up the kids in kimono and teach them and take some rice

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crackers or something, you know, that kind of things. She would come to my—my schools too and do that. And um… about labor. My father was working for my uncle and then he opened up his own

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welding business and then um, my Uncle Eddie, he was working for the farm until it finished and then I think he went to work at Brown and Root, which is nearby and had a—had a job there, too. My father was fired, uh, a second time but that was a little bit different. The man who hired

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him—there were two brothers who owned the industry, uh welding industry—and Hahn & Clay, I think it was called. And one of them died and the one who died was the one who hired my father and the other one said, ‘Well we don’t have any space for—we—we need to cut down

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employment. So Dad lost a job again, second time. And then he opened his own welding business. So I remember uh—I remember that, yeah. Because we had eggs for breakfast, and

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then egg sandwich for lunch and eggs for dinner. And I remember that was going on for two weeks and I said to my mother, ‘Can we have something different than eggs?’ And then my mother hit me under the table with my leg and—and my, my

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father was, was showing a very unhappy face and then, um, I remember uh—I was so dumb! I didn’t realize what was happening, you know. Uh when—when he didn’t have a job.

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And then I remember one time my grandfather and grandmother, um—she used to come, they—we would either go visit them or they would come visit us on the weekends. And so my grandmother uh liked the stores in

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Houston and Pasadena because Webster was a teeny tiny—just one little grocery store that was a very small one. So she liked all the stores so she would come. And one time—uh, usually the

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way it would be—they would come and then grandpa and I and my father would be talking and then um grandmother and my mother would take her shopping because grandmother did not drive. And then they’d come back and they—we’d have lunch and they would go home—that’s the usual way.

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But one time I remember, she came with whole kinds of groceries and was putting in, you know, stuffed groceries into the icebox. And, uh and then, um, and then, when we said, when time came to say goodbye my, my grandfather and my father uh

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were had very serious expression on their faces and, and my, my grandmother and my mother were talking and we were saying ‘Goodbye’ as they were about to leave. And, uh, I remember, ‘This is strange, dad

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and grandfather with such a serious expression on their face.’ This was the time when my father was looking for a job. See, and, he didn’t—didn’t have any. And grandmother and grandfather

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had brought food. And I said, ‘you know, you always come and you buy things and you go. You never come and bring things and put in the refrigerator.’ And I said, ‘Why is this?’ And my grandma said, ‘Well sometimes, something different, you know.’ And so I didn’t realize they were bringing groceries for us, you know.

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So when it came time to say goodbye, um, uh my father with very serious expression, ‘Dad—uh, Pop,’ he said, um, ‘I’ll pay you back’ and he said—and my grandfather said, ‘Pop,’ my grandfather said, ‘Warren, please don’t do that. Please, please don’t do that.’ and so, I would

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thought, ‘This is strange. What is this conversation?’ You know. But later on I realized what was happening a—and this psychology with it. So did your mom also work?

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Yes, she worked for 35 years for a Japanese restaurant called uh Tokyo Gardens. Mm-hm. It was uh located on 4701 Westheimer near 610 on the other side of the Galleria. And, uh, the lady who, uh—in the, in the, the—the couple that uh hire her was Mr.

00:24:10.360 - 00:24:23.550

and Mrs. Gondo. They came from, uh, California. She was a third generation Hawaiian born um Japanese, ok a—Ms. Hisako Gondo. And then the uh elder, uh, J—Juntaro, was kibei

00:24:25.010 - 00:24:35.680

Nisei means he was, he was born—uh I think on West Coast, I’m not sure which state. And then to, to be raised and educated, parents sent him back to Japan.

00:24:35.970 - 00:24:46.020

So, and then he came later—I guess when as, after he finished high school or so. And he was in a movie. They needed extras and he was in a movie called Tokyo Joe with Humphrey Bogart.

00:24:46.020 - 00:24:54.540

He has one line. ‘Who speaks English?’ Humphrey Bogart says and he says, ‘Yes, I speak English.’ That was his, you know, one line. Anyways, he was in several, several movies. He was very embarrassed about that.

00:24:54.540 - 00:25:06.480

Anybody who didn’t know. But uh, uh, anyway he uh—Mr. and Mrs. Gondo decided to open up a Japanese restaurant in Dallas, Texas. And they, they came and they opened a restaurant in Houston and they

00:25:06.480 - 00:25:14.360

were building it. Have you ever seen that restaurant? Did you…? No. No. It closed 1997. It was open for 35 years. And uh, very interesting.

00:25:14.360 - 00:25:27.540

It was uh, uh a car, a car dealership before so it was very big, spacey. And they put a HUGE pond like—maybe two of these rooms , uh, carp, and a bridge over where

00:25:27.760 - 00:25:40.120

you could walk over. And one very heavyset guy was leaning too much on that rail and it and crashed it. So we had to put on it ‘Please do not lean on the rail.’ It was, it was a….

00:25:40.750 - 00:25:52.000

Yeah, it had a stage for dance and for—we even had martial arts exhibit one time. I remember. Mostly for dancing. Every thirty minutes there was a dance and on the weekend. I see you also worked at the Tokyo Japanese restaurant, right?

00:25:52.080 - 00:26:05.460

Yes, I worked—uh I worked as uh a receptionist, like, ‘Which would you like to seat, on the table and chair or on the floor?’ Most people—th—the non-Japanese wanted to sit on the floor,

00:26:05.770 - 00:26:17.390

on the rice mats floor. The Japanese wanted table and a chair. And the business—you know, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo—all these companies, they said, ‘Please don’t sit us

00:26:17.390 - 00:26:34.230

next to another company.’ So the—we had to space out; all these Japanese companies far, far away. So how, how old were you? Oh, I was in my last year of uh high school, so 17 and I started working there, yeah. For how long? Oh, on the—on the, when they were busy like some

00:26:34.420 - 00:26:47.000

conference—homeowner’s associations conference, no, home owners, homebuilder’s or something, or uh OTC conference, Offshore Technology Conference or—the summer vacation. So I worked off and on from time of 17 until

00:26:48.000 - 00:27:00.630

oh, what was it, 20… 20 wait what was it—18, 19, 20—at 20. When I was 21, I dropped out of U of H because it was really hard for me. I was sleeping. I, I have always gone to sleep if I am

00:27:00.630 - 00:27:12.890

not talking or if I’m not moving, I fall asleep. My, my blood pressure would drop to 55 over 45, you know. People think, ‘That’s like almost dead, isn’t it?’ but all through school, I was sleeping. I mean, the teacher would wake me up, you know.

00:27:13.510 - 00:27:27.810

So, I had I think low thyroid—I think that was what it is. But if I am busy and I am talking or moving or dancing I can stay awake. So it was really hard—U of H—I had to study like three hours for every one hour of classroom and it was just—gosh, I am struggling so hard and all these other

00:27:27.880 - 00:27:42.720

students are easily doing these—these same required courses so I will look for something else that everybody else is missing out on. So I dropped out and went to look for a job and it was not easy. So I still had a job at Tokyo Gardens on the weekend and I was doing receptionist and,

00:27:43.140 - 00:27:55.660

um, cashier and do the daily—daily cash report and, uh, help with the cleaning—I cleaned the—all the— tempura crumbs were all over the floor, you know because people struggle with using their chopsticks for the first time.

00:27:55.900 - 00:28:10.870

They are usually not used to it; that was fun. Do you remember how much you got paid? Yeah, uh, minimum wage was at that time was around $2.50 an hour, I remember. What year was it? Oh… see, I graduated at 1970 so around that

00:28:10.920 - 00:28:20.690

time, you know, in the seventies. Mm-hm. And but the waitresses—see, mother made the payroll checks so I, sometimes I had, I could see it. They were making like a dollar and something cents an hour. And I said, ‘Mother, why is

00:28:20.690 - 00:28:36.410

it the waitresses are getting paid such small amounts and I am getting paid $2.50 and I am—I’m newer than they are. Why?’ and she said, ‘well, because they make tips.’ And I said, ‘Oh, is it that much they make?’ And then—I did not know but actually I’ll,

00:28:36.720 - 00:28:50.700

I’ll say I don’t know all their cases but one of the cases uh the lady was working lunch and dinner and her tips was enough to buy two houses; one to live in and, uh, tenant, you know, have a

00:28:51.360 - 00:29:01.770

tenant. And this was in the uh southwest area. These are small houses like, uh, one, two, three bedroom house. But, uh, well that’s—that’s good isn’t it?

00:29:02.080 - 00:29:11.630

How can you do that today? I don’t think so. Things were so different. U of H—I could—as I said earlier when we were coming up here, I was able to pay with that.

00:29:11.790 - 00:29:26.870

It was like a hundred and fifty a week I was making and I could pay all my tuition at U of H, uh parking ticket, books, gasoline and I have something to spare so I can, you know, I offered mother saying, ‘Let me—let me pay part of the electric bill or something.’ She

00:29:26.870 - 00:29:38.760

said, ‘no, no wait til you graduate.’ But I said, ‘No, no go ahead.’ But sh—she wouldn’t take it so I would buy music, classical music, old records, you know, cause I liked it and she liked it. So, um, uh it

00:29:38.810 - 00:29:52.590

was easy and you know what. Um, this is, this is, this is a crime today, 2012, the biggest—uh the biggest, um, business is on students, uh charging

00:29:53.850 - 00:30:01.900

them horrendous amounts for their education. It’s a business. And the textbooks, last night on the radio with KPFT. Uh was it night? Or was

00:30:02.490 - 00:30:16.780

it…. uh. Yeah, with Larry Payne’s call-in Show at 8 ‘o clock on Monday night. That Larry Payne is a teacher at HCC and one—one s—one father said, ‘You know the, the textbooks my daughter

00:30:16.780 - 00:30:31.400

is buying they’re out of date within the next year and then she has to buy another one and they are expensive these things. And in my day we just passed the textbooks, you know, you didn’t, don’t put all this uh…. So he said, ‘Well, we are gonna have to do something.

00:30:31.400 - 00:30:41.160

And then maybe you know, organize—organize and pass and pass the books and uh, maybe make our own textbooks anyways. This is—this is wrong.

00:30:41.160 - 00:30:55.460

We need new legislation to protect. Weak people, students you go after them, or weak um—weak people get taken advantage of. And, uh, uh and the one percent people are not paying taxes.

00:30:55.460 - 00:31:06.100

It is just amazing. Making millions of dollars. So do you remember how much the tuition was? Yeah, I did. It was around $200, uh, for one—like fall.

00:31:06.520 - 00:31:15.370

One semester? Yeah. 200 and about 200 for the winter semester. And I—I didn’t go to—I went to summer one time and it was really cheap.

00:31:15.370 - 00:31:25.230

I don’t remember what it was. I am sorry, I can’t remember. And you also had a car? Yeah, but the car—the car was, um, um, uh the Tokyo

00:31:25.570 - 00:31:32.020

Gardens owner, Mrs. Gondo, she let us have the company car. So uh yes.

00:31:32.020 - 00:31:45.480

So I—mother and I had a company car. And then she, she leased another car—she leased a car for the company car and let mother drive it. So uh what

00:31:45.480 - 00:31:52.430

happened? We had, we had a car. We had an Impala, didn’t we? Was that from…oh she wouldn’t remember. Ah, let me think, let me think.

00:31:52.770 - 00:32:04.350

Uh I think that Impala was ours; No, that was our car. And then, later Mrs. Gondo she let my mother drive a company car. So mother didn’t

00:32:04.350 - 00:32:15.800

have to take our car to work. So I had that. But I towed it out. A real… Uh, three days without you know sleep and studying for finals and then had got stuck in and bumper to bumper

00:32:15.840 - 00:32:29.220

traffic and I was just following the car behind uh and it already turned red so I—I hit a car and that car hit another car and I towed out a car and I uh damaged two other cars and that’s, that’s bad.

00:32:29.860 - 00:32:46.280

Um, yeah. Oh, I wonder how many students do that . So you had to commute from Pasadena to U of H? U of H, yes. And then work it’s at—in Westheimer, right? Yes, yes. And sometimes I would stay—spend the night with my grandmother

00:32:46.340 - 00:33:01.490

who lived in a present house uh in Sharpstown area. She, they bought that house in 1968 and my, my grandmother and grandfather did. And did you say the owners of the restaurant were friends of the family or

00:33:01.850 - 00:33:14.340

relatives? Uh my grandmother had met Mrs. Gondo at some kind of Japanese function. And my mother was looking for a job because I, when I was eleven, eleven she decided to look for a job

00:33:14.760 - 00:33:28.060

and so uh my grandmother introduced my mother to Mrs. Gondo and my mother had only high school diploma. And uh Mrs. Gondo hired her and she was her secretary be—just be—before the

00:33:28.060 - 00:33:40.750

restaurant was even finished—it was still under construction. So uh it’s amazing. I think my mother was getting like seven hundred fifty a month and then at the end in 1997 she was getting

00:33:40.820 - 00:33:53.970

like $1000 a month. And she was working like, uh—she would get to work uh 12 noon and finish 12 midnight. And, uh, uh but she had, she had a car.

00:33:54.200 - 00:34:03.470

All she had to do was pay gas and keep up upkeep, the company was paying for the car… Do you remember the gas price? Oh, yeah. It was like 78 cents a gallon.

00:34:03.470 - 00:34:18.740

Oh, wow. That’s another thing. That’s why uh I do think we all need to go electric car and get the electricity free from the sun, you know. So what was your uh your favorite thing about your job?

00:34:19.350 - 00:34:29.360

My job… What did you like the most about the job? Well, it was many, many, um, different uh people in that Tokyo Gardens restaurant. And I only worked on the weekends now.

00:34:30.040 - 00:34:46.860

Um, because there were not enough Japanese waitresses so they had Korean waitress, Chinese, Pilipino and they were all given Japanese names . Really? Yes. And um—oh, b—but the bus

00:34:46.860 - 00:34:58.070

boys could be Hispanic, Vietnamese, or Chinese. I remember this one Vietnamese boy, um. He came a—and he has been working like two months or so. He was a really hard worker.

00:34:58.470 - 00:35:09.700

And he was learning English at the same time, uh maybe uh sixteen, sixteen, fifteen, sixteen years old. And uh then he came after three weeks he says—three months—and he came and he said to Mrs.

00:35:09.700 - 00:35:20.400

Gondo, ‘I work hard; you give me raise.’ Up front, and he said ‘I introduce my younger brother; he hard worker, too.’ So both of them got a job.

00:35:20.790 - 00:35:32.400

And uh Mrs. Gondo was a really, really sweet person. Uh Mr. Gondo, too. They were both, um, very nice people to work for. And, um, um I remember one—one worker

00:35:33.240 - 00:35:44.860

uh he, um—he had many children. I don’t know how many children. I think at least eight. And he came first and then uh he got caught; he’s undocumented, okay?

00:35:45.410 - 00:35:54.000

So he calls Mrs. Gondo from Laredo and says, ‘I wanna come back to Tokyo Gardens and work.’ And uh Mrs. Gondo said, ‘Ok, I’ll try to help

00:35:54.330 - 00:36:08.460

you.’ So she—she asked, she—she asked the office what to do so I volunteered and the secretary Mary Tate—she’s a White—white uh accountant—and she volunteered and m—my fiancé we

00:36:08.460 - 00:36:16.610

drove out to Laredo and we picked him up and we brought him. And Daniel stayed on the floorboard the whole time. He would not get out to use the restroom.

00:36:16.610 - 00:36:28.540

He would not get up. He would stay on the floor the whole entire time. And later on, Daniel, uh, brought one by one his all his children. I don’t know how many children and then he got some kind of

00:36:28.580 - 00:36:36.680

technical—I heard—if I remember correctly, some technical, um, vocational, auto-mechanic or some kind of training. And then he left the restaurant. But I mean Mrs.

00:36:36.680 - 00:36:47.700

Gondo was really, really nice about that kind of... So where—where was it that you drove to? Laredo, Texas. Laredo. And you mentioned that your ex-husband was with you.

00:36:48.060 - 00:36:57.090

Did you meet him working at the restaurant though? Oh, no, no. I met—he, he was a b—he was staying in my grandmother’s house. Ok, and my

00:36:57.130 - 00:37:11.110

grandmother uh whenever she had a problem she would call the Medical Center for Japanese doctors who were—there was a team of them working in Dr. John Stirling Meyers, Department of Neurology at Baylor.

00:37:13.220 - 00:37:18.840

And he was the chair at that time. He was a very wonderful doctor. He just died last year. Um, uh Dr.

00:37:18.840 - 00:37:30.960

Meyers was one of the few that I knew of who hired lots of foreign doctors and he had lots of Japanese doctors always. And, uh, uh he taught my ex-husband research, you know.

00:37:31.410 - 00:37:45.830

And Dr. Meyer actually co-authored uh the basic textbook that all neurologists all over the world must read and study. And, um, anyway, so, um, my grandmother found out about them and calling them, ‘Can you stop by my house and check

00:37:45.830 - 00:37:52.950

my—my husband?’ Husband means my grandfather. He had a stroke. And she wanted to talk in Japanese to a Japanese doctor. So the language, ok?

00:37:53.300 - 00:38:11.190

And then, uh when my fiancé was ready to come and, and take over somebody else and exchange with another doctor uh here and r— rotate—they were rotating from Keio University—doctors in the neurology department there. Well, he—he was alone; he was single.

00:38:11.610 - 00:38:22.590

And they worried about him. And they, they so they asked uh my grandmother, ‘Would you like to have a doctor living in your home’ and she said, ‘Yes!’ ‘That’s great!’ and—and, uh, because

00:38:23.180 - 00:38:36.010

we were worried about him. And before my ex-husband came they had another single doctor from Keio come and he got neurotic; and he committed suicide. He drove straight into one of those concrete embankments—highway

00:38:36.010 - 00:38:48.450

embankments. And he went back in a bottle of ash, you know. So they didn’t want the same thing to happen . A—and so they introduced to my—my e—ex-husband—to my

00:38:48.660 - 00:39:03.910

grandmother and uh he stayed and uh I think she charged him—uh, I forgot, I forgot—$200? $150—150 or something like that a month for rent and for food. So he’s actually born in Japan?

00:39:04.310 - 00:39:11.360

Born and raised in Japan. And uh— And he went to medical school in Japan as well? Yes, Keio University, it’s private university. It’s hard to get into that school.

00:39:11.360 - 00:39:21.390

In, in Tokyo, right? In Tokyo, yeah. So he—he came to America to practice medicine? No, no just research. Just research. Research.

00:39:21.430 - 00:39:29.170

To study research from Dr. Meyers. John Stirling Meyers, he was very famous. So he just planned on staying just… Oh, usually just two or three years, yeah.

00:39:29.440 - 00:39:39.480

And then go back. They always do that. The Japanese don’t stay here too long, you know. It’s just that long time ago the, the, the first generation, second generation those old timers that came as farmers

00:39:39.480 - 00:39:54.170

they stayed but the—now it’s just business and medical d— they just rotate and go back. They don’t stay. So did he want to—so when—when—when you got married did he wanna go back or stay? Well, he tried.

00:39:54.240 - 00:40:10.230

He, he was like, ‘What should I do, what should I do?’ and he tried to get in UT but they didn’t have a space for him. And, and he had done a uh successful research—uh brain research—and uh he had done—the really thing that I am proud of him for doing is,

00:40:10.230 - 00:40:27.540

uh, starting the first uh hypothermal therapy case for stroke. Uh the stroke victim was um, uh 68 and they put him on a plastic, uh, bed full of ice—circulating ice water to lower the whole body temperature down and then gave him TPA, a drug that s—closes up the

00:40:27.540 - 00:40:40.600

lesions up the uh arteries that have burst. That stops the blood edema from rushing in and breaking walls in the brain, and so after three days of cold temperature and total anesthesia, and then three days of thawing up,

00:40:41.010 - 00:40:53.270

and then they can speak and walk and stand, and n—no paralysis and it was amazing. And that night I found that he had a mistress, I found out. Anyway it was a big, big day. I remember October of ‘94.

00:40:53.730 - 00:41:06.760

So he did his first patient and it had already been settled in the animal experience. So this is a lot of credit to basic researchers who were not doctors. They were doctors but they do animal experience. Already uh confirmed with mice experience but no one

00:41:06.760 - 00:41:17.310

had done it in Japan with, uh, human with stroke. They had already done it with heart trauma and with brain trauma like falling off a ladder, but they had never done it with stroke. You know. So he, he started it.

00:41:17.310 - 00:41:29.780

And the next case was a seventy-year-old guy and three hours or two hours of onset came to the hospital, froze him up— lowered his temperature thirty, uh a few degrees a little bit lower than the first patient.

00:41:29.780 - 00:41:44.850

Because the first patient had a little bit of aphasia and he would walk for speech therapy—to the, to the hospital—from the train station instead of taking the bus and that’s a, that’s a twenty minute downhill so for me, for me maybe thirty minute of uphill, uh, walk so that patient was that well.

00:41:45.130 - 00:41:56.820

Uh usually strokes they go out of the hospital in a wheelchair. They don’t go out walking, you know. It is just amazing. So that was 1994 and that second patient, he lowered the temperature a little bit lower and this guy had no

00:41:56.820 - 00:42:07.070

deficit—went right back to work. And then they had these heart surgery patient blunders, you know, you let one of those big clots get away from you. They are all right in the big arteries but they get up in

00:42:07.480 - 00:42:22.430

the narrow arteries of the brain—you call it stroke. And, uh, so and e—even if—my ex-husband was working national cardiovascular circulation uh disease and research center in Osaka area of Japan and that is a government hospital.

00:42:22.880 - 00:42:36.370

And that, uh, even in that hospital they had heart surgery cases like a 46-year-old woman and she got a stroke after had—during the heart surgery. Her midline of the brain completely pushed halfway into the other half of the, half of

00:42:36.410 - 00:42:50.720

the brain. They do that hypothermal therapies, uh, uh, cold temperature and midline actually moved back to normal and the lady discharged back to normal life. And then it was a sixteen

00:42:50.720 - 00:43:01.930

year old born with some kind of heart problem. They said wait ‘til later to do the repair, repairing but she suffered a stroke, ok. Then they did the hypothermal therapy and, and the girl got so well

00:43:01.930 - 00:43:16.030

she went right back to high school. And then she saw a ladies’ magazine where, uh, reporter had taken a—an interview with my ex-husband and his team and they, they reported her IQ was about the same as before the surgery and the

00:43:16.030 - 00:43:25.770

treatment. And she read that and she got angry and she complained and told ‘It’s exactly the same! It is not about, it’s exactly the same.’ So anyways she went back to school.

00:43:25.770 - 00:43:37.990

So this is a wonderful thing and um hypothermal therapy. But now it isn’t used because when Dr. Meyers had a stroke I called Methodist Hospital. I called the stroke ward and I said, ‘Please do not give up on Dr.

00:43:37.990 - 00:43:51.850

Meyers. Uh, please try hypothermal therapy and they said, ‘No, uh, the way—the location of it and the severity of it he is not a candidate for hypothermal therapy.’ I said, ‘You know, I know John Meyers would say ‘go

00:43:51.930 - 00:44:04.950

for it—just, just use me. Go for it. Do it.’’ Because even the last time I talked to him was two weeks before he said, ‘What’s going on with hypothermal therapy?’ I said, ‘yeah I wish I knew. There’s a thing I miss—I miss that about that, uh, my marriage, you know.’ My

00:44:04.950 - 00:44:14.990

ex-husband used to talk to me about research—on how it is going and all the things that were happening and it was very unusual. Because in Japan, the society, the man doesn’t talk about his work with his wife. So I

00:44:14.990 - 00:44:26.520

had a—I had a very unusual husband in that sense—and in that sense, I mean. But uh. But he had a mistress and that, uh, his secretary—twenty-five years younger secretary. And that uh—I—

00:44:26.690 - 00:44:42.630

that’s why I—I sued for divorce and I sued her, and uh I had to fire my lawyer during the high- court appeal because he wouldn’t do what I wanted, and I had to represent myself and hire a translator and finally I, I got it overturned.

00:44:43.350 - 00:44:55.560

I didn’t—I didn’t win anything in the district court. It is considered a legal mistress relationship. Because they had illegal mistress relationship—this is in Japan, which is way backward and, uh, you know there’s only like

00:44:55.740 - 00:45:05.970

7% of the women in the Congress—in the Japanese Congress and that, that’s like Morocco or Algeria level. And we’re not much better. We have like, uh, what is it?

00:45:06.500 - 00:45:13.690

14% women in the U.S. Congress? We need to improve too. But anyway they have two. So the Japanese judge had to decide this is a legal

00:45:13.690 - 00:45:23.890

mistress or an illegal mistress. So it was considered as a legal mistress so I got nothing; I got no child, uh, kodomo shinken, how do you say it? I—I did not get, uh, custody of children.

00:45:24.140 - 00:45:36.020

I did not get, uh, uh compensation. But I—in the higher court I overturned it and um I, I did not like the verdict cause I did not get custody.

00:45:36.780 - 00:45:51.850

And uh I won more than any Japanese women would ever win. I won, see, from him, from him and from her, her is small amount like $2500. But from him—I won altogether, from both of them, think it was like 8

00:45:52.270 - 00:46:05.220

million—uh, oh, I can’t remember now— anyway 8 million yen maybe? It’s quite a bit. But I couldn’t, um—I couldn’t get uh child custody so I—wait a minute.

00:46:05.220 - 00:46:17.610

When reading the judgments, you know—reading the judgments, they did highlight reading—just small, small catchphrases in the highlights of—they were gonna read ten different cases, uh, uh, just the highlights of the judgments. And I was number two on

00:46:17.610 - 00:46:27.410

the list and when I heard mine and the translator was telling what happened I said, ‘Oh I have something to say.’ Because in the United States, people have a right to comment. But it doesn’t happen in Japan but I went ahead and did it anyway.

00:46:28.140 - 00:46:41.280

And before, I have invited the press to come t—to hear my judgment because I told them my husband is a—is a government doctor—he used government funding which was for research purposes. He gave it to his mistress who was his

00:46:41.280 - 00:46:57.200

secretary. And I said, ‘And uh, he is not the only one doing this kind of thing, I’m sure. And I think you, you should uh come to the—because this is our tax money that is being used for hanky-panky, you know, at the government hospital. Ok, and then so, uh, he—yeah, plus one of

00:46:57.200 - 00:47:11.680

the newspapers was Mainichi Shinbun, Yomiuri Shinbun, and the other one that’s no longer around—I can’t remember—Asah—Asahi Shinbun. I invited all three papers. The Mainichi Shinbun was paying money to an account—a bank account—that was secret to

00:47:11.680 - 00:47:25.230

me. It was made in my, my daughter—daughter’s name when she was like six years old and three million yen went in there. I think it was three million—that’s about $30,000 and you know six-year-old

00:47:25.410 - 00:47:41.400

doesn’t usually make money like that so they were paying him—not only him—all kind of pharmacy companies were paying my, my ex-husband a present money—a gift money for advice on making this kind of drug and that kind of drug because in, in Japan, doctors do not work for pharmaceutical companies.

00:47:41.780 - 00:47:51.810

Here, doctors work for pharmaceutical companies. But in Japan, doctors want to stay in clinics and treat patients and then give advice on the side and get some money, you know. That’s how it is over there.

00:47:52.070 - 00:48:01.520

So, um it was a lot of money and uh it was in my daughter’s name and my daughter was angry, too. She also found out. So I realize he—he was saving my money and giving it to his mistress.

00:48:02.250 - 00:48:17.710

Anyway so when I protested I said, ‘No you should not give cu—custody of children to a man who you know got a mistress and—and has already, you know, has admitted to me that he spend some of the research money—government tax research money—on his mistress.

00:48:18.480 - 00:48:30.900

And you don’t even investigate that? And you should do that.’ And I said, ‘I think you three judges have enough experience to make a more fair judgment?’ Plus I haven’t had enough time and money to translate the court papers which

00:48:30.900 - 00:48:44.560

were in Japanese. And they, they wouldn’t have it so they asked me to go on another room and get my—my judgment paper. And I said—and then one guy—one guy in the, in the—one City Council man he said, ‘if you leave, you probably get nothing.’ You know he said that

00:48:44.560 - 00:48:58.850

like that . And so I protested for an hour and a half and the judges took intermissions— they left the courtroom like three times and when they were gone then the people—it was a standing room—there were a lot of cases at one time were gonna be announced.

00:48:58.850 - 00:49:16.100

And I was holding up the show cause I was number two and they said—they were asking me questions about my case and then, then finally, um, they had three empty guards I don’t know, bouncers, I don’t know. They came in green uniforms and one took this hand one took this

00:49:16.100 - 00:49:26.860

hand one was, was, yeah, here—there were three of them. I can’t remember—one was around my waist, one was on my… and I had my hand on a microphone so I was holding it really tight so the other guys were trying to peel the fingers off the microphone, ok?

00:49:27.190 - 00:49:41.780

And then at the same time, the guy—the councilman—now his case was suing the government for broken promise you know. Because Osaka international airport was built on the sea by claim, by dredging up the land by putting up there and lasting of the environment and promising

00:49:41.780 - 00:49:51.710

that the local people that the planes will come on that, over the sea into the airport and leave over the sea and not cross over the land cause they didn’t want any things dropping on them. And the government promised that.

00:49:51.750 - 00:50:05.900

And three months after the airport opened, they said, ‘Oh, we misestimated things so we’ll have to go three courses over the land.’ So they were suing for that reason. I didn’t know that at that time. Anyway, that those people in that group came over the barricade and were

00:50:05.960 - 00:50:21.250

trying to help me. And I was surrounded by eight court clerks and and then I heard this kind of body hits and one of them was in a physical fight with one of the clerks and then three guards were carrying me horizontally out of the courtroom and the

00:50:21.250 - 00:50:33.510

whole room the people were standing and they were saying—yelling me at the judge, ‘Let this foreigner have more time with her case.’ And there was—they didn’t know me at all but they were, they were uh, uh, like, uh, saying things in favor of me, ok.

00:50:33.680 - 00:50:45.990

But um. So I was carried out the courtroom. But um, uh, uh, uh, that case I later on after everything finished and everybody left, I went and talked to that man I said, ‘You know, you are gonna have the same judges that I had.

00:50:46.270 - 00:51:00.630

And they’re not gonna like you very much because you supported me and you came over the barricade to help me, so what is your case about?’ And he explained it that the government you know broke their promises about the ‘No over the land routes’ and I said, ‘Ok, I’ll help you.

00:51:00.630 - 00:51:18.030

So I got involved in that and then I got involved with anti-public works cause they build three other airports on the sea with lots of taxpayer money even though passenger, uh the passenger and and uh the activities going down and that was in the, that was in the,

00:51:18.160 - 00:51:27.410

uh, yeah, yeah. Late 90s and 2000. These are based on plans that were made like twenty, thirty years prior. Ok, so… Public works, unnecessary public works.

00:51:29.260 - 00:51:46.110

So did you finally get the custody of the children? No, never did. And it’s very—and I called and researched uh, uh, foreigner getting uh custody of, uh, Japanese children is very difficult except if you have three points and I called the,

00:51:46.110 - 00:52:02.950

uh, a shelter in Yokohama city um and I called them and I said, ‘What are the three points that I need?’ and they said, ‘Number one, your husband has to be a yakuza’ that means a gangster, ok? ‘Number two, um, you have to have proof that you and your children left the

00:52:02.950 - 00:52:09.630

house and went to a shelter. If you went by yourself, forget it. They’re not gonna give you custody.’ And what was the third point?

00:52:10.010 - 00:52:23.890

Oh yeah, yeah, you have to have a doctor’s letter that you have been hit, um, physical damage to your body , ok. So I didn’t have those three points, but anyway I still thought I should protest.

00:52:23.910 - 00:52:35.110

I already knew that was gonna happen and I had been calling a um psychic to get a little more, uh, information . And she helped me find things he had hidden like bankbooks.

00:52:36.210 - 00:52:48.020

I mean I don’t know how she knew—she was in Texas and I was in Japan. But those people have some kind of ability that is really helpful and uh, yeah I need to write a book about this, uh, to encourage other Japanese women.

00:52:48.020 - 00:53:03.270

This is uh, uh—Japanese women that are unhappy, they stay in these very unhappy marriages even though they get beaten up after the—the man eats his dinner and drinks and gets violent. They stay in these marriages because they think that they have to and there’s no other

00:53:03.270 - 00:53:16.740

way. And actually, the—I was very lucky I got compensation. Most women get zero compensation. If the judgment only stays in the court, there’s justice only in the courtroom. Outside the courtroom, forget it.

00:53:17.010 - 00:53:27.820

The police will not help them get the, uh, uh, the compensation. The police won’t even go after child support. Now, I mean, here they do. They go after child support.

00:53:28.060 - 00:53:43.980

But it wasn’t always that case, so Japan is way behind—I really wanna help those Japanese women but I’m gonna have to help ’em outside of Japan, um, yeah, I don’t know how—I might write a book or uh, uh, encouraging them uh, the— it’s just, uh—but right now they need to, they need to work

00:53:44.020 - 00:53:57.930

on the reactor number four. Oh, if that blows, it’s bad news for—it’s bad news for our children, your children. It’s, it’s bad news for whole world . Um. About—in speaking of your children…

00:53:58.010 - 00:54:08.160

Uh huh. Were they born in Japan then? Yes, but they have dual citizenship, you know. Are they still in Japan? Oh yes, they’re stubborn. They won’t leave! And they won’t talk to me, either.

00:54:08.750 - 00:54:24.480

You know, I can leave messages—until recently, I could leave messages on the phone but now they’ve changed their number ‘cause I kept saying, ‘Get out, get out! The groundwater is contaminated and the groundwater contamination is moving westward from Tokyo

00:54:24.850 - 00:54:37.050

towards—towards where they are. And the air is already contaminated. And they’re living like, like, here’s Japan, here’s Fukushima, here’s Tokyo, here’s, uh, Nagoya, here’s Osaka and then on down to

00:54:37.220 - 00:54:49.550

Kagoshima ok so we’re in the middle—Osaka is in the middle where, where my children are. And just above Osaka is Kyoto and that’s uh—that, uh, city is um, it was not bombed during WWII uh because

00:54:49.640 - 00:55:06.100

the uh, the Secretary of State had his honeymoon there and he is somehow credited for saving Kyoto from being bombed. And, uh, a English teacher teaching there, I heard on Coast to Coast AM um—oh, Coast to Coast that’s a nighttime tel—radio show from midnight to 4 A.

00:55:06.100 - 00:55:21.990

M. Fox Radio 700, 740 AM. Really interesting subjects they talk about that are not spoken on usual, mainstream media. Yeah, anyway, so this one uh English professor from the United States was

00:55:21.990 - 00:55:41.010

teaching in Kyoto and he brought it uh, uh, millisievert counter and put it down close to the front of his house and you know, things collect, so it was 400. That’s way, way…like the Japanese government raised all the toxic limits from 10 to 20 millisievert—it’s

00:55:41.270 - 00:55:53.360

ok for the air because they went up and the excuses, then they went up and had airplane catch some of the air or helicopter that catch some of the air, and but way up in the air in a fast moving uh vehicle like a helicopter,

00:55:53.820 - 00:56:08.350

air is being dispersed really fast so you’re getting a very weak concentration—it was 20 so we raised 10 is too low so 20 is alright. So he—he tested the ground in front of his house and it was 400. Well he said, ‘We’re— we’re leaving.’ And he said, ‘I just paid a lot of money to

00:56:08.420 - 00:56:19.390

repave my driveway.’ I mean, sounds silly but everything in Japan is super, super expensive. That means he owns his own house. This is very, very expensive to have a house. I mean one organic

00:56:19.450 - 00:56:34.530

apple’s gonna be 250 when I left and were 300 yen or $3. So uh I mean, I mean, like having a car inspected it cost me $1500 e—to get it inspected and a car tax is, is, was a $400 a year—just for

00:56:34.530 - 00:56:47.650

having a car. I mean everything in Japan is so terribly, terribly expensive. Uh, food, uh I was paying like, um, for just myself $700, no, this was making, three, four, about $400 a month—just

00:56:48.090 - 00:56:58.340

for myself. And no meat. I won’t eat any meat. Uh, when, like what, what year? 2005 when I left that was the price. And I was bicycling everywhere because my car broke

00:56:58.440 - 00:57:13.450

down. I could—I was living in my car. I lived in my car for about four years uh cause, uh, I, I could not, uh I did not, my friends offered to sign as a guarantor, guarantee, guarantor

00:57:13.520 - 00:57:23.800

yeah, in case you don’t pay your, your rent. But I didn’t want anybody do that cause um I couldn’t really, know if, I was living from hand to mouth teaching English conversation mostly to women. I gave

00:57:23.800 - 00:57:37.810

one class where men were invited and men did come once a week on Saturday afternoon but the—children, mothers and children class and then just housewives. And I wanted to give some guts to those women—you know, give them guts and tell, I told the mothers don’t drink

00:57:37.810 - 00:57:55.640

milk. I mean this GMO is polluted. And I mean, uh I mean, uh, growth—growth hormones are s— recumbent bovine growth hormones put in the milks and, and in United States and uh I’m sure uh its possibility that same thing happening with Japanese milk and

00:57:56.600 - 00:58:05.270

th….. I told them, ‘yeah, food, food, food quality. The safety it’s… and I said the cancer rates are—are skyrocketing in Japan faster than they are in the United States.

00:58:05.920 - 00:58:14.440

And they have a lot of fertilizers they buy and a lot of um fertilizing done. The fields don’t rest enough in Japan. They immediately use it—

00:58:14.550 - 00:58:27.910

immediately use it. And when I left, in the supermarket was made in China vegetables. Oh. Haha, surprised. And China has very low laws on, on uh safety, food safety. And—and my, my,

00:58:28.060 - 00:58:39.840

some of my students were bringing back pictures of rivers in China. Red—Christmas red, a river. Another river—Christmas green. And I said, ‘Did you ask the people why the water was colored

00:58:39.840 - 00:58:54.550

like that?’ and they said, ‘Yeah they said that ‘we don’t know why but it’s been like that for some time because they’re, they’re, they’re using lots and lots of chemicals and fertilizers for their—their land and dumping a lot of industry chemicals. And then I said, ‘What else did you

00:58:54.550 - 00:59:08.830

see?’ and this one guy he said, ‘Yeah, those dog, it’s alive.’ Cyclops, one eye. And um, uh, yeah . Anyway, uh, uh, they know—I would talk to a Ph. D in physics from

00:59:08.830 - 00:59:17.870

China, he said ‘Yes, I know the food’s bad. But I have to eat. So I have to eat it.’ And I said, ‘you don’t have to go back to uh China.’ He said, ‘Oh I must.

00:59:18.110 - 00:59:28.860

Uh China paid for my research study here in Japan and if I go to the U.S. uh later on I must return to China and help China.’ I said, ‘You can help China outside of China.

00:59:28.860 - 00:59:41.570

You can do that.’ and I said, ‘And if you go to work for a, a, a institute in United States, uh, make sure that your name is first on your papers and your professor can be second or last or wherever he wants to. But don’t let him put his name first;

00:59:41.570 - 00:59:55.210

make sure you get credit for your work and you’re not treated as a slave, ok?’ and he just smiled at me. Anyway, that Chinese he went… Ok, so sorry to interrupt, but we’d like to… I’ll go back to labor Go back to labor and talk about your training as a nurse’s aide.

00:59:55.940 - 01:00:07.420

Ooh, yeah. Only two weeks! Okay, I’ll—leading up, before that, I tried to find all kind of, uh, I didn’t think what can do ‘cause I’m not getting far in in in college, you know. So after you dropped out of college—

01:00:07.420 - 01:00:20.840

Yeah, I dropped out but I knew I need to get a job, cause I want to work and find out what life is, find out something else because this is this is so—uh—struggling, and struggle just to keep a B average it was very hard. Anyway, I went to, I called this place and

01:00:20.840 - 01:00:33.780

called that place and uh, and then finally, um, uh, this was very interesting, one lady said ‘yes’ but she lived way out on Katy Freeway, she says she says ‘I need a—I need a bookkeeper, uh, somebody like a filing clerk and I really would like you but you live in Pasadena

01:00:33.780 - 01:00:44.440

that’s too far! And I’m only worried about that’ said well thank you very much for your, your, uh-uh of thinking of hiring me cause I can’t, I can’t get a job! I can get a job but this—um, one man, on

01:00:44.440 - 01:01:01.070

the phone said—oh at U of H on the uh bulletin board it says you have a job opening and uh— and then he said ‘what’s your name?’ And I said Saibara. And he said, ‘Is that—is that Spanish?’ And, uh—I didn’t answer. I just kept quiet.

01:01:01.490 - 01:01:15.340

‘What kind of name is that?’ And I didn’t answer, I said it was Saibara. ‘And is it a Spanish name?’ I said ‘No, it is not.’ And—long pause, and then he said ‘No, the position is filled.’ So I—I

01:01:15.340 - 01:01:28.000

reported that to U of H and said ‘We’ll take that—that, that want ad off the bulletin board’ I said ‘Okay I think so too’ Anyway, but then, um—I thought, well, I like to help people. And then my fiancé—and he was

01:01:28.000 - 01:01:39.520

not my fiancé, he was just my boyfriend at that time, but uh we were getting very close and I thought well if I’m going to get married with a doctor I’d better find out what a doctor’s world is so I, I called Methodist Hospital and they said ‘YES we need nurse aides’ you know ‘two

01:01:39.550 - 01:01:56.510

week training.’ And I said, ‘okay.’ And I thought, ‘only two weeks? Wow, that’s short!’ Uh, so we learn how to take pulse, um, uh thermometer plastic thermometer then, and what else, uh, respiration, and uh, how to, uh—oh, briefly how to take blood

01:01:56.510 - 01:02:11.000

pressure, and, uh—what else were we taught? Hm. Uh…We weren’t taught much. Really. I mean that’s it, two weeks. And then I got my first job uh, uh they said ‘We have lots of openings at the night,

01:02:11.260 - 01:02:23.790

maybe later on we’ll have opening in the day’ I said ‘Oh, it’s okay, I’ll take a night. Uh, anything I want to hurry up and start working and—and learn.’ Uh, so I worked on the first uh— eighth floor, eighth southwest, yeah, of Methodist.

01:02:24.140 - 01:02:33.840

It’s the gastrointestinal ward. People are up all night doing diarrhea because they’re going to have a colonoscopy in the morning or, uh, operation and need to be cleared out. So they want a magazine, or they want to talk, or they

01:02:33.840 - 01:02:45.620

wanted this or that. Okay then, uh, it was the first night and they said ‘Oh we have a, uh, expired patient. So I— Nancy, you need to go in there, and here’s the kit.’ And Richard will help you. Same name as my ex-husband’s nickname.

01:02:45.940 - 01:02:57.390

Okay, and Richard, Richard knew how to do it. I didn’t know what to do, what to do. And uh so uh—a—and lady sharing the room was crying ‘Please get the dead lady out of my room!’ Now, and so I was saying okay, and trying to

01:02:57.390 - 01:03:09.500

sound—sound very calm, yeah, I didn’t know what to do, so he taught me how, and I had to take the body to the morgue. And uh, uh put a tag on its right toe, I believe, and uh, uh the lady expired of cancer, I believe.

01:03:09.500 - 01:03:22.740

But after that, uh, it’s mostly turning patients, uh, bedridden a lot of patients from nursing homes! Came, got well, left after two or three months went right back same, came back later with more bed ulcers.

01:03:23.030 - 01:03:36.030

And you have to rinse, and clean, a—and turn them, and I said ‘these nursing homes, ugh’ You know? Ugh. And then, find out later Texas nursing homes are below the average, you know, this is something I don’t ever want to put my

01:03:36.030 - 01:03:49.490

mother in a nursing home, but even if I did, she cannot afford it. Our neighbor went to a nearby nursing home it’s three thousand dollar a month, his wife had to be in a lockdown unit it was four thousand five hundred a month, so all their savings just, phew!

01:03:49.490 - 01:04:04.860

So, do you remember how much you got paid for your nursing job? Yes I did, it was—uh, uh three hundred and something, mm… three hundred and twenty

01:04:04.860 - 01:04:15.140

dollars— A month? —was the salary but, since I was going to work at night, hundred dollars extra. So, four hundred twenty a night. Yeah. So how long did you have that job as a nurse aid?

01:04:15.240 - 01:04:29.620

Oh, seven months, and I had to quit. And I sadly quit that job, but I had trouble driving home in the morning, from eleven to seven shift, uh, I was, I was dangerous, and I was trying to keep up my classical ballet at the same time, cause I was

01:04:29.620 - 01:04:40.350

assistant teacher, and I was teaching ballet in the evenings, and then trying to get a little shut-eye and then go to work at eleven to seven, it wasn’t really good, you know, and I was falling asleep while standing up at night, one of the nurses say ‘Nancy!

01:04:40.580 - 01:04:49.330

You’re sleeping standing up!’ ‘I am? I thought—I thought you were talking and the lights went out, I was wondering why are you talking when the lights went out, you don’t notice?’ So you were a ballet instructor?

01:04:50.310 - 01:05:05.560

Yeah. I took ballet for fourteen years. From uh Tatiana Semanova, she’s uh, uh, how do you say um—a White Russian who escaped, yeah, she escaped Russia, yeah. Uh. And she was first um, uh director of uh Houston Ballet, uh, before they

01:05:05.560 - 01:05:15.890

became ballet, Houston Ballet was the Houston Ballet Foundation at first, and—and they wanted her to do all kind of things like jazz and tap and all kind of, like a dance studio, and she was against that, and uh, she was

01:05:15.890 - 01:05:29.210

not somebody, though, easily uh could control, and uh, she was fired. And I left with her t—to start another school. So where was this ballet school at? Oh, it was on Louisiana Street and Holman, it’s now nothing there, just a highway, uh

01:05:29.710 - 01:05:44.130

huh, uh it’s not there anymore. But uh she, she had a small, uh, it’s called Ballet of Houston, and some of the students left with her, but most of the students, uh, it’s so, stayed with the Houston Ballet. And I remember, uh, one lady taking a petition in the parking lot as the

01:05:44.190 - 01:05:58.690

parents are coming with their, with their—uh, children, to take, and I remember one guy, uh, his daughter’s in the advanced class, he said ‘I really appreciate uh Tatiana Semanova, I really appreciate her teaching my daughter and her uh her teaching has nothing to do with her

01:05:58.690 - 01:06:11.070

ability, but I work for, Exxon, or I work for Shell,’ I forgot which company ‘if I sign that petition, uh, there’s gonna be, uh, trouble for me. And I—I remember hearing that, I was wondering ‘why would that be any

01:06:11.420 - 01:06:27.840

problem?’ You know, it just, so… Fear. Fear stops us from doing a lot of things like getting—getting petitions s—signatures against the uh civ—uh— civilian review board, ah, elected civilian review board with subpoena power of proper

01:06:27.840 - 01:06:42.850

funding and prosecutorial power. This is really hard because people, but see when these things happen, like the Chad Holly case, uh, and, and uh the policeman got off scot free, uh, not guilty, acquitted, you know, and he—he pointed the gun at his head while Chad’s on

01:06:42.850 - 01:06:56.810

the floor and then he kicked him in the head, and he pointed—two times in the movie you’ll see him do that, and he got acquitted! All right, well, uh, you know, people are afraid to sign this thing, and uh, but, after that happened, I got more signatures at the—at the—on the bulletin board at, uh,

01:06:56.810 - 01:07:10.180

KPFT, and uh, so the fourth page, has been signed, and I, it’s been one year I’ve had that—petition there now I’ve got four pages, so little by little. It’s—it’s—it’s very intimidating, a—

01:07:10.180 - 01:07:21.910

and we could get, uh—but if you don’t stand up for against injustice, it just, it will bite you later on down the road until you’ve had enough, you know, no more. And then you, you do

01:07:21.910 - 01:07:36.300

something. And you can do things the smart way—ask other people unaf—unaffiliated to complain for you . That may be very smart, and actually more effective than more people, different people, that complained about something.

01:07:36.950 - 01:07:52.060

So— Okay, so— So when you get married, do you move right back to Japan? Uh—Yeah I went to Japan to get married. Is— And did you have a job? Nnn—just taking care of two children , and I—after my

01:07:52.110 - 01:08:03.320

children got much older, I took a part-time job teaching children at a s—you know, English conversation. Three- year-olds, four-year-olds , ooh they learned really fast! Anything, anything!

01:08:03.750 - 01:08:15.100

They’ll repeat and copy anything you say . So I was doing flashcards, cause I had, uh, taken the Better Baby course, uh in in in—uh, mm, what is that, Philadelphia, yeah,

01:08:15.350 - 01:08:31.150

for—for children. Cause my—my first child, she could not speak at the age of three. And she would have trouble speaking, she would cry, she say ‘I ya ee, wuh oh wuh oh ee, wuh oh uh oh ee’ and I understand ‘I cannot speak, what I want to speak, when I want to speak.’ So, she

01:08:31.150 - 01:08:45.770

had troubles at three years of age, I—I studied and all kind of but this not books about child development, and finally I found one that said, yeah, there’s something you can try. Now no promise. And it was, uh, the Institute for the Achievement of

01:08:45.830 - 01:08:58.270

Human Potential in Philadelphia. And Glenn Doman started it, and has books how to teach your baby to read, how to teach your baby into—uh—multiple intelligence, and—and using flashcard

01:08:58.270 - 01:09:19.430

stimulation, physical stimulation you grab the kid by the arm and ankle and you do like that and reverse, and the little newborn baby you do that too like this , and reverse, same number—clockwise as you spin counterclockwise so the brain gets equally stimulated and um, uh, the creeping and crawling,

01:09:19.760 - 01:09:33.340

my children and I—well, they did mostly crawling, crawling, like uh, with your stomach on the ground, that kind of crawling was like four hundred, uh, yards a day, and then hands and knees creeping , uh, eight hundred yards a day.

01:09:34.000 - 01:09:47.090

And they did cello, violin, piano, and um, what else did they do, oh yeah—swimming, I taught them how to swim, they were three and two years old. And—nine months later they were reading their first books. It was really easy. It was just you stimulate, you

01:09:47.090 - 01:10:01.400

don’t test! You don’t test—you just flash the cards, and I made seven thousand flashcards, uh, uh, they had about fifteen different groups, like bugs, or cats, or dogs, or constellations, or, um, cell, picture of the cell, the mitochondria, the uh, whatever.

01:10:01.780 - 01:10:12.260

I forgot. So—so you taught, um, Japanese, um— Oh yeah. Infants, like three year olds, so— No, I taught my own children. I mean like, you—your part-time job?

01:10:12.450 - 01:10:21.610

Oh my part-time job! Oh yes, I taught, yeah, at a school, English conversation. So it was at a school, like a public school? It was at—no, a private English school, they have a lot of them in Japan, yeah, they’re

01:10:21.610 - 01:10:32.230

teaching a lot of kids. So, I see like a lot of Japanese people, they’re not really good, like, familiar with English— But they can read. But they can read.

01:10:32.510 - 01:10:48.460

So, what you taught was just mostly— Yeah we did Broadway musicals, you know, I’m singing in the rain… Is—is—are Japanese parents really into teaching English to their children? Oh! They’re followers!

01:10:48.520 - 01:11:04.040

The Japanese public school is like, you quiet, you listen to teacher, you memorize, and you do the test. You don’t ask questions like why or how, and it—and I—I tried t—I had a small English class for beginner English, well, schoolteachers,

01:11:04.110 - 01:11:15.480

public school teachers, I had three or—first it was five, then only three of them. I said let—ask questions, ask them to think! They said ‘Yes we know what you’re talking about Nancy, but we have no time,

01:11:15.720 - 01:11:31.420

we have a long curriculum we have to get a schedule of things,’ and I said ‘but you have to get kids to think, otherwise they’re always following orders and then nothing gets done, you know!’ Well anyway, uh that’s the mentality in Japan, so um, uh when my—my daughter was

01:11:31.720 - 01:11:47.950

uh—six, sixth grade, or no, fifth grade, I forgot, ehhh the schoolteacher said, um, ‘Children, uh American children are not as intelligent as Japanese children. The reason why is that because we,

01:11:48.110 - 01:12:02.760

in Japan, go to school s-uh—six days a week, but American children, only five days a week. And American children have three months of summer vacation; Japanese only have one and a half months, so uh, that is why Japanese children are much more intelligent than American

01:12:02.760 - 01:12:21.660

children.’ And my daughter , she came home and told me this story, and she was pushing her lower lip out, and the teacher said ‘Naritomi-san,’ uh, Miss Naritomi, ‘what’s wrong?’ ‘I don’t like,’ she said ‘I don’t like uh calling a country, you know, not

01:12:21.660 - 01:12:34.730

intelligent, I don’t like s- bad things being said about another country’s intelligence. I don’t like that.’ And the other kids she said were saying ‘Look, we’re number one in cameras, in—in—in, uh, computers,

01:12:35.220 - 01:12:47.260

at TVs, Japanese uh cameras are the best in the world, the Seiko watch.’ And she says ‘I don’t care, I don’t care if American watches or TVs are not number one,’ ‘I just don’t

01:12:47.260 - 01:12:58.560

like it.’ So I thought, ‘Oh!’ When I heard that story, ‘Oh! All my work paid off!’ You know? So happy! So could you tell us the name of the school?

01:12:59.050 - 01:13:11.590

Yes. Aoyamadai Shougakko. Aoyamadai means green mountain. Uh anyways, public, public elementary— Aoyama—Aoyamadai? Ao—ao means green, yama—is mountain, dai—I

01:13:11.870 - 01:13:21.100

don’t know. Area, whatever, uh, it was a public elementary. Shougakko. Shou means small, gakko is school, so it’s a elementary school. And so how long have you worked at the—

01:13:21.980 - 01:13:35.390

Oh, I didn’t work at there; I worked at a private English school. Oh, okay. Yeah my—my children went to public school, uh, elementary, then they went to a private junior—junior high school, and then they went to—one went to a public, uh, high school, one

01:13:35.390 - 01:13:53.200

went to a, a—, yeah, they both went to public high schools, you know, but they went to private, uh, junior high school. Yeah, I had to uh—mm, it was the— the—the junior high school was a very, um, it was private, it was

01:13:54.010 - 01:14:04.150

expensive, it was like, uh, three thousand dollars a semester. I think. So, it was very expensive. But, um, it was uh…

01:14:06.460 - 01:14:20.290

it was more on the naïve side and sweet, um, uh, more caring, teachers more caring, it was a smaller school, that’s probably the main thing, smaller. The high schools, wow, sixteen classes with like, you

01:14:20.290 - 01:14:31.560

know, forty fifty kids in each class. Um, like, like the—like the, uh, like for example the first grade of high school had sixteen different classes, and uh, I mean it’s just, it’s factory! It’s not,

01:14:32.050 - 01:14:44.500

not—it’s factory education! It is terrible! So anyway, my, my, my children went—one went to a private university, for, and one went to, uh, a prefectural state uh foreign

01:14:44.500 - 01:14:58.060

language university, and would not tell me where she went, I found out much later after she graduated, cause, she didn’t want me to come and visit, so I had almost no communication whatsoever with my children, they don’t talk, they said ‘only call if it’s emergency,’ I don’t

01:14:58.060 - 01:15:08.190

know what they consider emergency. And the last time I gave a message, I said ‘Hurry up and get out of Japan. Go anywhere, go New Zealand, go United States but get OUT of there and, and

01:15:08.190 - 01:15:21.640

then I—I was angry, I said ‘I’m going to end up in, uh—taking care of two cancer daughters if you don’t, you know, if you don’t’ They’re childbearing age now, you know, thirty and twenty-nine, need to get out. I don’t know if I helped you with labor, labor is, uh

01:15:23.760 - 01:15:39.590

It’s fine, , I—you know, a lot of good information, and I actually had a few more questions if you’re willing longer. Oh well yes yes yes, go ahead, go ahead, yeah. I was just wondering, um—why did you move to Japan? Cause, he decided to go to work in Japan, that’s why.

01:15:39.760 - 01:15:54.660

So, I went there got married, and uh. Yeah, he was asking me what should I do, I said I said ‘Well, what do you think is good for your work or research?’ He said ‘Well if I stay in the university hospital, I’m going to be treating chronic patients and be so tied up with all my time I have no time for

01:15:54.660 - 01:16:06.040

research, cause if I go to this research institute, I will be able to have time for research primarily, and I can do, uh, you know, uh, checkups, follow-ups, on the side,’ but he said ‘I don’t have to be tied up with

01:16:06.040 - 01:16:23.780

just chronic patients or, uh, in the ward.’ Because if you’re in the ward, you don’t have time for mi— mice experiments and things like that, it’s just very difficult. And he did uh do very well, um, yeah, he was publi—a lot of papers published and international congresses and uh, um

01:16:24.560 - 01:16:39.730

hypothermal therapy was I think the—the peak of wonderful things that he got done and started. So um, so ke—keep that in mind if you have somebody that has a stroke, quick quick quick get to the hospital, the quicker the time, the less edema. The edema, the—is rushing, all that blood is

01:16:39.730 - 01:16:51.460

what breaks down all the walls. And uh, hypothermal therapy, when we got a divorce, when we were going through a divorce still, I was—when I would see him a little bit, and talk to him, I would say ‘what’s going on now.’ He said ‘Well now I’m thinking, uh, not

01:16:51.460 - 01:17:04.990

so drastically to, uh, do general anesthesia and put them out, knock them out completely, but with drug, lower their brain temperature by drugs, uh, I’m trying to do it less drastic so it’s easier on the patient and,

01:17:05.690 - 01:17:22.010

uh, less chance of blood sepsis or some kind of infection.’ And—and that was really hard to s-get started, because it was—for one thing it’s a uh—uh—government hospital, and the nurses says ‘Ooh, we are so busy and now you bring us something new to do and we’re scared, we

01:17:22.010 - 01:17:35.670

don’t know how to do this!’ You know so the nurses didn’t want to take, to— take care or—help, so it was just doctors at first, and it took him like seven months or eight months just to get uh that plastic bed, you know, where there’s uh for the circulating ice water, you know, for the patient.

01:17:35.990 - 01:17:50.010

And he had to break a lot of hurdles just to get it started, but that night he—October of ’94 he finally got the first case started, that was wonderful. And then, um— yeah, anyway, that was good. And so uh, hm.

01:17:50.520 - 01:18:01.100

And then he got little bit selfish. You see, when your private life is—is not quite right, and—it comes out on your work. So I went there for some reason, and to

01:18:01.100 - 01:18:15.800

the lab late at night, and then he got a call, and I was li—half listening to it, and I said ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘Well, they have two teams of neurology, one department and another department, and they take turns when a emergency patient comes in. Well they got one, the other

01:18:15.800 - 01:18:27.940

team got one, and they wanted his advice on a hypothermal therapy. Cause only his team was doing it! And I said, ‘So what did you say?’ He said, ‘Well, uh you know, it’s not my turn, and I

01:18:27.940 - 01:18:38.420

don’t get the praise for this patient getting better. And—I don’t want to help.’ I said, ‘You go and help and you teach them! What are you talking about, that’s the purpose

01:18:39.050 - 01:18:52.510

you became a doctor.’ So he kinds of, uh, uh went out of the room and disappeared for a while, and I don’t know if he did or not, but I called my son like ‘Did he go, did he go and help’ He said ‘Yeah, he did a little bit.’ Uh see he’s getting selfish, and he says ‘I want to be—get the praise

01:18:52.510 - 01:19:07.930

for this’ and I said ‘Okay, do you want me to call newspapers and tell them,’ said ‘No, no, no, don’t do that, that looks bad.’ But he finally did get the praise in, in newspapers and magazines, much later, but—ah, you have to, you have to, uh,

01:19:08.730 - 01:19:25.330

you have to watch your uh spiritual path as well as your—your—your academic path, or your job path, uh, it’s, if it’s not— if it’s not together, in sync, it oh, just, oh, it just spoils everything. And so when you moved to Japan, did you speak Japanese

01:19:25.990 - 01:19:39.350

at all? No. No, I knew food names , I knew restaurant terms cause I’d worked in the restaurant, like um, you know, uh… okonjo is a bill, uh, all kind of restaurant things, um, I knew

01:19:39.600 - 01:19:52.820

food names. Eh, so I had to learn with dictionary, I carried a English-Japanese dictionary, so when any—somebody say something, then I look it up, and I find out, and by that time the conversation has changed. ‘Wait a minute. What are we talking about?’ So, it was very

01:19:52.820 - 01:20:06.000

hard, it was like the same as listening to cicadas, cicadas, you know, y—you don’t understand what they’re saying they’re saying something. And that’s how it was for me, it was But—those doctors, especially ex-husband, um,

01:20:06.690 - 01:20:15.410

spoke English a lot. Cause you had to, you know, at the work. So—our house w-hold was just English, only. And, uh, the children, if they spoke to me in Japanese I would say ‘What is that in

01:20:15.410 - 01:20:27.280

English?’ I would just pretend, because otherwise I’d heard, and uh, from other cases where they start speaking Japane—the mother speaks Japanese to the kids and then they will not try English at all, so my kids—bilingual, yeah.

01:20:28.310 - 01:20:42.980

Until 2000 when they went to live with their father, and I—I went to live in my car inside my car, later on, well almost later on after the money ran out now. But that was interesting, I—I think everybody should have a chance to be homeless, at least for a

01:20:42.980 - 01:20:57.880

short time, because you have time to think, no television, no— nobody calling you, and you have time to think about a lot of things, and then you see a lot of discrimination against the homeless, you will taste it and you will—you will understand, you know, almost anybody can

01:20:57.880 - 01:21:10.610

become homeless, you know, it doesn’t matter you could have a Master’s degree and still become—or a doctor’s degree. And your job get lost, car, house foreclosed, your car taken away from you then you’re on the streets, you know, so, it, it—it doesn’t

01:21:10.610 - 01:21:21.640

matter when you have, uh, degrees, you know, and so— So, while you were—while you were living in a car, how did you s—uh like, support yourself, like— Oh, I was teaching English. Okay.

01:21:21.730 - 01:21:36.930

To mothers and children and ladies—mostly ladies’ group. Like a—like in a community center? Oh! Yeah, uh, the libraries had a—small, community center combination library, and I would rent a room. So the room—room fee was like half my sala—I was making like

01:21:36.930 - 01:21:49.250

seven hundred a month, and I would pay like half of it to the—to the libraries, to rent the rooms, and then—the other half was the food, and the very little left for transportation, when I—I have to take a bus once in a while, but most of the time I was bicycling.

01:21:49.870 - 01:22:01.400

So I got in good shape with the bicycle! And that city gives away free bicycles! I mean it’s a college town, and they have a foreign language university plus the Osaka State University so a lot of students from

01:22:01.400 - 01:22:18.320

all over the world, and—and they need transportation! So, they have a—uh, uh the city offers a, a you pick out all the thrown away bicycle, and then you—the city’s pays for a few parts, and then you pick out what you want and then volunteers—old guys, and some are old

01:22:18.320 - 01:22:31.490

ladies—and they’ll say, ‘Okay, I’ll help teach you, I’ll teach you how to’ and they teach you how to put it together so I got a free bike that way. Plus I had four cats, and the four cats, uh, uh, kept me warm in the winter, you know they all, one on my feet, one or two in my lap, one here, you

01:22:31.490 - 01:22:46.100

know, they kept me warm. And so I really, uh, owe them, they—they’re very warm, their temperature, you know, is higher than our temperature, the dogs and cats yeah. And so I needed to take my cats with me wherever I went, so the—they even put a platform on the back of my bicycle so I could

01:22:46.100 - 01:22:56.370

have my pet cage and take my cats with me. So in 2002 you finally moved back to Houston— No, 2005. 2005? Six! I’m sorry, six, yeah, six, yeah.

01:22:56.620 - 01:23:09.300

2006. And then—since then you’ve been take caring of your mo—mom. Yeah! Yeah, take care of mom, yeah. Mom say something. What do you mean, say something? What was your—what was your first salary, do you remember what your first salary was?

01:23:09.570 - 01:23:23.210

No, I don’t remember that far back. She—she, uh, was interned in Rohwer, Arkansas during World War II, and she was seventeen or so, and then she got a job as a secretary as the junior high school principal. Cause they had schools within the camps, you know.

01:23:23.410 - 01:23:34.600

Mhmm. Oh, for Japanese people? Yeah, Japanese—first and second generation people, yeah. And uh, her uh brothers got to leave the camp earlier than she and her mother, um, they went

01:23:35.330 - 01:23:43.990

to—university, I forgot where uncle Ch-Chicago. Chicago? Well one was at U—became electrician, one became a architect. And uh, then,

01:23:44.370 - 01:23:53.780

then after the war she went to Chicago, cause a lot of Japanese went to Chicago, and she got a job in, uh, Honeymooners Bakery. And uh, she likes sweets. I don’t let her have them. Anyway,

01:23:54.140 - 01:24:13.030

anyway, that represents why she picked hers—her next job , an—and then she happened to meet my father when she went to visit, uh, some—Valley, friends in the Valley, and uh my grandpa—my father used to truck, the Valley, ruby red grapefruits from the Valley to Chicago and visit her and fell in love with her, and I just recently

01:24:13.030 - 01:24:27.060

discovered his letters to her, maaaan I was so surprised that he’s staring at her picture, and say ‘please write, please write,’ ah okay, ‘dreaming when I next see you.’ And also he’s talking about, uh,

01:24:27.490 - 01:24:39.830

the weather, severe weather and the—the flowers on the rice dropped off, and he said ‘Oh, we’re— we’re going to lose a lot of rice this year. We farmers are gamblers, aren’t we?’ And

01:24:39.830 - 01:24:56.910

yeah, so. He was talking about how—how hard it is, for the farmers, but always been hard, but— government should give subsidies for the farmers, instead of making factory farms where you don’t know what you’re eating, you know, the quality of the food. So—so you moved back to take care of her?

01:24:57.140 - 01:25:10.180

Yeah, take care of my mother, because—I could not tell on the phone, I had s-real short conversations with her, with a pay telephone, uh, talking to her maybe eight minutes at uh—at the most, or maybe five minutes, or uh—not very long. And she sounded fine!

01:25:10.440 - 01:25:25.330

But then somebody from Houston got a hold of my ex-husband’s telephone number and—and called him and said, ‘Hey, she’s not—she’s not, uh, all there, you gotta—you gotta come, she’s forgetting to lock the door when she goes out, and uh, she’s just sitting around, the

01:25:25.330 - 01:25:41.170

house is a mess,’ he said. So—‘Tell Nancy.’ So then, one day I came back to my car and there was a note, on the—pasted on the windshield, uh no on the side window, it was my daughter, said ‘Oh, you better call, uh, our friend, and uh, he said mother’s not well.’ So I called my

01:25:41.170 - 01:25:54.560

mother immediately and asked her ‘How you doing,’ she said ‘I’m fine,’ ‘Well, what are you eating?’ And ‘Oh, um, I’m eating uh vegetables, and don’t worry,’ and then, hmm, then I called this friend, I said ‘I just talked to my mother,’ I left a message, and I said ‘I think she’s all right, and she

01:25:54.560 - 01:26:08.830

sounds all fine.’ Then, he immediately calls again, my ex-husband, my ex-husband has my daughter put a note and—and says ‘Call, call this friend again’ so I call him again, and he said, ‘Hey! I talked to your mother, right—two days after you called her, and I said ‘What did

01:26:08.830 - 01:26:22.510

Nancy say?’ she said ‘Nancy didn’t call me.’’ I said ‘Okay, I made a decision, okay I’m going to close up everything here and I will return to Texas, this is—no, this can’t work,’ and I—I was completely fooled. So you have to see and be with them to know their

01:26:22.510 - 01:26:38.000

mental, um, uh, level, a—and you cannot just, uh, count on a telephone call, and—she fooled everybody! She fooled my—my uncles didn’t realize this, ah, everybody. So, um—Doctor Meyers said that, uh, she has

01:26:38.000 - 01:26:49.960

Alzheimer’s, and I disagree with him, I think it is the mercury, the mercury amalgam fillings, that they’re still legally able to put in people’s mouths today. In European Unions there’s some

01:26:50.000 - 01:27:04.020

countries that ban it, but that thing with every bite, every time you drink something hot or eat something hot or brush your teeth, mercury vapor comes out, touches the inside of your mouth, and goes into your brain, and messes up your—gives you Alzheimer-like symptoms.

01:27:04.120 - 01:27:19.970

So, uh, this is—this has got to be stopped, this amalgam thing, and there’s a—there’s one non-profit organization called—IAOMT. org, it’s uh, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, and it’s two of their purposes is to teach dentists how to safely

01:27:19.970 - 01:27:31.280

remove those things, uh, using, uh, independent air with the nitrous hoods so they don’t smell it while they’re having it out, and the whole face is covered with wet paper towels, and uh, and uh, so the metal—and

01:27:31.280 - 01:27:44.760

the mercury won’t go on their skin, and then a big vacuum pipe to—to take it out, and—and they take a stool specimen the day before, they have it removed, and three days later, and it’s like twelve times more mercury in your stool after you’re they’re removed, cause all of that touching

01:27:44.760 - 01:27:54.030

the inside of your cheeks goes into your body. So you know, anything medicine that you put on your skin, it goes in. It goes in and so, uh, people, you have to be sure whatever you wash your

01:27:54.070 - 01:28:06.740

clothes with, all those, uh, detergents, they go into your skin, they’re made from oil, you know. So I wash, uh, laundry with boric acid oh, half cup of boric—Borax, I’m sorry, Borax. Twenty Mule Team Borax.

01:28:07.670 - 01:28:20.500

I get it—I get it from Fiesta, yeah, I wash— So—do you stay with her all the time? Yeah, we’re a two people package, she goes to me to the committee meetings, at KPFT, where, uh, that’s where we were Friday night, and then I—after I finished the meeting I

01:28:20.790 - 01:28:35.860

played— I had my telephone plugged in and I—I heard Brian’s, uh, voice and I went ‘Oh no!’ and they said ‘What happened?’ ‘Oh no’ And I just thought, ‘Oh, those two people waiting in the hot parking lot ‘oh, this lady’s not showing up,’ you know.

01:28:35.860 - 01:28:44.860

I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it. It’s hormone decline, I think. Uh, I know my mother has a good excuse, this mercury

01:28:45.380 - 01:28:59.900

amalgam fillings, but uh—any kind of filling, all those metals, you suck at them, uh, if you know anybody, take care of your teeth, please take care of your teeth, and dental floss, and—put the floss in water for a while before you put it on because then some of the chemicals will be diluted, you know.

01:29:01.140 - 01:29:14.360

We have to make—we have to do much harder work to make safe water, safe food, safe air, safety. Because, there are more and more, uh, birth defects. More and more children that will not have a chance.

01:29:14.960 - 01:29:26.480

And that’s—that’s y’all’s, you know, your generation’s, uh, it’s going to be a horrible, horrible mess. Uh, in Japan, I—I had, through my little class I got nurse stories, about deformities.

01:29:28.200 - 01:29:40.490

And in Japan, they have very high rating on, uh, infant mortality, I mean, very healthful, high—high rating in the world. But, when you’re—when you’re two months pregnant, or three months—I think three months pregnant, they do a

01:29:40.490 - 01:29:54.200

ultrasound, and if there’s anything that’s strange they will say ‘abort your child.’ And I had a German measle that they said was seven hundred, it was too high, they wanted me to abort my first child, and I said ‘No, I can’t do it.

01:29:54.870 - 01:30:06.540

I’m just not going to do it.’ And he asked me and asked me, and I said ‘No, I’m not going to do it!’ So I went with my—my husband, and I said ‘Tell that doctor in Japanese, I am not going to do it for two reasons: number

01:30:06.540 - 01:30:21.640

one, no baby’s perfect , and number two, I can’t live with, uh—the idea of, uh, killing my child, and number three, I don’t feel anything bad going on! You know, I trust my intuition! So tell him I’ll sign the paper made me sign lot of release of, uh, you know,

01:30:22.080 - 01:30:31.610

liability, you know. And the baby—first baby’s, fine. So, right now you’re living with your mom? Yes. Yes, since 2006.

01:30:31.780 - 01:30:43.920

So how—so how do you support your family? Oh, mother’s Social Security. It’s about—what is it, fourteen hundred a month? Okay but that might go if Republicans have their way, they want to cut back on

01:30:43.950 - 01:30:58.190

that. Plus mother—mother has, uh, stock, uh—uh, in mutual funds, and I just liquidated them. And it took me a—uh, a fight, to get Morgan Stanley, uh, to liquidate it. They tried everything in

01:30:58.190 - 01:31:12.290

the book to stop me from doing it. They said ‘You have to sign, you have to sign our form’ and I said ‘Well what’s your form?’ And they emailed it to me, it’s ‘I give up the right of ar—uh, of uh—suing in court, that I submit to arbitration.’

01:31:12.730 - 01:31:25.780

And uh—my lawyer friend said, ‘Oh, those arbitrators, they usually favor the big pockets, uh, you know, not the—the smaller people,’ so I told them, ‘I would never give up my right to sue in court!’ I enjoyed myself in court

01:31:25.840 - 01:31:39.890

in Japan, I was in seven different cases, I said ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’ And then, they said ‘Well, we want to talk to your mother, uh, directly.’ And I said ‘that means sh—they’re questioning my power of attorney.’ And, and then, and then suddenly they changed their, their—their

01:31:39.890 - 01:31:51.530

tune, and uh, I can’t figure out why, they said ‘Okay we’ll do it,’ but then they said uh, I said ‘No do it May 8th when I gave you the papers,’ I gave them papers due May 7, you received them May 8,

01:31:51.870 - 01:32:06.990

the prices at that day. And they did it, no, they did it last week, so they—they made—about, over two thousand and—in difference, I don’t know whether I question that later, go to—if I have time or—energy, I might do that, cause they shouldn’t do that, they’re—they’re

01:32:06.990 - 01:32:21.180

treating other people worse, um, I’ve heard, uh, people are getting almost nothing, for their—So she had about a hundred and six thousand, they’re—they’re promising me a hundred and four. And so, the cash assets, legally they’re required to give me, they wouldn’t give it to me but it

01:32:21.180 - 01:32:33.380

came in the mail, finally, yesterday. So, we got some money, and we have roof repair to do, water pipes are broken so I’m buying all the water and, um, uh—what is it, air conditioning, yeah, air

01:32:33.380 - 01:32:46.770

conditioning. So we’re—we’re nude in the house, with four fans, and and uh— well I wear underwear, she wears underwear too. But anyway, uh this—we have a lot of house— house repair to do, so that—that money.

01:32:46.770 - 01:32:58.600

And then I want to buy electric car, I want to get the money out of paper, put it into something, you know? Land, or something, because—troubles are coming. And it’s gonna be—really bad, and we’re gonna all

01:32:58.600 - 01:33:13.930

have to band together, we’re gonna have to—have the elders teach, you know instead of, um, paying enormous amounts. And what they’re doing they’re privatizing uh, the—the elementary and junior high, so—but the, the main factor, smaller course load, grade goes

01:33:13.930 - 01:33:24.130

up, you know, that’s—it’s more time, so being a—uh—uh—uh homeschooling, I did homeschool my children, until they—uh, got through the end of elementary.

01:33:24.940 - 01:33:40.330

And I—I kept them home from school Wednesdays, you know, and I had a big fight with that, you know, uh with ex-husband, he didn’t like that. And—the teachers gave up the fight against me, they—they let me do—do that . And I, and—and I refused school lunch, too, I want—I want them

01:33:40.330 - 01:33:54.160

to have organic uh—and uh— right, you know food and brown rice, and the school’s all white rice, and they serve chocolates, and uh—on birthdays, and on uh—I said I don’t want to do that, and so, for two and a half years I did that, maybe three, and then I gave up.

01:33:54.220 - 01:34:07.040

I mean I just lost my will. Cause uh, um, yeah—ex- husband kind of brainwashing me, uh ‘You’re not a very good mother, you know, and why don’t you, you know, disappear, and-’ and really, I was, uh—I didn’t

01:34:07.040 - 01:34:21.520

know there was a mistress. I just, I was—just knew my husband’s uh attentions were changing, and uh—and I actually gave up my power, and uh, I should’ve stuck to it, well anyway, um—I am so glad I

01:34:21.520 - 01:34:33.210

went through a divorce, and uh—and uh, I won, finally, uh compensation, much more. Most women win nothing, nothing. And that’s why they stay in horrible marriages.

01:34:34.210 - 01:34:50.590

And the children watch it, and see it, and they do repeat, you know, s-history—it repeats, unless you have a something changing, so I hope for my kids’ case, uh they will remember, that—they don’t talk to me because they said, I should have stayed married until they got out of

01:34:50.590 - 01:35:06.860

university, so that their friends would not know anything that happened, and uh—a—and they said ‘Mother do not write a book,’ and I was also gonna start a website in Japan of deadbeat dads, their picture and their history, they—and maybe even put the website in America but

01:35:06.890 - 01:35:21.120

met—let them see—uh, some kind of pressure, because most of the Japanese dads pay NOTHING, no matter what is decided in the court, they pay zero! So, I—I, um—they need help, they need help.

01:35:21.530 - 01:35:39.740

Anyway, much better case is that Reactor Number Four, I mean what’s gonna happen to it, ugh. Everybody’s problem, in the world, mm—oh by the way, we have Chernobyl inside of us. You know that, right? Yeah, it—it—the world turns, and it—it comes down,

01:35:40.110 - 01:35:53.880

even in South Pole there’s Chernobyl, uh, particles. So, uh, that’s—it was 1989, or ’88, no. So, this is—uh, uh, I’m—I’m—so happy, that Japanese women are marching in the streets finally, and

01:35:53.960 - 01:36:08.010

they are protesting, uh, the—they—they want all the nuclear reactors to close. And we’re going to have a new one built, south of here, near Victoria. And, it’s like under—it’s like nobody knows

01:36:08.010 - 01:36:26.800

about it. They have two reactors in Bay City, and if either one of those reactor—they’re the same design as the one in Fukushima, the same GE mark, whatever, four, mark two, I forgot. And Greg Palast, he came, he’s a—uh, reporter, uh, and he works for BBC, uh,

01:36:27.390 - 01:36:38.120

Television I think, uh, in London. He used to be a, um, a Pacifica reporter for the KPFK, Los Angeles station that our— our Pacifica station network.

01:36:38.660 - 01:36:53.430

And he came, and he said, it’s uh, just saving on money. Like those, uh, generators, that were supposed to generate, um, uh—electricity for the uh Fukushima reactors in case they got wet, you know, or got damaged, and they didn’t work—they

01:36:53.900 - 01:37:08.060

were not made to work, he said. The—he’s getting inside information from all over and he said what happened is, they couldn’t even test drive these things at full speed, cause they would break up. So they were not ready, they—it wasn’t that they were flooded with water and

01:37:08.060 - 01:37:22.170

they didn’t—they wouldn’t work even if they weren’t flooded with water! So that’s how we are not—we are not, uh, on the ball on things, we are trusting, and then, uh, then —and the corporations want us so busy making our bread and butter that we don’t have any energy or time to even look

01:37:22.170 - 01:37:32.290

at what’s happening, you know, the news or the, um, what’s happening, how we’re getting taken c— advantage of, and students! Students, do they know? They know they’re paying, but do

01:37:32.290 - 01:37:48.950

they know there’s—biggest industry is student loans, more than credit card loans, I mean—did you all know that? Okay, I want to go back a little bit— Okay. And talk about your—you say your job is—occupation on the

01:37:49.630 - 01:38:00.950

questionnaire is a caregiver? Oh yeah, now for mother, yes, yes. Mhmm. So do you—it’s also, like, for your going everywhere with your mom, mhmm— Well I take her everywhere with me, yes.

01:38:01.060 - 01:38:14.100

So you actually don’t have a break. Well, she goes to sleep at night. Okay. Yeah. And then she—she comes with me, she’s pretty patient with me, and it’s good for her to see different people although she can’t really remember their names, but uh,

01:38:14.100 - 01:38:25.630

she—she goes to the finance committee, the—the—the development committee, the outreach committee, the —the anti-racism and diversity committee, she—whatever, whatever committee I’m in. Uh, she’s, she goes—yeah, to the events, we go to the events and we

01:38:25.630 - 01:38:40.960

pass out fliers , and then at protest rallies I go, and then she—she sits on a little stool and the— because she can’t stand too long. And then, uh—then, uh—I pass out things, and then— uh, make sure I have lots of food prepare for her, and uh—the food, I changed her food

01:38:40.960 - 01:38:57.360

completely. She was doing like a lot of people do and even younger people do, even probably students do—Cheerios, uh, biscuits, crackers, potato chips, dips, ice cream. I mean uh, she was eating that kind of horrible food.

01:38:57.360 - 01:39:11.850

I don’t know what, I know I, Japanese students are eating horrible food. I saw what they were eating, but they were eating food from convenience store. Rice balls. But that’s—that’s better than—than these convenience stores, the one they have here,

01:39:11.900 - 01:39:23.670

uh—probably all kind of chemicals in them, you know, and bleached wheat flour. If you see something white, it’s been bleached, with bromides. So you’re eating bleach with food. You know, this should be outlawed! Uh, this kind of thing should be outlawed.

01:39:24.190 - 01:39:38.440

Uh. You know there was—a law, I’m sorry I don’t know remember the name, it was made in 1953 or ‘4, it had two Senators or two Congressmen’s name, and uh—or Congresswomen, I don’t know—and it said nothing carcinogenic could be put into a food product.

01:39:39.330 - 01:39:50.070

Well that law was repealed during the ‘80s! So um— …So you see FDNC number—red number forty or FDNC number blue, all those colors, they’re all carcinogenic.

01:39:50.700 - 01:40:02.880

And not just the colors, there’s all these long names, you know, ugh, all these things. Um, uh—and, and the cosmetics, uh, industry, oh, all kind of horrible things! European Union has higher standards.

01:40:03.790 - 01:40:17.870

And—and, and the Bush—Bush, uh, administration sent LOTS of money trying to change the rules of the European Union’s, uh, restrictions, on uh—uh, cause—what do they call—those kind of products, like shampoos and soaps and things

01:40:17.870 - 01:40:34.100

like that. Because, you know, if—if those companies get—have, uh, stricter standards for safety, Americans who know about it, they’re gonna buy non-American, non-Johnson & Johnson, non- non They’re gonna buy healthier things, you know, you know we want to, uh —Oh, by

01:40:34.100 - 01:40:48.870

the way, I want to go back, those nurse stories, about those—those—those uh, birth defect children. One nurse, uh, was student nurse, she got lost in a—in a state hospital, she wound up in a room and there’s this little baby with another brain attached to the back of the

01:40:48.870 - 01:41:01.320

head. Okay, that baby—died after eight months. Never saw its parents, was in that room, and they told her—‘The mother and the father think the baby is dead.

01:41:02.170 - 01:41:15.140

This is a secret. Okay.’ So, that means, human rights abuse, because the mother—the parents think, you know, the baby died. The baby is alive, and alone, without its—uh, meeting its own parents for eight months! Okay, and then the—the

01:41:15.140 - 01:41:28.290

other nurse story was something similar, uh, although—she came in the room and there was a baby with no openings on the face, no—no nose opening, no eye opening, no mouth opening. It looked like—uh, baby, but just no openings. And it did not live very long, it just, it was born,

01:41:28.290 - 01:41:44.350

and then—and they—they told her, this nurse, ‘This baby, uh, its parents believe the baby died. And, uh—we’re keeping it for study’ or something like that, and they—they were given some kind of um, uh s—what kind of excuse they told the parents to keep the

01:41:44.350 - 01:41:58.070

baby, cause usually people take the baby and—and burn, and ash, you know, and they have a cer—funeral. But— they told them something to where they could just keep the baby and the parents went home without a body. So—that, maybe they did not show the baby to the

01:41:58.070 - 01:42:10.370

mother, I don’t know. Anyway, I mean uh, things like that happen and I told you, uh, the earlier they do ultrasound and they—they advise mothers to—to cancel, and Japanese mothers, I don’t know why, they usually

01:42:10.370 - 01:42:23.130

have a—a miscarriage, like two or three, before they ha—finally have a baby. And I don’t know whether it’s a weaker, or it’s—it’s public transportation, you know, we—women don’t drive there, it’s too expensive to have a car, and pay for a car so they take the bus, they take the train,

01:42:23.310 - 01:42:32.080

the subway station’s a lot of stairs, and so if you can’t travel, you know, it’s—it’s hard. Oh I’m sorry, I’m going off the subject again. No no no, that’s fine. Um, and then that was in Japan, you said?

01:42:32.330 - 01:42:49.850

Okay. Yes, in Japan, but it—it’s all over! But yeah, in in—uh, I—I don’t know the U.S. situation now, but, you know, I’m sure, uh with all the—the chemicals we had, we have a lot of—um, disabled people, it’s going to get worse, uh, you have to take back, uh,

01:42:50.030 - 01:43:05.240

the country, we have to, and—um—uh, we can’t just—we can’t let this ride. Um—and if you see the pictures of the Iraqi children, uh during the Gulf War embargo, after the Gulf War, they were

01:43:05.240 - 01:43:15.300

embargoed, they couldn’t get things, anything, even a medicine that had something that might be used for some, you know, weapon, was banned, they didn’t even have cameras! So this Japanese uh—two

01:43:15.340 - 01:43:32.460

Japanese jour—photo journalists went to Iraq, and they were sending back to my little small group, uh, I didn’t organize it was a—gro—a group of junior high school teachers, three high school teachers, one kindergarten teacher, they were public, but they were not union members. And they were teaching their students, of all the wars, the U.S.—U.S.

01:43:32.460 - 01:43:44.650

wars, ooh a long list, and all the people who died, and uh, they taught them, they were teaching them the truth about the Japanese, uh, war history, how there’s so many old women with—never got married

01:43:44.650 - 01:43:55.010

cause there was no men to marry . And then—they were teaching the truth, and so this group I was with, and uh, we—these two photojournalists were sending us back pictures. That’s

01:43:55.010 - 01:44:08.040

how I got into this group: There was a photo exhibit of Iraqi children! And they had all, all these birth defect kids, and no—no openings on the face, um, uh—no brain, no brain, nothing, but the

01:44:08.040 - 01:44:22.060

head ended here. And this baby, the mother looked at the baby and ran out of the hospital screaming and the Japanese photo journalists just happened to be there, took pictures of the baby, it was—it was alive for a few minutes, and then died.

01:44:22.560 - 01:44:37.310

And I saw that picture, I said ‘Take me to your leader, I will make speeches, I will—deliver fliers, whatever is ne—I gotta do something!’ Ooooh, American people never saw these pictures! And late night on Japanese television there

01:44:37.310 - 01:44:49.440

was a show, at 11 PM at night, it was called 11 PM, and it’s—not there anymore, uh, I miss that show, but my students said ‘Nancy, there’s a little boy, he’s alive is Iraqi boy, one eye is here, one eye is here, they’re displaced.

01:44:49.440 - 01:45:02.230

One eye is in the lower cheek, one eye is in the top of the forehead, there’s—no hair on the top, but he has a goatee. And this child, both eyes blink at the same time, I mean they’re all misplaced, and uh, she’s—she was all upset, and that was

01:45:02.230 - 01:45:16.000

her— her, she c—couldn’t say anything else, she was so upset about that, she was crying, too. Anyway, this—I don’t think American people saw these things. And then, in Amer—in Japan, being in Japan you see—bad things, you hear about bad things about your own country, U.S.A, that

01:45:16.000 - 01:45:27.630

you don’t hear in the U.S. Like I saw, uh, a U.S. soldier in uniform, he’s holding hand of a little, uh, kid, white kid, okay, this is white soldier—the kid’s hand is coming out of the shoulder, like a minamata,

01:45:27.630 - 01:45:40.480

but it’s not minamata—it’s a Gulf War veteran’s child. So, when he came home, they had sex, but the—the wives complained that their vagina was on fire—they only knew this when they had wives get together and talk!

01:45:40.820 - 01:45:52.220

And they would mention things like that, so I started learning about depleted uranium, cause that’s what was used for the first time in, uh, in—in the Gulf War, ‘91. Uh, Bush the First.

01:45:52.700 - 01:46:10.220

And then, uh the penetrators about the length of a um, uh, a cigarette—cigarette pack, uh, box, and uh—and those things were, were s—they were found by women in Okinawa, in uh, some tiny island in Okinawa collecting metal for metal—metal, uh, how you say,

01:46:10.600 - 01:46:24.460

money for metal? And then they found those penetrators, and then they ask the Japa—the American government, ‘Are you practicing, uh, depleted uranium on an island in the Okinawa without our permission? Please go and clean it up!’ Okay, they cleaned up ten—fifteen percent of the

01:46:24.790 - 01:46:38.490

penetrators they shot, so eighty-five percent of those is still in the soil and it’s very, very weak to water, so they go into the water. So the island next to there said ‘Well we don’t fish on this side, we’ll fish on this side.’ But— but you cannot stop

01:46:38.880 - 01:46:53.670

radiation like that it goes, mm, anyway, depleted uranium—boom! It goes into minus something six microns, so it’s inhalable, so if you’re around, and it goes into your lung, goes into all those body fluids and that’s

01:46:53.670 - 01:47:09.020

why the soldiers came home, and more soldiers died, a hundred and forty-nine soldiers died in the Gulf War but when they came back stateside, it was like, up to two thousand died, some of them committed suicide, and these were Japanese schoolteachers teaching in that

01:47:09.160 - 01:47:23.910

group of anti-war activists. So we were teaching—just with a picture exhibition, and then they would put the picture exhibit at a big—uh, train station, and kids coming home from Saturday afternoon classes, they’d see it and they’d—they’d teach them, um.

01:47:25.230 - 01:47:38.280

And then we make posters before a big event and we—tied, and then after the event is finished, then, and we tried, uh Bush—Bush— George Bush, George W. Bush for uh, murder of Iraqi uh people and uh, and Afghan people, we

01:47:38.280 - 01:47:51.000

tried him, uh, twenty—twenty-two times, twenty-three times in different cities, yeah, when I left. Um. I participa—participated in three trials, uh, in Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. And uh, we uh tried

01:47:51.000 - 01:48:06.210

him for murder, and we—we gave him a lawyer. American lawyer. We—we gave him—ah yes, uh, some kind of way, but many of the, uh, the journalists, who went and took pictures and they came back, and they said ‘Please do not tell anybody the

01:48:06.210 - 01:48:18.760

name of my company—and then here are my slides,’ and he would show us things from the, uh, war front. So, uh, I got to learn about U.S. history, the—the part that’s not taught in school, by Japanese

01:48:19.080 - 01:48:33.690

anti-war activists. And uh, I—so I’m—I’m glad, I’m gl—I’m glad of all my, uh, what happened, you know, and—and labor, labor is, uh, labor is—is dwindling, labor unions are—are—

01:48:33.800 - 01:48:46.420

are minimizing, uh, in—in Ja—in Japan as well as in the United States, and, uh, in Texas! Texas is the place for activists, if you want to have an issue to work on, cause we have, uh, right to hire

01:48:46.420 - 01:49:00.550

right to fire state, here in Texas. This is really, really bad for labor, uh here, and um, the other stations, we have five stations in Pacifica, they have less—less discrimination, because they have workers’ rights, in their states.

01:49:02.010 - 01:49:12.670

We are a, what do you call—uh, hire at will, employment at will, state, uh—the South, most of the southern states are like this. So, this is the place. Plus, you know, death penalty.

01:49:13.030 - 01:49:24.740

Texas is the capital of death penalty in the world. And each execution represents two point three billion dollars of public tax that we could use for something else.

01:49:25.020 - 01:49:38.210

And if we keep them alive for forty years, it’s eight hundred thousand. Eight hundred thousand from—minus, uh, I mean, uh two point three billion minus eight hundred thousand that’s one point something billion you can do something with, you know, education, healthcare, uh…

01:49:40.130 - 01:49:56.350

protect the environment, uh—alternative energy, you know, get off of oil. Uh, we could do so much, so, uh, this is—this is um, uh I’ve got so many issues now that I’m really ih—ih—into it’s really enjoyable for me, and I cannot—uh, I cannot, uh, expect everyone

01:49:56.350 - 01:50:12.800

to do this, because people have to make a—a—a decision on their own, and uh, otherwise you know—cause I, one person said, uh, he said ‘Nancy you have nothing to lose,’ ‘You can stand up for anything, you c— you have nothing to lose.’ Well, that’s freedom, you know.

01:50:12.800 - 01:50:26.860

I don’t have to go home and cook for a husband, uh, that’s freedom, uh—ah, well, anyway. There’s, uh, a lot that a individual can do to change the history, and uh, I want to tell that to you girls. And, I had just a couple of quick—

01:50:26.860 - 01:50:34.320

Yes, yes. —detail questions— Uh-huh. —and then a couple wrap-up questions— Uh-huh. —if that’s okay. Yes, yes yes. Um, I was wondering, uh, you say you were a nurse aide.

01:50:34.320 - 01:50:49.390

Is that the same as a nurse or is that different? Nooo, nurse— Okay, I just wanted to clarify. Oh. Nurse is—I don’t know for U.S., in Japan it’s three years of training to get certified nurse, and if they do, uh, midwifing, at the—in the hospital,

01:50:49.600 - 01:51:02.580

then—or, it’s—it’s not really midwifing, but it’s like a s—helps at delivery time, then they have to take a fourth year, in Japan. In America, it may be, I don’t know what the—what the re—uh, required training is, I—I

01:51:02.810 - 01:51:18.140

forgot to ask that kind of thing. Okay. And, you mentioned that you worked as a ballet instructor, was that a paid job? Well, sort of, I got free lessons for teaching. Okay. Yeah. So—my teacher would go to Venice in the summer so I would teach, or she

01:51:18.140 - 01:51:31.000

like—go to Jones Hall for a concert or something and I would teach, yeah. She would—she, she was, she was very interesting person, yeah. Mm, she—she stood up for t—for her rights, because in her

01:51:31.280 - 01:51:45.060

class there was one black student. And at the music hall, that was before Jones Hall was built, uh, the music hall, and oooh nobody wanted that Black child to show up in—on stage, and so she

01:51:45.060 - 01:52:02.010

said ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ and so everybody was worried because um, uh they’d never had a Black person on the stage okay? So And this is Dih—Deborrah Allen, she’s famous now, she was—uh, anyway, she’s half White, half Black, okay, uh

01:52:02.290 - 01:52:15.540

but she looked Black, anyway, Deborah Allen, so she—my teacher just put lot of powder on her face! And then, the nannies, the nannies of all these—students, okay, they’re

01:52:15.540 - 01:52:26.750

Black, and—you know, some of the River Oaks people, they had kids in the—in the school. And so they came to Tatiana, said ‘We want to see the performance of our children,’ you know, they—they, it’s like their own

01:52:26.750 - 01:52:37.680

children, you know, and they take care of them, now. And then ‘Please, please, but we’re not allowed to be in the audience!’ This is the 1960s, okay. And so she’s—she said she battled with the board,

01:52:38.140 - 01:52:53.090

and the battle with the music hall to get the upper upper balcony, which was not going to be open—cause it was considered too small of a, um, a performance, it wouldn’t be needed—she let—they let them open that for the Blacks to sit. So. I mean, she did something, really, uh,

01:52:53.640 - 01:53:05.240

outrageous. I mean, she did. I liked—I liked Tatiana very much, yeah. And she w—she performed for the Third Army in Patton’s group in World War II, and she got injured during that time and broke—hurt her—hurt her leg.

01:53:05.880 - 01:53:16.540

Anyway, she’s, uh—she was something. Mm, and then, I guess, just a couple of wrapping-up kind of questions. Uh, where is home

01:53:16.680 - 01:53:33.880

for you? Home. Whoa… well, right now, it’s at a house, my mother’s house, and I think I should—I was all ready to uh, come back, uh, assess things, uh, pick up my

01:53:33.880 - 01:53:47.300

mother and go back to Japan and work for women’s rights over there. But now, there is so much, uh, I see, and I think I should stay in the—belly of the beast, and that’s Houston.

01:53:48.430 - 01:54:05.140

That’s where it is. So—for you, what is it—what is it like to be a Japanese American woman in Texas? I don’t—I don’t know about that, unless I look in the mirror and I don’t have too much time to look at a mirror!

01:54:05.840 - 01:54:21.950

I don’t even think about that, and when I ran for KPFT board, I—I wasn’t, uh—there was a Chinese boy running saying he wanted more rights for Chinese, but—he didn’t win. And later on he had a chance to come on, as a runner-up but he didn’t want it.

01:54:23.040 - 01:54:34.610

I didn’t—I didn’t, uh, I didn’t think like that. And everybody’s expecting me to bring in all the Orientals, and I said, ‘That’s—uh, it’s a personal decision, everybody.’ Uh—yeah, I

01:54:34.730 - 01:54:49.840

would like to help the, uh, Asian community get more, uh, aware, and I would like the non-Asian community to be more aware of the Asians’ concerns, or what’s—what’s it, so I’m trying now to get some Asian programs on KPFT.

01:54:50.220 - 01:55:04.940

It’s very hard. They’re—Asians, I—I hate to say this, they’re scaredy-cats. They’re scared, and they must have good reasons to be scared. I mean—in Japan, people are afraid of police.

01:55:05.800 - 01:55:17.560

And I used to go to the police station all the time and complain about this and complain about that, and they’ll say ‘Oh here she is again,’ you know, I—I was not that afraid of them, but uh—usual Japanese are afraid to break a rule, they’ve been taught

01:55:17.620 - 01:55:31.590

that way from school, and I—but the Chinese, Chinese, uh—I don’t know how they are now but they—they seemed to be very—I tried to talk to the Vietnamese, it’s really hard, I try to talk to the Chinese and, unless I have it somebody who can speak English, it’s really hard, they’re scared.

01:55:31.590 - 01:55:50.300

And they—they hang up, like the Chinese newspaper I called, and I said ‘I would like to, uh, have uh, some—, you know, some health issues, uh some— about, uh, air quality, about, about amalgam fillings and that kind of thing, uh, and they said ‘Well we usually use uh, uh Chinese medicine, we don’t really need to

01:55:50.300 - 01:56:03.800

know about, uh, Western’ or the person who answered, and I said ‘Well, how about political things, I wonder if our Chinese community or Oriental community is understanding what’s happening, all the politics and uh how we’re being taken advantage of, I really would like to

01:56:03.800 - 01:56:18.070

know that, what— I cannot understand your—your—your radio shows or your—your—your newspaper, so I don’t know if you’re really aware of these points or not,’ and so I—I really don’t know, so I tried to call—I talked to somebody from the Vietnamese community, I

01:56:18.170 - 01:56:32.130

found the leader, and he speaks English, and, uh, he seems to be a little bit aware, but I said ‘Do you realize that the—the drawback with the Vietnamese community, they don’t—they stay clannish, isolated,’ and

01:56:32.170 - 01:56:45.650

Chinese do too, and I said ‘the Japanese also, they all go to the same apartment complex to live, you know.’ I said ‘This is—they’re scared, and at the same time they make their own banker, their own insurance, their own—you know, little community stores, they deal with each other,

01:56:45.650 - 01:56:57.130

and I think that that’s nice to do, but uh, u—without that, uh, they’re—they don’t really know what’s happening to the other group, and the other community doesn’t really know what’s happening to them, so it’s like—isolation.

01:56:57.490 - 01:57:12.880

And I don’t like that and our—our, uh—our KPFT should—should have some of—one of every flavor, I wanted to get some—that’s—that’s what I’m working on now, it’s very hard, and uh—there’s politics, and—in the place where it should not be, uh, a lot of things.

01:57:13.210 - 01:57:30.600

So, uh, if you know anybody that’s interested in free, um, expression of, uh, fr—freedom of speech, and, through the media, and wants to get involved with KPFT, there’s going to be a election this, uh, summer, uh, for new board members and that

01:57:30.640 - 01:57:45.200

would, uh, that would, uh, change, I like to get just activists to join, and uh, we make uh KPFT a little bit more what it should be, it’s not quite right, KPFT. I—I’m really not happy about this.

01:57:45.260 - 01:57:55.440

But, I’m not gonna give up, I’m not gonna give up. And uh, there’s always, you know, like, uh, underwriting, you’re not supposed to have underwriting, but we’re they’re starting to

01:57:55.440 - 01:58:12.390

do underwriting, from non-profit groups, and uh, and—all right, worst come worst, maybe do this but go—go, uh—public, I mean, tell the listeners this is happening, and this is not happening yet, and uh this gets on a—a library of your, then—they’ll

01:58:12.890 - 01:58:26.230

find out, that’s good, you know. Yeah. Uh, yeah, it just takes a majority vote to get rid of the manager, and uh—and it would take pressure, you don’t really have to target a person, or a president, or a manager, you

01:58:26.230 - 01:58:41.480

have to—you have to get consensus and get people to—to band together and stand up for their rights, but when people are afraid, afraid to talk to you because they’re afraid of losing their, their program that they volunteer for, THEN there’s tyranny going on or something’s wrong, you know, and

01:58:43.010 - 01:58:57.200

uh, you—you need somebody who doesn’t mind about the—the result. You know. Like, I like to go to court, to fight for—for rights, and uh, I’m not going to it just because I know I can win, or

01:58:57.260 - 01:59:09.180

there’s a chance to win, because then, uh, then it’s not as fun, for one thing. You don’t learn as much, for one thing. And, uh, if we all fought like that then nothing great would get accomplished, you know.

01:59:09.300 - 01:59:19.740

Uh, and we have to have respon—we’ll be more responsible, um, for the future, uh, that’s really important. So I’m not, uh—my home, hmm. My home is wherever

01:59:19.740 - 01:59:29.840

there’s a fight, for justice, that’s where I feel comfortable. That’s where I feel at home. Well, thank you so much for talking to us today. Oh, thank you.