Rulee Stallmann oral history interview

Alright, so we're recording. It is January 12, 2021, and I'm here with Rulee Stallmann interviewing for the Houston Asian Arc-, the American Archives. Um, so the first question is where and when were you born?

I was born in Kirkland, Washington on May 16, 1938. I might also add to that, that I was the first child in my family to be born in a hospital. And how would you describe the household you grew up in, like the family dynamic and the

parents and siblings? I guess it was, I never thought about it being anything other than the family. There's quite an age difference between myself and my older siblings, because my

sister was eleven years older, then my next brother's ten years older, and my next brother's eight years older. So there was kind of a gap. Can I, can I take this little thing that says

this meeting is being recorded? Yes. Just… Continue, yeah. Okay. Just–just goes right across your face! So, um, you know that, there's that age difference.

And I just kind of was this independent child, much to some people's chagrin, who wandered around doing her thing. And my parents were busy, they–they had, they were truck farmers, and, um,

and my grandma was on the scene, too. I mean, there were, there was a farming, kind of, truck farming area. But I had, I had my aunts on my mother's side, especially, the aunts and uncle.

So I guess they were, they're somewhat intergenerational, I guess you would say? Yeah. So how would you describe the neighborhood and the surroundings you grew up in? Well, I guess it, I don't—I guess you would say it's rural.

Um, not as rural as when we moved to Montana. But it was rural. And primarily, people who grew, who grew veggies and who had these strong farms. It was not an urban area by any means.

And my father would be, he would work, he—they, he didn't have a tractor that I remember, he had a big old horse. He was, he was muddy.

And I used to, they used to prop me up on the horse on the back. And I’d take my naps on the back of the horse while my dad would be out doing the, working in the fields. And it was a very gentle horse, thank goodness, because I used to play London

Bridge under the horse. I mean, I had, I pretty much probably did a lot of entertaining on myself, and I also got into trouble sometimes and, not intentionally, but that we tried to do things that didn't end up too well.

And is this still in Kirkland? Is this still in Kirkland? Oh, we, I was born in Kirkland, but I grew up in—my family’s farm was in Bellevue. It’s hard to imagine

Bellevue now. But at that time, it was all farms. It was rural. So what were your parents' occupations?

Well, they–they, like many of the Japanese American, there was a community there, Japanese American people who grew, who had these truck farms where they grew veggies. And strawberries was a big part of that.

And then my dad, they–they put together kind of a co-op of growers, and my dad was the manager for that, where they would bring their crops, and they had a warehouse there. And–and so basically, I think my mom and the hired man did the

farm. And my, probably my sister and brothers had to help, because, you know, everybody was expected to work when you got to be a certain age at my family. Did you also get—when did you also get to work?

Oh, I didn't get to work until I was out in Montana because I was too little. What do you think are some of the values that your parents emphasized in your upbringing? Well, obviously hard work was one. And I think, integrity, and

responsibility, and that if you said you're going to do something, you're—you have to hang to that. And you should do the very best you can. I learned that, because

I'd always tried to be Missus, Miss Speedy, and didn't have much patience for things. And I'd get in trouble because, you know, it wasn't done properly. They expect that, they wanted it to be, if it's going to go to

somebody they wanted it to, to look good. And be–be done right. So we kind of grew up with that mentality, overall. And could you explain a little bit—this isn't a question, but could you explain a little

bit like your parents' background? Like, were they first generation? Did they immigrate here or… Well, they're, they're—my father was bor-born in

Hawaii. And his parents moved to Hawaii, I think to work in a Sugar King. I think that's what it was. But then my, my grandmother got ill.

And they had to go back to Japan. And they grew—my father was from southern Japan. So it wasn't like that far. But they went back and, and my

grandma passed away. She was young. He–he said he was about three years old, two or three, when she passed away. And, um, and then my grandfather, I think, came to the States.

So basically, my father was raised by his mother's parents, grandparents. And so he, he grew up in Japan. And of course, this was part of the big issue during

World War II is they couldn't find his birth certificate, because it was lost in the courthouse, or the courthouse burned down or something in Hawaii. Anyway, they–they, he had to—it

took a bit of doing before… Well, because he didn't have documentation that he was an American citizen. Now my mother was born in Bellevue, Washington, which is unusual.

But she was one of the first Japanese people born in–in the United States up on the West, up there on the West Coast. Actually, she would have been considered a pioneer even for Bellevue, Washington in those days, 'cause she was born in, what, 1908?

So, um, she, she's an American, born—and a very proud American born person. Yeah, she, to her that was very important. So

can you tell me the story of when and how your family was got to be taken to the internment camp? Well, yeah. Well, I don't remember much, other than I can tell you probably, what–what I know.

The—after the war broke out, after Pearl Harbor was bombed, the next day, the FBI came to our farm and took my father. Uh, and it was at about 3 AM in the morning, I think.

This is according to my sister, who was old enough to remember this all, and they, they already had dossiers on–on the Jap—many of the Japanese people before the bombing.

They've been collecting this for quite a while. So, my father, from the standpoint that he managed the packing house, and months before, had taken a group of young

Japanese American, I think they were boys, all boys, obviously, to Japan for like a trip or something. That was all down. And so they came in, picked him up, and

felt he was spying or doing something. So they—my brothers were upstairs in a loft, sleeping. I don't, I don't remember

any of it, because I was probably in a crib somewhere. And they wanted to go up and get—and my mother blocked their way and they could, they could see that, as your dad called her, Montana grandma could be pretty—you just

didn't get her too upset. You know? She wasn't going to move. And she told them, she was well ahead of her time, she says, but we are American citizens.

You cannot do this to us. And they went into where grandpa kept his books, and he always kept a diary.

And he did keep it in Japanese, because, after all, that was his first language, so to speak. They decided that was all some kind of propaganda and all that, turned it upside down and tore it apart. And then told them to get his clothes.

And he says, for how long do I need to have my clothes, or change your clothes and a—well you better have that, and a toothbrush, and your razor. And took him off. And, um, anyway, he–he went, they took him into Seattle.

By this time, they had rounded up quite a few of the leaders. And I don't know where, which place, but my—we all, my sister says we all went to see my dad

in this, it was supposed to be the, uh, immigration, it's in, it was in Seattle, which my sister said there were lots of, it was like going into a jail or, they–they had to wait in a waiting room and they brought my dad.

I just remember one place I went, that all I can remember, are a lot of like you see in jails. You know, those iron bars, and opening those doors, right?

I don't know if I remembered from actual fact or if I remember it from what I was told. Anyway, what they did then was take my dad, and the other Japanese

leaders from that area, and took 'em to Montana, to Missoula, Montana, to Fort Missoula. Now, Missoula, Montana is University of Montana, but they–they didn't, they took 'em to Fort Missoula for interrogation.

And my father said, there were—this part some people don't know, but part of the place where Italian Amer-, Italians that they had rounded up, half of the place.

Then the other half were Japanese. So they were there for six months. And… Just him, and the rest of the leaders? Yeah, they were all, they were—and they were separated by fences, the–the two,

you know, the Italians from the Japanese, and they were interrogated. Now my dad didn't have a problem, but some of the Japanese Americans got beaten up during the interrogation process.

And finally, I think finally somebody listened to the complaints, and they removed the people who did that, but there were some who were. And my father said it was very interesting,

because, you know, you're sitting, there's nothing to do. You're just sitting around there, and it's winter and all that. But then when the spring came, they, when they went out, they realized that Montana is very beautiful, especially

there. It’s a mountainous region, and the air was fresh. And they saw the Italian people playing with this round ball. And they thought that was very interesting, of course, that was soccer. But the other thing is they found all these

different kinds of stones in the ground. And, so then they, the Japanese men, got to be a thing, they pick up the stones, and they take it in to their shower room because that had concrete

floors, and they would scratch those stones. And then they would polish it with their, as they called, the government issue blankets, and it would get nice and shiny. And that was the famous rock that I remember as a

child that my dad brought with him. It went all over with us. This famous rock. It had different colors of brown through it, you know in

streaks. It was, it was a fairly good sized rock, but that was almost hallowed, you know, the famous rock. And then finally—oh, well after he moved back when he was in his eighties, or whatever,

they, he donated that to the Wing Luke Museum when they did this, kind of, whole thing about the Japanese American internment. So it's over there now.

Which is a perfect place for it. So that's… No, that's–that's–that's what happened to my dad. He was not released until I think June,

and then he came… Well, let's see, the war broke out '41. And they rounded him up, that would have been December, and by December 8, they took him away. And then he came and was able to join the family, I think it was in June.

Okay, of '42? And so where was the rest of your family when he was… Well, first off, they took him away, and then we stayed on the farm. And my mom and our men essentially ran

the farm. Not knowing, kind of, what was going on, after all, didn't have exactly phones and cell phones and texts and zooms in those days, you know? But then the word came, we, that,

it—the fam—my mom was well aware that there was a lot of animosity. And, as she said, you found out who your real friends were, during this kind of a time. And they,

they decided that they had to put, intern the people into camps for the safety of the, uh, because, you know, you couldn't trust Japanese people. You know, this, I mean, you can read all kinds of rules and laws about

how they came to this conclusion. So they, there are stories about certain groups of Japanese people, um, from that area being put up in horse stalls at the horse track, racetrack.

But in our case, we all met at Kirkland, Washington. And it was May 20, so I just turned four, I guess. Um, and we were put on these old, old

train cars. There were passenger train cars, but my uncle said he thought it was a World War I train car, they were very dirty. And–and then we had this sooty engine pulling us, you know,

which meant all that soot came back on the people in the cars. And we, the—most of the time they had us travel at night, I guess. And put us on the side–side rails during the day,

but you were allowed, what, a suitcase. And if you had four or five, you could have a, like a duffel bag or something to put your clothes in for four or five people, you know what I mean, your bedding and stuff.

That's about it. We just had to pack up and go. So all the, most people try to either put their belongings and, and lock them up into the

house that they had to leave, or in the backroom, or if they had some Caucasian friends that, who really wanted to help them out, they would store some of their–their precious things at their house. Because you didn't, you had to go.

That's all there's too it. What happened to your stuff? Your family's stuff? Like your possessions, or—you said some people can, like, leave them at other people's houses, if they had friends to do

that, or… Well, in our case, our stuff, my mother—well, and my, my uncle had just gotten married, that’s his young— her brother. They put their things into this, with

this neighbor. They were very, very nice, you know, very friendly, and–and wanted to be helpful. So we, there, the–the nice things that they had that were, like,

heirlooms, they've stored there. And some people stored it, tried to lock it into a room or something.

And then I think our, like our place, I think got rented to—my dad got a couple of Texans or something. Anyway,

well, when we talk about later, but what I've—while we were out Montana, of course, our house burned down, the farmhouse. As did the house of the lady who was storing our stuff.

So there you have it. Um, but that's beside, that's later, but we were, we—where we went to, we had drag-, we're on the train for four days.

When we stopped during the day and travel at night, and we ended up in Pine Dale, California. And Pine Dale is near Fresno, I think, I knew it was hot. And the only thing

I remember—well, and my mother's younger sisters weren't married, so I can remember they would give me, like, these little green grapes that I liked so much.

You can't, I don't even see 'em in the stores anymore. But they would, I think they were spoiling, they spoil me, you know? But, um, when we got to Pine Dale—and

see, my–my mother’s mother and her sisters, and her brother and his wife, we were all together in the train. And when we got to Pine

Dale, and these are shacks that they build out a tar paper. But as somebody said, it was better than being stuck in a horse stall that they never got around to cleaning, some of the people ended up in. And it was dusty

and hot. And I remember my grandma told me don’t play in the dirt here. It’s not safe. That the one thing I remember. I don't know.

Did you find out why? I don't know. Maybe it was alkali? I–I don't rem—I don't know. I just remember her telling me not to play in

the dirt. Because she probably knew I would be. And it was not the greatest place, obviously. But, you know, we just, I don't remember as a child feeling bad or anything, because I was still with the

family, right? Think at that point, I don't, I was unaware, you know? So could you repeat again? Sorry, when, when was this?

When did you get to the Pine Dale ca-camp? Well, if we left May 20 in '42, I guess we got there about—somewhere near the end of May, May 24. And, and

then work the reason we were put there is because we were supposed to end up at Tule Lake, and they hadn't finished building that yet. So this was temporary temporary housing until we could get to Tule

Lake. But you have to remember these are all remote places, so out in the middle of nowhere, so nobody can, so we couldn't supposedly communicate with the enemy. And so when did you move to Tule Lake?

Well, I don't know when that was, I guess it must have been shortly after my dad came. June? He came in June, and I guess he got Pine Dale, and then we moved to Tule Lake shortly after.

But it was—he s—he knew it was just a bad situation. Because what you saw was the erosion of the family. My sister, what they did is—I–I

just know, I remember being with my mom, and my brothers were not in the same place. They were housed with—all the young

guys are housed together, single. And all the single women, and my sister was what, she's eleven years older, so she was fifteen, and she, my sister said they were, kind of,

doing naughty things, 'cause they're just a bunch of same aged people. And my dad felt that my brothers didn't need to have some of the lessons that some of these twenty

year old young single guys were willing to teach 'em. So he found this very disturbing. The—and the other thing is, everything was done in the community.

And, I don't know, but, by and large, Japanese people are pretty private, about, like, even if you read about their hot tubs and all that, you know, the springs, but in terms of their lives and stuff, they were pretty private.

So, but they—everything was in a community. I mean, all the women had a community shower, all the men had a community shower. We all ate dinner, the same, in the same hall,

everything. And so it was not, it really was not what normally you would think of as a culture for, I would say, older Japanese people. I think it was difficult, very, very difficult for those who were first

generation Japanese coming in, who had come and probably were older, like, my grandma, who didn't really speak English, you know, this had to be very, very difficult for them.

And I remember being little, and we'd, we had to all go to, all the ladies had to go to the same shower. And of course, when you're small, I–I was thinking about that. All I see, all I could see were the legs, you know?

And then the vivid thing I remember is this, the lady, some lady started screaming, well I thought, I didn't know what was going on. Well, there was a scorpion in the shower room. So what happened is there

was this one woman who seemed to be afraid of nothing, I guess. And they weren't, you know, how you, they wear those clogs, those wooden clogs, you know, well they had those on, and she took her big ole' clog on foot, and

went—I can remember her doing that, went, kabong! And that, you know, took care of the scorpion. I remember, I remember that very vividly Isn't that something?

I don't remember a lot of things. But I do remember that. And we'd do kind of talent shows, and all that kind of stuff. To—on the weekends, and my

mom did volunteer there at the camp, and–and I remember I went to a couple as a child, going and seeing these, they were outdoors, I remember seeing a couple of them. Not what they were, but I just kind of remember going.

So then, my dad, actually, he, he, they let him, he was kind of, like, on parole from the Fort Missoula, because they still didn't have record of his birth certificate.

So he was still a questionable person. But–but between the time he came and be-before they could get that paperwork transferred and all that, government you have to remember,

he, um, this, the sugar beet farmers up in Montana had a shortage of people because of the war. A lot of people had gone off. If I—of people to take care of harvesting the sugar beets.

So they came to the camps to look for workers, and my father glommed on to that right away. And he hired out our family, and my uncle hired out his–his

wife and two sisters and my grandma, so we kind of went all together to Chinook, Montana. My sister said they got there in September. Well that's it.

We got there. That was September. And she said it had been snowing, and they thought, they wondered what kind of world they have come, they have come to. In September? In September?

Wow. I think she said September 28, or something. She said it was cold and snowing. And we were put into a two room labor house.

Not my uncle but our immediate family. So you had the one room which had a stove in it for your kitchen and you could eat in. The other room was the bedroom.

So the seven of us—no, how many were there at that time, six of us, slept in the six, in this one room. And my mother was also pregnant by then, at

the time. But it was so cold in there. There was no heat. That—and I suppose condensation from the people were sleeping in there, there'd be ice on the beds in the morning.

Yeah. So this is after you left the camp, right? Yeah. When we went to Chinook, Montana. So when you were still in the camp, did you—you say this person hired you guys out for labor work, but when

you were in the camp, do you know if your family had to do work, or were they paid to do something? I don't think so. I–I would, I'm not sure if they were. My mom volunteered to—she volunteered at–at some

activity things. And they, I think that some of the children who had older parents found—because there was time on their hands, because you have to remember that they were all so busy working from dawn

to dark trying to make a living, and then in the spare time that they found out how artistic some of these parents, their parents were, they didn't realize that, because they had the time to try to create things. So they were creating.

But I don't think so. There was—the thing is, some of the farmers, and I'm not sure if my parents were involved, that ha-had made arrangements to lease their farms when they left that

the Bellevue area. And, um, with the idea that so they would get—otherwise, you know, to pay for the farm. And I think that the guy who did it went broke.

And they weren't getting their money. There were, there were, so there were some problems that way, too. But I don't think anybody had any kind of living to speak of, you couldn't get out of the campground.

Mhm. It was all walled in, or all fenced in. So what did the place you lived in, in the camp sort of look like? And what would… It was a tar-based shack.

There's not much more I can say about it than that. That's what I remember. What kind of food did you guys have to eat? Well, I don't even remember that.

But you have to remember, I know it's hard to believe now, but I was kind of a picky eater. And I think it was like commune cooking, you know, some of the people would cook these big

vats of rice and all that. I–I think they tried to, they would cook. I'm sure that people were assigned jobs, like certain ones were—so maybe, I don't know if they got paid, but like my uncle was

put on to the fire part of it. I think my dad helped with the cooking once he got there. And there are those like my mom, who worked with entertainment or whatever. There was that kind of a

thing, but it was all this community living I guess is what you call it. And your parents, your parents both spoke Japanese. And so I assume several other people in the camp, but

was it, like encouraged? Well they all had to—they were all Japanese. Yeah. But was it like encouraged to speak the language Japanese? No. Well, in the camp, I suppose, of course, you kind of—they kind of had to, because otherwise, how could

th-the “issei” people, as they call them, the–the people who came from Japan, like my grandma, how could you communicate with her? But the whole idea was you weren’t supposed to speak Japan-Japanese.

And the other thing that was an issue was they had these language schools that they were teaching kids Japanese, well they, the, who would—who the powers that we decided that was subversive. They were passing along whatever.

And so, that had to be a good proof that we were, we were part of the enemy. So I think that the whole idea of–of you weren’t supposed to speak Japanese—and of course, my mother

spoke Japanese but she also spoke very good English. She made sure she did. She was—that’s just how she was. So, my–my father had an accent but this because he was

raised in Japan, but the rest of us, she was very strict about how we said words. You know, and she–she was she, she said—when my mother said she started first

grade, she didn’t know any, she didn’t know English. And she graduated as valedictorian of her high school class. That shows you her determination. Yeah. So,

what did your older siblings do? Do you know—remember what they did for education? Or like, were there schools in the camp? I don't know. I don't know what they did about schooling for them.

I really don't know. They probably did go to school, but I think it probably wasn't anything like what it could be. And they were all good students before, I

mean—people, people in Bellevue, their vacation friends wanted them to stay with them, and not go, but that, we said no. I mean, my parents said no, that that's part—they're family, part of the family. Family is very important.

And so, when they got to Chinook and topped beets, they missed the first, what, six to eight weeks of school, at least, they didn't go, because they worked out in the fields. Then they get back to school.

And they make, they—all their schoolwork was already in and done before Christmas ever came around. I mean, that became a point of pride, I guess. Of course, academics are very important in

our family. You know, so, that's how it was. Since you were younger at the time, when did you—how did your family like explain to you for the, like, reasons that they— They didn't.

No. I never thought about it, to be honest about it, because they never brought it up. I just know that I went to see my dad, because my dad wasn't there. But it wasn't—I–I

honestly have to tell you that my family were very stalwart people, my parents, by, that was never "boo hoo hoo", you know, this is the way it is, so we're going to do it. That's how they were.

And so, um, I honestly have to say, 'cause I was little, I was very happy. I could go over— I remember, I could go over and see my aunts, entertain them when I was little, and they gave me a cookie, and

then I'd be happy and then go home. I mean, to me, I didn't, I didn't feel the dislocation from home, or anything, because I guess I was with my family.

So when did you start actually understanding or, like, learning about the reasons? Well, I really, you know, it was interesting, 'cause you–you think about it. We moved to Chinook, Montana, and it was fall.

And they worked in the sugar beets, and topping the sugar beets by hand. And the first bunch field they finished up are little sugar beets. So that way means a lot more work, 'cause you top all these little beets.

Now I don't know if you know how they did it, but then they'd have to top all the tops off, and then they would, the truck would come down between the two rows of sugar beets. There'd be three people on each side. And you'd be throwing these sugar beets, you'd hand load them into the

truck. Well, what did they do with me? I couldn't chop sugar beets. So my brother said they stuck me just in a corner and I had to entertain myself. Well, I guess I did, I don't remember being particularly

traumatized or anything. So I probably was happily doing what I shouldn't be doing over there, in the corner of the field. I don't know. I do remember one time, the hired

man of the farmer who hired my our family found a little rabbit. He was out there working, and he came, he brought it to me. I do remember that. And then, I also remember getting in trouble with the–the

farmer. They had kids, and they had a boy who's, mm, a year younger than I. And we got into the chicken feed, and we were monkeying around. We got in trouble for that, probably wasting it.

So my mother was very appalled, and he was in trouble with his mother. And then, as far as what we could eat, you know, now you're talking about a family that grew vegetables, right?

Lettuce, and all this kind of stuff. When you go to Montana at that time, they didn't have that, not in September. So the only thing that they had, the farmer's wife said,

we had rutabagas and parsnips in the ground, and you can have those, so my mother tried to figure out ways to cook those rutabagas and parsnips. She would even try to make Japanese stir fry.

To this day, my older brothers cannot eat rutabagas and parsnips. They just-just—the thought of it, after all those days and trying to figure out how to eat it, it just, can't eat it. And I

also got, when I was at age in the winter, I got really sick, and I got bronchitis really bad. And we had no—you couldn't have a car.

And my dad, I don't know how far, it wasn't humongously far into town, but he went into town and got the doctor. And thank goodness, we had a doctor who was willing to come out, check me out. And of course,

my parents never forgot people like that. So. So it wasn't until much older that you, like, understood or, like, started thinking about what happened? Um, the first day that I realized I was different was the first day I went to school.

That's when I was six. And that was after, like, you left? Well, I was six years old. We had moved from that farm where we started and moved over to—that

was east of Chinook, and we moved to a farm west of Chinook. And that's the farm that, that your dad would know, that's the farm that we ended up buying from the farmer. We ended up staying in Montana.

And I went to first grade in a one room country school. My brother and sister, 'cause of—they didn't, I think they didn't work in, on the field that day, 'cause they had to go to the first day of school.

And they dropped me off, 'cause by then they were allowed, we were allowed to have a pickup truck for them to get to school. We had to get special permission. And I knew all my

alphabet, I could print all my letters. Knew my birthday. And when the teacher asked me, I could do all that. But I did not know I was different, untils some other little girl, I don't know she was first grade or what, called me, “there

you are, you dirty Jap.” And I thought what does she mean by that? And I—all I know is that was bad. The way she said it, I knew it had to be bad.

Mhm. So, and then, um, it was a half mile from the school to where our farm was, all of, all the kids would walk home. And of course there was a lot of teasing.

But I came home crying, and my dad said you can't cry about stuff like that. And that was that.

So that was the end of that. But that was the first day I knew I was really different. And did that stick with you, like, basically for

the—for your elementary and secondary school? Well I didn't get—I didn't, I was teased. And with the first year was kind of, was hard, I guess, looking back as a child. Um, I mean, it

was not easy. And I got teased for all kinds of things. And my mom was, she was very much about school. So the first day of school, she–she was a wonderful

seamstress, and she made this cute little dress, and I wore—then I got made fun of for wearing this dress. And then they bought me, I needed a coat, you know, they, it's not like my folks a lot of money, now I think about it, but they took me to

town to JC Penney, and I got— I'll never forget, was a red jacket with a hood on it. And I thought was really cool. Until the kids started calling me

the Red Devil, then I didn't want it anymore. But I had to wear it, 'cause it's the only coat I had, you know? I just didn't know what, how to take some of the teasing. And finally, I learned that I had to fight my

own battles. And I found that I could be just as physical as anybody else who took after me. And finally, that might sound awful, you know, they say, oh, well, you're not supposed to—that was the only way I combatted it,

really. And I, I have to say, um, my first year of grade school, I was really looking forward to starting school, I could hardly wait. And

it wasn't, it was not what you call a pleasant experience, I guess. But then there's nobody at my house who said, oh, you poor kid, because everybody

was—we were all surviving. And of course, my sister and brothers are going through worse 'cause, as you know, teenagers can be pretty, you make it pretty hard.

So—and then the other thing about it was I was a left handed child. And my teacher said, I will not teach a left handed child, because she says it's hard to teach him to add and subtract, duh. So I had to go to the right hand.

And of course, my parents were trying to be compliant with many things. So I had to change to right hand. And then she taught cursive

from the very first grade. So I'm trying to switch hands and do cursive. And I just remember being, feeling humiliated in first grade.

There are only five of us in first grade in a one room country school, but there were twenty some kids in the school, but they ranged through all the grades. So we had kids who were like myself, and then we had kids who were maybe fourteen, fifteen.

And in those days, some of the kids maybe had to repeat a year school, you know? So, um, what, what our, the teacher would do is we had these books, I'll never forget those either.

And you, the–the reading books were color the ball blue, or color the ball red, or whatever it was. So I did all that.

Unfortunately, I couldn't, I never learned to color in the lines. So she put all these five things, I can still see the blackboard with the

wire across the front. And then these books would go behind the wire. And then the whole school would look at it and vote on what was the best and what was the worst.

And you know whose was the worst. It was right. I had all the colors right. But I didn't color in the lines. I used to get D in English.

So of course for my mother's wounded pride, she decided that I could not have been a very good student. The whole interesting thing is second grade came

along. The next thing I knew some lady came on, was running these tests, and the next thing I knew I was in third grade. Yeah, this kid who got D's in her reading in English.

So, but you know, the one thing I give my parents credit for is they never made a big deal that it was ever the teacher's fault, or anybody else's fault. Although, to be honest

about it, it was. They never, they never—and the whole thing is, although it was a hard year, I never missed a day of school. So how did you eventually come to overcome the,

like, overt discrimination that you've faced? Since you were, like, growing up with it as a young child? Well, it–it kind of, I don't know why I, um—one of the things that

probably was helpful that my mom thinks is the teacher would have these have kids help other kids, you know, with school, and I must have been, I don't know, fifth or sixth grade.

And by this time we–we had, we had actually expanded to a two room schoolhouse, but we still were in one room, but the second room she used, that she would have us go and help a student who maybe

was having trouble. So I did that. And that turned one family completely around, I guess. Or maybe they didn't have a problem, but all they kept telling everybody was that, you know, how she's

helped our child or how she helped us, you know, and that's probably—and my mother, she was very much, she was very good about volunteering and doing this and, and she'd help with the school, and all these kinds of

things. But I think, I don't know if it—I–I guess I just learned to ignore it. And then our—I guess I learned to deal with it. I guess that's the whole thing.

I found out that I had to be able to–to do some of these things that weren't maybe an ideal thing for what my mother thought a girl should be doing. But, you know, I go up to the top and jump off of the things that I

wasn't supposed to and all of this. If everyone else did it, I guess I only felt I should do it to, so. Yeah. So aside from school, what kind of chores did you have to do on the farm once you got old enough?

Well, by the time I was nine, you know, people started realizing that, like, Montana Grandpa, Grandma was— she was pretty sharp and able to carry on a good conversation.

And then we, I got involved with 4-H. And every, my, my mother could sew like nobody's business, so she could teach a lot about sewing, and she taught herself to do it.

But she was really a very good seamstress. And so I was in 4-H, that was kind of a thing, like, I went to, and then when I was eight, I started taking piano lessons.

But it wasn't because I was any gifted child, 'cause I wasn't. It wasn't like, here was this child who heard this piece one time and played it through flawlessly. I was busy running

around out in the dirt and sand and whatever to think about playing anything flawlessly or going to. But I think my mother felt that the arts—somewhere she must have really felt that the arts are an important part of growing up.

So all of us had lessons or played an instrument of one kind or another. And, to show you about communication, we went into town, we lived seven and a half miles out of town. And let's see if I was eight, that would mean the war

had been over, 'cause the, yeah, so, she took me into town. The next thing I knew, I was at this house. Here was the house with the big piano in it. And I was taking my first piano lesson and I didn't even know I was supposed to be

taking one. So, that–that's how that happened. And I don't know otherwise, I was—you were asking about helping around the farm.

When I was small, well, when I was about six, and I had my younger brother, and my cousin, who was, he was a year older, I guess my younger brother’s five years younger than I.

So my cousin was, what, four. But the, you know, the rest of the grown ups are all working out in the field. So part and—but my grandma was there, but part of my job was supposed to be helping my grandma keep tabs on these kids.

I don’t know how good a job I did. But that was part of it. Then when I—by the time I was in 4-H, part of it is you learn to cook well. By the time I was ten, I was probably pretty heavily involved in the cooking.

By the time I was twelve, I was doing it all. And the wash, ‘cause we did the washing. But then I might say this part about it. When you–you come from Bellevue,

Washington, you end up in Montana with no electricity or running water. Can you imagine what that would have been? So I can remember my mother, washing clothes by hand with these big wash tubs and a washboard.

And the clothes were not, they were farm clothes, they weren’t super clean. Then we’d have to hang them on the line. So that, and then I think I was in eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade, we–we move—the people who own the farm

moved into town, and we moved into the big farmhouse, it actually had a running, running water in the bathroom. And by then we all, we did have electricity, think–think we got it when I was about seven or so.

But that was the lap of luxury, and we did the laundry and then a washing machine. But we still had to haul it up and hang it outside. Somewhere in winter, we hung our clothes outside.

So how did you—so what happened in the time between, like, just when you first moved to the farm, and then when you decided to go study music in college? Like, how did you decide to become a music major?

Well, the whole interesting thing is somewhere around the line about this piano lesson that I never knew I was going to take to start with, and see my folks, my, them found an old piano, was a big old upright they must have

bought at a farm auction. And it was in our labor house. And the house that we moved into, oh, that–that was a much nicer, was a better place than the first one we had.

You know, when we moved to the farm we were in, they built this house for us, the farm we eventually lived on, owned. And my mother, somewhere had read that an hour a day was the magic amount of time.

So, my first lesson I learned middle C. Have you ever tried to practice middle C for an hour? I'm glad I didn't. So that's what I had to do.

But then I get bored playing middle C for an hour. So then I'd start fiddling around. And then my next lesson was C-D-C in the right hand, maybe I got to do C-B-C in the left hand, I

don't know. But you know, so that I would fiddle it down around and see what was on top of the piano, and then I'd have to go to the bathroom outside, it was an outdoor privy.

Then I had to do this. Well, the whole irony about that. My mother was ir—would iron shirts, and they were work shirts. She was ironing 'em. And it was not electrical wiring.

It was those irons you put on the stove to get hot. And she would be ironing, and then she would, when I come in from being out in the bathroom forever. She'd say to me, oh well, that's two or three more shirts that you'll have to

practice now 'cause you have messed out, miss-missed out on that, so sometimes I'd be at the piano for much longer than one hour. Well, the thing is I got so I could play fairly well.

And I realized that I could do something that not everyone else could do, at least around there. Then I started getting into practicing a lot. So, and I don't, I'm not sure

I really played particularly well. It's just that I could play. You know, and I like to, and then my teacher gave me all these big, large, kind of heavy, large pieces, and the

challenge of playing them, and being able to do all this forceful playing, of course, is right up my alley. And I, and then I–I did a couple—I had a few students, neighborhood kids,

when I was in high school, we came for some piano lesson, I’d teach with them, and… When you were before college, or… Yeah, before college, when I was in high school. And then I—it came to the time to go to college,

and I said, well, I guess I thought I'd go and be a music major, which my mother opposed vehemently. So the whole thing was, I–I said, okay, I'll–I'll go and audition, and

if I don't get a scholarship, okay, but if I get a scholarship of some kind, then I'm going to go. And I did get a scholarship at the University of Montana. But she still wasn't very approving,

because she felt like I should go into nursing or something like that. And you have to remember, I'm—I was the only person that that—I was the fourth one. And I was—the other three were all in science, and here I come.

But again, I was always marching to a little different drumbeat, so. So did you always know that you wanted to be a teacher when you first started studying music? You mean when I started studying music?

Well, I grew up in the middle of north—in the middle of Montana, north Montana, where Highway 2 runs. I never heard any real live classical artists

until my teacher took me to hear George Bolet, who is a pianist, I think it was my senior year or something. I maybe heard one a couple at a—but see, I didn't have this realization of what all that was.

And I didn't know that there were other areas in music besides teaching. I just thought, okay, I'm going to go and be a music ed major, because that's all I knew existed.

So, thinking back to your time in college, do you think is there—can you think of, like, if there's a very impactful or important moment that influenced you? Well, first off, I have to tell you, I had no idea of what ear training was, because I

didn't have any. The, uh, only reason I got placed in a more advanced theory class—but that's because I knew how to write scales, I'm sure. But I went to school at a time when, when there were quite a

few veterans coming back to school on what they call their GI Bill. And they were music majors. These are guys who were arranging band scores and everything else in the military for their groups.

And then, the teacher I had was, I guess, considered the number one theory student who graduated at that time from, I think, Cincinnati or somewhere. And he played this big ol' chord.

And he says, okay, what's that chord? What is this chord I'm playing? And I'm thinking, well, what is this chord? And this one guy says, oh, I think that's a so and so, thirteenth with a

minor something and I thought, what is he talking about? I didn't know. I had no clue what they were talking about. So that was very humbling to know that I, I was really not

very, very intelligent about theory. There were lots of things I didn't know about music. I just—the only—the one thing I knew about music was I played the piano when I started.

And I even didn't know about applied music, even then, until I was talking to other freshmen, and this one young girl said, well, I said, oh, so, oh, she says, I'm in applied piano, and I said, what's there?

I had no idea, you know? Anyway, but I thought if I didn't get an A in piano, I'm sure my parents would get me out of school just like that. So I better get an piano.

That's all I worried about. I made it a goal that every day I would practice four hours, regardless, I thought, well, I guess I have to really practice. So—sorry.

Um, so you had, you said, there—that was around the time when veterans started coming back to the school. So how was… About '55, '56. I graduated from… So how was like the so—like

socially? Did–did you have to face any discrimination from these veterans or… No, not from the veterans at all, yeah. They were great. And they knew I was struggling and, you know, with courses like that.

There are other things I did well in, and, um, the other thing is, I did a lot of com—accompanying. So there was that too. But I was in awe of how these people could do these things.

And that's where I really heard jazz. Because these veterans, of course, they all knew, play jazz. And it became this whole thing of big band jazz and all that. And I just thought that was pretty incredible, you know, I didn't

realize what it could be. So I got kind of, you know, really admiring what they could do with that. I played in band, and I played an orchestra, and I sang

in the choir. I mean, I was taking a lot of courses because you didn't get a lot of credits for some of that. And my piano credit was one quarter hour. That's what I was getting for my piano credit.

But I just felt I needed to do those four hours. That was to me that's like, my mother's magical one hour when I started, four hours to me became a magical number for when I was in college.

However, the faculty then advised me to become an applied piano major. So that's how I ended up with both applied and music ed. So what happened between the

time when you graduated college, you said '55, '56? High school, graduated high school '55. So when did you graduate college? '59. Somewhere in between I met your Papa, who

is also, who also was a veteran, you know? And in '59, after I graduated in that summer, we got married in August of '59. How did you meet grandpa,

just in school? Did you meet grandpa in school? Yeah, he was going to school. He transferred in, just he transferred

in. He–he got out of the service, and he was from Aurora, and he went to Aurora College. But he decided he wanted to be a forester. And Montana, very strong

forestry school. So the summer before I met him, he came to Montana and worked for the forest department on one of those lookouts for, you know what, spotting fires. You should get him to talking, he has wonderful stories about

his adventures with the bear up there on that mountain. And then he took the forestry classes, but he said forestry courses are like engineering courses, you know what I'm saying.

And he says he realized that that wasn't kind of for him, transferred—he then graduated from journalism. So was it difficult being an interracial couple back then? Well, in order for—well, not in college so much, I guess, although it's an

interesting thing, my mom heard everything about what I was doing in college, socially. Of course, there are people from my hometown there, and I suppose they had to go home and tell their–their parents, and the parents had to

tell my mom, I don't know. But she heard all about, oh, I hear you're going with this guy, or I hear you're doing that and I'm thinking, gee whiz. But, um, I think the one

thing I never—you know, I'm kind of, I was oblivious about a lot of stuff. I just was trying to get my schoolwork and doing all that. But your, your papa went to check to see if legally we could get married.

And they had just changed the law about interracial marriage not too long before that. Because Montana Montana had interracial, I think it was not necessarily because of us, but also, I think there–there

was, there was a certain kind of animosity, maybe about Native Americans. There was a certain—not everybody had it, but there were those who did. But there were, there were laws about interracial

marriage before we got married. Then we, I don't know. People maybe wanted to say something until I opened my mouth, and they understood that I could understand everything they were saying.

You know? I remember when we were moved—then we move back to Aurora back to Illinois, people talking about me on an elevator like I was some inanimate object.

I just let 'em go ahead and talk. It was kind of fun to hear what they were trying to say. But there was that case. And then one lady we were, was part of what your

Papa was doing. So I was helping her something, and we had, they had some sort of social gathering. And this lady asked me what part of Japan I was from.

Now this is after your dad was born that this happened. So that's been a while, you know, but I said, well, I'm from Montana. “Well, what part of Japan is that in?”

And your Papa almost said near the Canadian border, but he thought he would not say anymore. We still laugh about that. It just showed, you know.

And other people just kind of started laughing and rolling their eyes. So during that time, there was still, like, people being overtly discriminating against, like, people of color,

Asian people. Do you think that affected my dad and, like, my uncles? And if so, how did you teach them… Well, I think it did. In a certain extent, I didn't realize how much.

Your dad could—kind of stood up for himself pretty well, but your uncle, your oldest uncle really had a hard time when we—not, it was when we moved to our second place here in Rockford.

And he had kids waiting for him, giving them a bad time. But the whole thing is he–he has, he didn't want me to go to school to

talk about it. He didn't. I found out what was going on. And I found it very interesting, 'cause when I went to the school, to talk to the principal about that,

and said that my, I think my eldest son is a pariah in the classroom. She said, well, what do you mean, what does that mean? Of course, your

Auntie Rae got pretty livid, your great aunt Rae, when I reported this to her, she says, I think I was, would have told her, well, I'll tell you precisely what it means. “Pariah means,” you know.

But it was not easy for him at that time. So how did you teach them to deal with it? I don't know if I taught 'em anything about it.

We didn't exactly, I don't know, if we just sat down and talked about, think about it, uh, even. I–I probably, you just, I–I guess I

was, felt, you know, I was raised to deal with it kinda. But I did try to intervene in that case, because I–I didn't like the idea of kids waiting outside school. And I also felt that that was reflective of our moving into

that community. Because what as you know, yeah, you don't, our—because of the mixed-race heritage, our–our–our sons didn't really look

particularly Asian at that time. So you know, that there had to be something coming from the parents, and so it filters into the kids.

That's all. And that's kind of I guess what I don't, I mean, it's hard. For, and I know that now, as, I–I realized it was hard as a kid. But the kids don't know the difference.

It's because what they're told makes it different. Just like when I went to first grade, something had to come up for that little girl to come up and call me that. And it probably was a big story about, oh, hey, they moved over

there, you know, they have a kid that's going to be in first grade here, and blabity blah. It's not the kids. And then you have to—they're just reflecting what they're,

they're hearing, or grownups are saying. So when did you guys move into Rockford? What year was that? We moved in, we moved to Rockford in the summer of '63.

Before your dad was born, and then we rented a place. Let's see, how did this all go, yeah, we rented a place. And it turned out that the people sold the place.

It was a little house. So we had to urgently find another place to live. And so we got a temp—and we had, I have to tell you, we–we did not have very many dollars.

So then we ended up moving temporarily to this other house that the real estate man found for us to temporary li-live in. And your Uncle Mark, I was doing laundry downstairs and

he– he was a very cautious child, but I don't know what he did, why he decided do this. He climbed up something and fell down and broke his arm, broke his leg, seriously broke his leg. And,

so, he was, he was in traction for I don't know how many weeks in the hospital, and then he had to be in a full body cast. And it was kind of like learning to walk again. Well, it happened I think in I want to say late

October, early November, because I remember that was the year that President K-Kennedy was assassinated. And your Papa called me and said I think you should look at the TV a minute. Because I was gonna go to the hospital to

see–see your Uncle Mark. And then, and of course then I was expecting your dad, and he made his appearance the next June.

So when did you—you said you started teaching in high school already teaching piano, private lessons. Yeah. And I taught some in the summertime when I was getting home. Then I–I also did, I, because I was so

active in 4-H in the summer. I think I wrote that somewhere, that I–I had my summer job after, when I was in college to do rural arts and recreation at camps out in southeastern Montana.

Then, that was fun 'cause I was earning, you know, I thought wow, I'm making some money. Course it wasn't… But, and then when—and I graduated

from college, and then I, um, we lived in Aurora for a couple years. Uncle Mark was born in Aurora, and then in 1963

we moved up to Rockford. So when did you start teaching from home as a, like, private piano teacher? Oh, well, I taught I guess I started teaching privately in Aurora and

maybe '60, late '61, or early '62. And I had a few students, but they didn't come to the house. I went to their house. But then in '63,

we moved to DeKalb, because I was working on this Master's business and finishing up, and your Papa was, and then your–your Papa was

start, was starting anot—and then he started another job then after that. Um, and then from there, he got hired by an insurance company to come up to Rockford so we came to Rockford. We knew no one in Rockford, when we came

here. And then I started teaching, I became, I joined the Mendelssohn, at that time it was called Mendelssohn Club. And I–I feel a great

obligation, I audition—in those days you audition to be a performing member of the Mendelssohn Club. And I–I did a lot of, you were also expected to be a good volunteer.

But then the other thing is, they recommend, they had a list of teachers they would recommend for people who called in for piano teachers. And that's really how I kind of got started in

Rockford teaching piano. Now, you know— So do you think that your Japanese ethnicity was, impacted your interactions with the community in Rockford

or, like, at that time? You mean, were there problems? I don't know. Oh, I never thought about it. I never encount—you

know, the thing is, I guess if somebody were–were not, was not very forthcoming or nice, I mean, you're, when you're getting to be in your twenties, some of the name calling, especially if you're supposed to be civilized stops.

It's not the same as when you're six years old. So if there, if there's was—some of it I put, I–I don't know if the animosity was because of

what I look like or whatever. I just figured, oh, well. If they don't, if they don't want to be friendly, that's fine.

That's their business. I don't, I have other people I can be friendly with, you know? My, I guess that's how my personality is, and I'm sure your dad would readily agree with

that, you know. I just, I feel that, um, if people are, aren't, are feel, have bad feelings, then I'm not going to push myself on 'em.

I have things, other people that I can be perfectly fine with. So I–I just, I–I never thought about whether it was because of race or because of personal differences.

So I never tried to look for any kind of a–a race business with it, because—and that's the other thing to understand. I grew up in primarily a Caucasian community.

We were the only Japanese people in Montana once the war was over. Not Montana, but in Chinook. So I grew up in a, in a Caucasian

capacity, and of course, we didn't speak Japanese at home. My dad did. But primarily when I was growing up, people laugh about that. Later, when they didn't want us to understand what was being said they would talk, start talking into

Japane-Japanese. But then, of course, that's when my ears would really perk up, and I'm trying to figure out what they were saying, you know. But, um, we just didn't. So, unfortunately, when my students at Rockford University

used to ask me about speaking Japanese, I said, no, I can't do that. But the one thing, one of the students figured out was I understood some basic Japanese, because of growing up with my mom and grandma. They were talking, they

said, you guys, she's, to 'em, you guys better be careful, she understands, you know? Like this inanimate "she" standing over there! So that–that was—but no, it

was, I guess that did have a direct influence, World War II, and the whole experience about not, kind of almost denying who you were in a way. Because you, you were so busy

tryna assimilate and be acceptable. So, between this—so between this time, you guys moved to Rockford and then afterwards, a while later, you decided to study for your Master's?

No, I had my Master's then. I–I went on, I started getting on working on my Master's—actually, what hap— what it started as was almost, um,

I guess it was a healing process for me. What do you mean by that? Because in 1961, well, uncle, your Uncle Mark was born in 1960.

In 1961, I was pregnant again, and we lost the child in May of '61. And, um, actually,

they were going to come and tell me he was going to make it. But he didn't. And I don't, I–I guess what happened is, I don't know if it's postpartum blues or what, but I couldn't get over

it. And I was kind of alone, you know, and no family there, except of course, your Papa's family, but I wasn't going to let on to them or tell them, but he knew 'cause I was—he come home from work and I'd be sitting there just–just

in bad, not very good shape. So he's—after a while he–he said, I think you need to start playing your piano and start doing something with it again. So that's when I—so that was kind of almost like medicine, you

know, psychologically, so I went to Northern and played for this man. And he said yes, he would take me as a student. And back in those days, it was very inexpensive to

go to Northern for credit hour, so I could afford it. Well, the thing is, I took some other courses and accumulated enough credits that I qualified to get a Master's so I figured, oh, well, I guess I'll do that.

And I did. And then where, that—what happened after that is I had a little break, and then I decided to go back and take some piano.

And then I got a fellowship. And it was like gold to me because it gave me enough money to buy a broken down old Volkswagen bug to go back and forth to Northern. And at that

time, we had, we had the, we had two children. Yeah, uncle, your–your dad was still a toddler, not even that. I went back and, uh, and then

I—part of the thing was I had to take courses at that time. That was a struggle, 'cause I was trying to teach, I didn't have as many students as I later did, but I was teaching, and then you—I had your–your dad

and Uncle Mark and you know, um, but then I got into some difficulties, 'cause I didn't declare to graduate. And I didn't, I wasn't really going for that–that particular degree, but I guess the rule was I had to do this.

So I–I kind of argued about that. I have all these stories about these kind of academe things that—no, so we can kick you out of school.

So I said, okay, I'll–I'll do this. Well, the whole irony is that they call it a Certificate of Advanced Study. And it's primarily 30, Master's plus 32, primarily for teachers, 'cause you—that's another breaking point

for–for your—and, and I decided that I would participate in the summer graduation programs, so that your Papa's parents could see one of us graduate from college. Because they didn't see your Papa.

They didn't see your uncle. So I said, okay, I'll do this. Then was outdoors. Well, the first irony of this whole thing was I went to get a robe.

And they asked me what degree I was getting, and I told them, they said, well, what kind of robe do you wear for that? And I says, well I don't know! You

know. Well, I–I don't know if they gave me a doctoral robe or what. So here you are. And then they said it was out in the field, out on the football field.

And we all had to sit up in the stands, where they cheered, you know, the student body. The doc—the actual doctoral candidates got to be on the field, in chairs, but not. And so

then they said, will all—they once went through all of this, you know—will all the so and so's please stand, and all this. So it's like you're getting a general benediction, because of course, they don't know for sure if you've earned

your degree yet at that point or not. But they haven't finished grading or whatever. So then they asked, will all the candidates for Certificate of Advanced Study stand, there were two of

us that stood, and they gave us our general benediction, and we sat down. And your Papa's parents said, if you didn't have that pink stole on, we wouldn't have seen you.

And, you–you know, the thing is—and then there were many people there who are getting their MBA's, I mean, these are guys who commuted after work to get their degrees.

So they're sitting next to me, of course, and they said, will all the so and so's sorts, and they gave the gen—and then they all sat down, and the guy says, you mean I commuted for this many years just to get that?

So you know, it kind of put you back into your place again, I guess. But yeah. No, so, I–I did that. I really was doing the extra lessons, partially

to, for myself to be better, but also because I felt if I'm going to teach, I should be able to–to tell the students and show the students things and hopefully be a better instructor.

So after you got this Master's, you taught at Harlem High School and Rockford College, right? Yeah, well see, I got this degree. And for many years, I taught privately, I was teaching over fifty students a week, privately.

And yes, you asked about wear and tear on the family and home, I'm sure, 'cause they, you know, we had a carpet on the floor where we lived down in–in Rockford. And you could see the path where the students

came in and sat on the sofa. And then the path is similar to the piano, it wore a hole, you know, . And that made, there was, it made your Uncle Mark, and your

dad, pretty had, they had to take on a lot of responsibilities, 'cause I was so busy teaching 'cause, you know, you didn't have students coming in any old time of the day, it was always after school and evening.

And Saturdays, so, um, but we needed, I needed to do it. I liked doing it, but I also needed to do it. And I've been doing this for quite a while, and it wasn't till

19-, the fall of '77 that I started teaching high school. So that means your–your Uncle Mark was a senior in high school. And I really didn't, my friends told me about the job opening.

And I said they might, they probably will not hire me, because first off, they don't want people with as many credits as I have. Wow. They don't want people with as many credits? Well, it costs more.

I'm sorry, to be simplistic. But I–I felt that way. And it was truth, except they couldn't get somebody else I think.

So, I started teaching high school, and I taught high school choir. And part of my job was doing musical, teaching—doing a musical theater production. There's nothing as a music ed major

that prepares you to direct a musical theater production, I'm saying that right now. And when I found out I had to do that, I went and got books on how to I had no idea how a set went, I have no idea of anything.

And how did that compare with teaching at the college? It was different. I taught at the high school for six years. And I decided it was time to make a change. The one thing that I–I knew was I could always

teach privately. I knew that, but, um, then I filled in Rockford College, and eventually went full time. The–the funniest thing that struck me and you'll probably laugh very much at

this, and you can erase this from the recording or whatever it was. When I first started Rockford college, I could smell cigarette smoke. And I—who's smoking here?

'Cause you know, in high school, that's a big no no. So it's, it was, kind of making that transition was a bit of a–a thing, you know? But, but it was—teaching at Rockford college was

very good for me. From the standpoint that it was small college and I–I had to teach some courses in music history, which meant I had to do again, a lot of research to

do just general music history. Right. So you taught music history classes there? Yeah, I taught, I taught fundamentals of theory. As one of my colleagues called it, "fun for mentals" when I

was teaching. But—and the thing Rockford College is a liberal arts school, and so I had a lot of non-major students taking fundamentals of theory

as that I taught, and I realized that it's, it's very, very good to have all of this exposure to other areas, to not be just focused on one thing, I mean, these, these, some of these students are brilliant.

They were there, and I taught them the circle of fifths, and we, they could play all the scales by using the tetrachords up and down, you know, and stuff. And they did it.

They, you know, I tried to make them understand that if you knew how the pattern worked, you can do any scale if you stop and think about it. And then we had—the math people had to take a semester of regular theory.

And that was, that was good. And of course, the other thing, Rockford College required of all their students is like in the academics, you have to write, essays, stuff.

So like, music history and stuff, they had to write essays and I had to figure out questions that would—rather than multiple choice or whatever. And some of the students I had were wonderful, Lia.

Wonderful, wonderful students. So what would you say that is the thing you're most–most passionate about, being a music teacher? Well, I don't teach music anymore.

I think what I got the most passionate about before I retired, was interdisciplinary. The whole idea of the, of the performing arts, and the relationships, and how

you, how you look at that. I taught an interdisciplinary course, or that we taught for our performing majors or, you know, in our department, and it was the idea of music

and dance and theater. And then, looking at how, why and how people treat the same subject matter, like we took—you might take a Shakespeare play, and see how it's,

how it's treated. And also you look at how theatre treats a Shakespeare play, do they update it? What do they do with it? And so when I was in London, for those couple of years, that was wonderful. 'Cause I did a thing with Romeo and

Juliet, and some the kids were "ehh", you know how that is, until they got into it, and until they went and saw the opera, they went and saw the Royal Ballet do the dance, Romeo and Juliet.

They went and saw a modern version in a black box theater for Romeo and Juliet. And they all have to write on, and they, some of them, wrote pages and

pages and pages, I'd be sitting there reading forever about stuff they'd seen, and they could, and I gave them, I also asked them to write about something, because if you're in London, there's so much going on, something that they

had gone to see in the arts. And then we got to—and those are students from not just Rockford College, but other colleges in that class, they got into a very heated discussion about film versus theater in the class, it got very heated.

And I said, well, you know, we have to—class is over now, you can finish your arguments in your pa—in your journals. I shouldn't have said that, because I was reading forever. And I mean, they were, it was really fine

comments, and how they felt, and what they thought. I, I think that that was maybe for me, one of the best things I ever—I–I felt really good about that. And what do you think is the most important motivation

to be a good teacher? Well, I don't know. You have to care. You have to care about what you're doing. And you have to care about

your students. I always felt that there was so much more I could do to be a better teacher. I mean, if you're not, I–I always felt there is—even, yeah, there's a lot more

that I could have learned or done or whatever, to be a better teacher. And I know that my best area of teaching is piano, because I know the most about it. But even that my–my

style of teaching changed radically over the years, about how I approached it and stuff, because I was taught a certain way and I kind of carried that. But I started realizing that way—there's, there are other ways

to approach this. And I think that that–that was, I learned a lot. And speaking of teachers learning, I mean, I–I–I—Rockford College is a small school, so I had to teach some of the history courses.

We just didn't have the faculty, and I had to do a lot of research. Well, if you're, if you're an applied piano major, at least in my day, we didn't do a lot of study of the, going into all the history,

and it really opens your eyes about why something is this way or that way, or, I–I–I felt that it helped me tremendously. Maybe more than I might, I might have helped our students, I don't

know what—I really feel that all of this kind of research and looking and–and just can't help but make you better at what you do. I think that when I was growing up, I

was so locked into making sure I knew this piece and got that memorized. And, you know, to be able to have the luxury of really knowing about other–other things surrounding

that piece, really, I think—granted, I may not, I may not play perfectly. Never have, but I may not play even that perfectly, no, but I do understand it a lot better,

about what I'm doing. And I had a teacher tell me that. And I thought—”when I was about your age, a piano teacher—someday, Rulee,” he said, “you will find that

the mind is ready, but the fingers are no longer willing.” I thought, what does he mean by that? Well, I kind of know. So. Um, in the interest of time, I just wanted to, like, end—wrap

up this section and go to the next one. There's a last section. So how would you identify yourself, like, as like a Japanese American or American, like

along those lines? I guess, I never—I realize that there is this movement to identify yourself. I guess I just always thought of myself as an American.

I–I realized I'm–I'm ethnically different. But I never really thought that much about the fact that I'm—I know I'm Japanese. And I'm–I'm proud of the fact that I'm Japanese.

And I have to say, honestly, when I grew up and was little I wasn't so proud, because it sounded like I had a bad disease. But I'm proud of–of that. But I also feel that I am

an American. I–I–I would not fit into the current—going back to Japan, and being Japanese, because I've had no experience being Japanese like that.

I might know some of the customs. But I really am not, um, as my sister who visited there, your great Aunty Rae, who's a brilliant person, she says, you know, she says

you and I would not fit there. We're too independent, for one thing. We kind of just forge our own ways. And I think that, maybe that's changed in Japan, but her experience

when she went there was it was still a little bit more man's world, and… mhm. And I'm not, I don't keep my voice low and soft and genteel.

You know, and when I get angry, people will know it. So I–I don't consider myself Japanese, in that sense. Yes, I'm of Japanese heritage, and

I'm proud of that. But I'm–I'm, I am, I'm an American. I know the American customs, I know how, what Americans do. And I obviously don't speak the Japanese language,

you know. And I think that that part—my–my father used to take issue with people who tried to be in a way what they're not. And I guess I kind of grew up

with that. You know, you are what you are. So here I am. This is what I am, you know. And I–I like people, it's pretty obvious, I

mean, I'm a people kind of person. And I like all kinds of things. I just, I just do. So I don't, it's just that, like, when

you ask me that, I'm, I am a Japanese American, but I am an American of Japanese ethnicity. I'm not Japanese of American ethnicity.

Yeah, I see. To this day, do you still feel like there is, or do you still feel discrimination as an Asian American, as, like, you did back then? Oh, I think there is discrimination.

I mean, uh, I mean, it wasn't too, it was—while your–your Montana great grandpa was alive, that we went into a restaurant and your uncle Dirk was with us. And he felt it. He said, he says,

is this a place where there are supremacists? I said, I don't know. He said, Mom, didn't you feel it when you went in the restaurant? Everything just stopped. I says, oh, I guess your–your grandpa and I have learned to

shut some of that out. He said he was so uncomfortable. I says, wow. He still talks about it now and again.

But I guess there are certain things that maybe we've just schooled ourselves not to pay that much attention to. And I guess if people want to discriminate, it's,

it's too bad, 'cause I think it, it—the problem that I see happening is that people, if they're allowed to just think it's okay, to take it to any means. To me, that's not okay, but that'd be the same as I wouldn't

like to see somebody really picking on somebody who's a weaker person. I mean, we have all kinds of discrimination, not nec—yes, racial is very much a big part of it, but there's all kinds of other kinds of discrimination

against people. Might be size, it might be how they look, it might be, you know, and that makes it—unfortunately, we should be a little more understanding period.

All the way around. Yeah. Right. Do you think that there has been—do you think that there are ways in which the—or do you think that America has become like a better place to live or a worse place to live

in terms of, just, social equality, just more— has it become more accepting as a society? I don't know.

There are certain aspects of discrimination in society that I have to admit with, with a shamed face that I really wasn't aware of to what extent, because, again, it depends where you grow up, and what you've

seen. That—also, I–I do think that with realization comes the fact, it comes—becomes more stress. That doesn't necessarily mean the world it-it's a worse place.

It's the understanding of of a, I mean, I–I try to put myself in the shoes of other people who've gone through really bad discrimination. And I think, how would I react to that?

How, how do I, what do you do? Do you deny who you are? Or do you come out fighting mad and wanting to take down anybody who dares oppose you?

How–how do we react to it? I don't know. But it's appalling, that as human beings, we can't seem to get around that corner, because there's so much that could be positive

that could happen if we forget about stuff like that. How somebody looks shouldn't have a bearing on how we ea—we value that person.

You—maybe I can see having a–a value system in terms of other things that you might think are important. But just basing it on, because "well, my dad said that family is no good," or whatever.

And you don't want to go against what your dad said, but maybe you need to look at it and see why, you know? I'm–I'm just saying, I–I–I think there are wonderful things that have happened.

You and I can Zoom. We can talk on our–our little machine, you know, our little things. But I had none of that growing up.

We didn't have a phone even, no TV, none of that. So I'm—but there are, the part about that is that was good is we had to be resourceful people. We kinda had to figure out things,

how to do this. And one thing you learned is you did a lot of reading and a lot of—you play games, and you did all these kinds of things.

People, I realized when I was teaching music, one on one, how many people in the US years ago used to stand around the piano and sing when they got together? I asked my class, how many of your families

do that, and they all looked at me like, huh? You know, but that's a lost communication. That shared kind of thing is lost. Just 'cause we've gotten to more modern and more conveniences

in life, that kind of thing is easier, doesn't necessarily mean it's better in terms of our relationships with each other. Right. Last question of this section is, since the COVID-19 pandemic

started, there's been, obviously a rise in anti-Asian sentiments and rhetoric. Because you were once a teacher, if you put yourselves in the shoes of a teacher right now, if you were teaching some students who were seeing this happen, what would

you—do you have any advice for them, or what would you say to them? Well, I don't know what I'd say. I–I guess I would tell them, well, it's not that I don't know about that. It's not that I'll go and stick my ass—not that I'm sticking my head in the sand

about that. I'm very distressed, because what I see happening now is more physical acting out of your, your feelings about discrimination.

I'm not su—I–I have to tell you that. We have more things, we talk about more kinds of getting along and all that. But I don't feel we're

a more civilized society, um, when we, you act on your anger in such a way that it's hurtful. I–I don't think of that

is being more civilized. And I feel, I would, I guess, I've had students talk to me before about the fact that they felt that they were being discriminated.

And I guess I don't have a solution for that, other than what we had to do, which was try to be, to work harder, to do our thing. And say hello, you know, and that, and that's it. I didn't have to be

the best buddy. And I–I, um, I also think that I kind of learned, even though it might feel, you might feel bad, you have to pick your battles in terms of if you're going to be confrontational or not.

I–I always, you know, we, I guess how we learned to cope with it when I was growing up is we just worked harder. And we were always polite to people. And very—we were willing to be helpful.

And, um, and we felt we—people started to understand that we were just as human as they were. But that takes a while.

I don't know for you, the luxury of that happens in a, in a more urban society. I don't know, you know? I don't. I don't have any solution for—all I can tell a student who

comes to me with that is I think that you need to find a group of friends who–who understand and who don't have those kind of feelings. And have them, make sure you have them around you as your friends.

And I'm not making, saying that all my friends have to be Asian, you should have a wide mix of friends around you who are like, who feel the same way you do, who don't care if you're purple or orange or have three

eyes. But they're your friends, and that whole business about being friends and, and being part of that group. And if somebody—when you're in a

group, there's, there, you're less apt to run into some of that, 'cause how good does that feel to a constant group of people that someone who look like you, and say that, you think that's going to go over very well? I think we have

to, we have to think about reason about ourselves. Yes, but that's the wonderful thing about being part of a democracy, supposedly, is that you are not a certain race. I mean, that was, there were bad things that happened in

our history, but as we have more and more cultures melding into our history, we really should get away from some of that.

And because the whole thing is, we are, we are first and foremost Americans. And my part of being American is I'm Asian, but I'm still American.

Your Papa's part of being an American is that he is primarily of German descent. Your–your–your heritage is very mixed. You know. And I think we all—and maybe for me, part of the

benefit of growing up in the culture that I did, I had to be part of a culture that I wasn't ethnically. So I kind of learned to deal with certain things like this, you know. And I–I have some really good friends.

And the whole interesting thing about this, Lia, is somebody heard about this book called Strawberry Days that was written about this, and asked if they could read it. And I sent them a copy, it's out of print now.

Well it hit my hometown like wildfire, people read it. And I had people write to me and say, this tells you the kids who were my age, they didn't realize this was going on. They didn't realize this is why

we came to Chinook, Montana. And they were appalled. I—and so my, my one of my very closest friends who played piano, and she

has—when we get our reunion, 'bout how come we didn't have that? I says, well, you have to remember, you and I were kinda in a nerdy group. "Oh yeah, that's right. That's right." And then she laughed.

But the whole thing is, she wrote to me because of this business, where they're fixing the one in Heart Mountain and Wyoming, the relocation center. And she said, were you, did you come to Chinook because of that?

And I said yes. She cried. She never realized. And she says, I can't believe it. And she's—and one of the students that I went

to school with, that grew up in my area, in the one room school, she wrote me a two or three page letter, she read it, and she said, I just didn't realize. Because when you're a young kid, you're just parroting what you hear others

say. But now that she's read it, she's looking at it from a different viewpoint. So in a way, it probably just kind of have to say, okay, changed my

family's life forever, but that's the way it goes right sometimes? And sometimes for the better, and sometimes, maybe not. I've always felt that we've had some rough times, but

overall, we've become better people because of it. Right? So to me, it's all about being a good person or trying to be the best you can be.

Which I think you are trying to do. The last question for the interview, how would you like to be remembered? Well, I know how some people will remember me!

Well, I hope that people will remember me as somebody who cared and tried to do her best, you know? I don't, I don't care about having, you know—I just,

I guess the fact that–that people remembered you as trying to be a decent human being. I'm sure there are those who might disagree when I've , that's the way it is, you know?

And I feel that our legacy should be that we have tried to do the best we can. You know, I feel that I–I have nothing, but—I

think of your great grandpa. He had a real rough road. Never complained. He had to start over how many times?

He, you know, he's raised by his grandparents, and he came to this country at sixteen to be with his dad. And then this, he's married my mom, and had this farm, and then the war broke out, and came to

Montana, and then the farm broke, burned down. So he started again. But I never heard him say, oh, poor me. He says, well I guess that's it then, that was his comment all the time.

"Well, I guess that's it, then. We have to do this." And that's why we never went back to Bellevue, Washington, we have nowhere to go. So he says, well, we'll stay here then.

And we stayed there, and he made good friends. And there were those people who still didn't like him for whatever reason, then there were racial stories, 'cause some of the

people who him were so appalled. I was just telling somebody the other day, that in the winter, the winters are long up in northern Montana, especially when you live on a farm.

So to pass the time away, everybody learned to play pinochle cards. And your grandma and grandpa, great grandma and grandpa, were wonderful—they loved

playing pinochle. And I guess they must have taught a lot of people to play pinochle, and those people brought others, because they would have a pinochle party at our house on the farm. And there would be as many as twelve

to fourteen tables of four coming to our house to play cards in the winter at night. They would make sure—they couldn't get into their farm because of the snow, but they had their car out on the road.

They drive the tractor up to the car, get in, and drive down. And some of them lived quite a ways away, so they could have play cards and have a good time. I think that's

part of what we're missing, now. You don't see a lot of that kind of social, you know. So they all knew they were coming to my folks' house.

They also knew they—there were no phones, they drop in, and they always knew there was coffee on the tab—you know, on the stove. And they always could have a cup of coffee. There's something to be said about being a hospitable person.

So I guess I just would like to be remembered as somebody who tried to be decent. Right? I'm sure there are going to be lots of other stories. Is there anything else that you'd like to share that we haven't talked

about yet? We've talked about a lot. So I hope you can edit whatever parts of that you feel are value and you know, there's, there are just lots of stories.

And when you have families, you do have lots of stories. That's why when I get together with my brothers, we're all getting older. But lots of stories still come out, and some we've heard before, and we laugh over the same stories.

But others are like new examples. But they're all part of our, our family. And I think you have that too, sure on your mom's side.

And if you ever get your dad and your uncles together, they'll really tell stories. That's there's—I think the, this kind of shared stuff is a good thing.

I would think. Yeah, so. I don't know if you have any other kinds of things you want to ask me, I'll be happy to. Um, I think that's it for me, and

we can add some more things later too, so. Okay, well you think about it. Okay. I'm gonna stop recording in a sec. Yeah,