<Begin Segment 18>

JT: I have just a few other things to ask you, and they're more personal questions. I asked you about values or what your parents taught you, and I'm asking about your children now. Do you think that the Sansei -- you're a Nisei -- the Sansei have the same values as your parents and you and Mary?

MT: We didn't teach them very well.

KT: No, but I think...

JT: Oh, you mean role modeling.

MT: Well, Kenji was a good role model for a father, I think.

JT: Oh, you mean you didn't talk to, you didn't lecture them about values. We learn our values through osmosis, or what I call that, by experiencing them and living together. Like our parents didn't tell us to work hard, but we knew we had to because they worked hard and share all that. What do you think of this third, or the Sansei generation? I'm a Sansei, I'm an older Sansei. Your kids are Sansei, but they're young Sansei, right?

MT: Well, they're medium Sansei.

JT: Medium age. How old is Paul now?

MT: Fifty-seven or fifty-eight.

JT: See, they're young Sansei. Are they local, are they still around here?

MT: Donna lives about five minutes away, or five or ten minutes away. Paul lives in Mill Valley, so he's about twenty minutes away.

JT: I'm going to ask you one final thing. I wanted to ask you if you have any special advice that you wanted to give someone like me, my age, younger, someone younger than you. What kind of wisdom do you want to leave, tell Jo Jo? What kind of things have you learned about in your life that you want to pass on to others?

KT: Well, I don't have to pass things on to you people. You people have been taught very well by your...

JT: Oh, I see what you're saying.

KT: ...your parents. And you do more than your share.

JT: Oh, thank you for that. And my very last question is what kind of, the girls, Rhea and Reena. What kind of hopes do you have for them?

KT: Well, I think they're a little different in that their friendships are not with, strictly with the Japanese.

JT: Well, they live in a different, their pace of life is way different from ours. Even yours and then in mine, but it's a different world out there for them. And are you able to talk to them about your stories, and do you share your life like you're sharing with me right now? Do they know a lot about what you're talking about?

KT: They picked up some of them, I know. But I don't know whether they lectured...

JT: Oh, that you've purposely told them. Well, I'm going to ask you share all this with them, because I think if you don't tell them, they'll never know about you, and there are a lot more things I want to ask you about dating and Mary and all this, but I won't do that in this interview, I'll do that some other time. Would it be okay to come some other time and visit with you?

MT: Oh dear. [Laughs]

JT: Okay, well, I think you'll be here. I want to thank you for sharing all this with us.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.