<Begin Segment 2>

BN: Well, I was going to ask you, what ended up happening to the business, your mother's sisters?

MT: I guess he just sold it, he just sold it. But we were saying, conversely, if we took the business, we'd be living in San Francisco and we kind of liked Alameda, we really liked Alameda.

BN: You had a different life, maybe.

MT: Different life, totally different life.

BN: So they get married and move to Alameda. Does your father continue with the gardening?

MT: Yes, he did.

BN: Right up to the war?

MT: Right up to the war. And he kind of liked it because it was his own business and he did what he wanted to do. And he worked hard, so you could make as much as you wanted to, as you could. So he enjoyed that.

BN: And then where were you in the order of the children?

MT: My sister Teri was the oldest, she was the first one. And she will be ninety-seven this year, in September. Cookie had her birthday a couple days ago, she just turned ninety-three. And I'm ninety... excuse me, I'll be ninety in June, and there were three of us. We got some good genes from my father, I think. My father died at ninety-three, and he was the baby of four sons and a daughter, they all lived long.

BN: And then where did you live in Alameda?

MT: Before the war, it was a street named Eagle Avenue, 2316 Eagle Avenue, we lived there. That's where my father moved when Cookie was going to be born. And I was born in that house.

BN: Were there a lot of other Japanese in the area at that time?

MT: Yes, there were Japanese, there was a Japantown, two clumps of Japantown, small, but there were two clumps. And that's what this Alameda historically was all about, they want to put some historical markers in those two areas. And we couldn't... there was an article in the newspaper there, on the table on display that said that the city of Alameda, I think it was the Alameda Times had an article in there. At the time of our evacuation, they apologized to the Italians and to the Germans and to the Japanese for being taken out and asking, getting kicked out of Alameda, because they contributed so much to our community, and they wanted to wish them luck and maybe they'll come back. I thought that was an interesting article, because Alameda was a white city, very white city. Ironically, they had a line in there that the editor didn't know, the writer didn't know. It said unfortunately, they didn't have the foresight to buy their home, or the Japanese couldn't buy a home. Because the people, some families had boys that were older, and they could stay there, they were citizens and they were able to live there. Parents had to move, and they didn't have to vacate their house. It was interesting.

BN: Well, in addition to your father, in addition to his gardening, he was also active in the community, right?

MT: Yes, very active.

BN: So what were some of the other things he was involved with?

MT: Well, he was temple president four, five, six times, I don't know. He was a Nihongakko, Japanese school president, he founded that, one of the founders. And Nihonjinkai, that was a Japanese community thing, he was president of that. He was the Fukuoka-ken...

BN: Kenjinkai.

MT: Ken thing. So we were just really surprised that was not taken up. To this day, we think about that. One guy asked me, an older Nisei said, "Was he a squealer?" [Laughs] I said, we thought about that, but no, my dad would never do that. He was in the army. He was in the Russo-Sino War, the katana and everything, we burned everything in the backyard. Everything had to do with the battles and everything, he burned everything. At night we'd go out and burn everything. But there was a black car parked in front of our house every night. We thought any day they're going to come in.

BN: But they never did?

MT: They never did. But anyway, we were really fortunate. Maybe it's... yeah, I don't know why.

BN: Well, in some ways, the whole community was excluded, so maybe that... that is interesting. That happened to my grandfather, too. He was a Japanese school principal and so forth, but for whatever reason...

MT: He didn't get picked up.

BN: He didn't get picked up. This is in Hawaii. So given his involvement, you must have had to go to the Japanese school, right, if he's the president of the...

MT: For two years I went, but then they closed the school. I only went two years.

BN: Were you involved in other kinds of activities, too, as a kid?

MT: Before the war?

BN: Yeah.

MT: No, not really.

BN: Not too much. Because you were pretty young.

MT: Yeah, I was nine years old, yeah.

BN: Who were your... I mean, what school did you go to at that time?

MT: Grammar school was just Porter school, and I was right across the high school. It was a pretty large school, I remember. But the Alameda people lived in the two Japantown areas, they all went there. But there weren't too many my age, they were a little bit older than I. And they went to Porter school and they went to Alameda High and they almost invariably, one of them would be a valedictorian, going on to high school. Japanese were smart. Well, they had to study.

BN: About how many other Nisei were there, what percentage?

MT: I went to kindergarten, up through fourth grade, and there was probably five or six, maybe.

BN: Oh, not too many.

MT: Yeah. My friends were pretty much Caucasian friends. And although I say it was a white city, I was invited to my friend's birthday parties, and we'd invite them to my birthday party. But then I went to Nihongakko and then I went to church in Sunday school. So my friends out of school were Japanese. But my age group was small, I remember.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.