Densho Digital Repository - Jo Takata Interview (Densho ID: ddr-ajah-1-6-10)

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VY: Yeah. So your dad worked a lot. You all, when you came out of camp, you were living in the, kind of the basement of the church?

JT: It would have been under the chapel, yeah.

VY: And then how long were you living there?

JT: We lived there 'til, from '46 to '52, around '53 and then there as a house for sale down the street, and of course, they wouldn't sell to Japanese. So my mom knew a lot of people. So she had this one family buy it by proxy. They bought it and then they sold it to Mom and Dad in 1952. And that house is, it's still in our family. Mom and Dad don't live there, but my nephew, one of our nephews lives there. And as I said, if that wall, those walls could talk, you could write books, volumes, because a lot of stories were told in that house.

VY: Because that's the house where all the people came?

JT: Oh, yeah.

VY: So during that time, as you were growing up in that house, it sounds like it was like the hub, everybody came there and...

JT: Not just the gardeners and the ladies doing after day work, but some of the families, a couple of families had only sons, and they, I have two brothers a year under me and a year beyond that. And they came, the only children came, sons came and they slept at our house, too. So here we are with six kids and other people, other boys, and we all slept in one room. Judy and me in one bed, Kent and David in another bed, and then the other two on the floor, at the foot. It was like an open house, it was like, there's always room for more. And we got... I used to get mad because, golly, one bathroom? It was not easy.

VY: It doesn't sound easy.

JT: And then, you know, when you buy pork chops, there's only so many pork chops, but you don't know how many people are going to be there. That's why I thought we were poor, and poor has different meanings, I think. We were so rich in other things that we weren't poor. People were always coming and bringing things to us, you know, the Japanese tradition. And Daddy worked in produce, and so he'd get broken crates of things, vegetables and fruits, and he'd bring them home. And the story about that, though, is that they never made it into the house because my mother, in her kindness and generosity, would call people up and have bags, and they'd come and she'd give it all away. And I'd get so mad, because the little devil in me, I said, "How can you give food away when we could use it?" But my mother was, had this faith. To me, it's a supernatural power, that, don't worry, everything's going to be fine. There's enough for everybody. And that helped mold and make me, too, because I feel that way, too. Her generosity of spirit, she passed that on to us. So I can't emphasize that enough, although the two of us clashed a lot. Maybe, I don't want to say I'm like her, because that would be complimenting myself. But in some ways, we clashed because she took such great pride in us that she wanted to show us off. Like she would say... it was never, it was common for her to call at ten o'clock in the morning, and I'm just talking not even twenty years ago. She'd say, "I'm having the girls over, could you make me a pie?" And I'd say, "When?" and she goes, "I need it by one o'clock," and I'd say, "Oh, my." And dutifully I did it, and I practically flung it at her when I got there, I was so mad, and cried all the way home because I was such a, you know. But later on, I found out, and she told me, actually she told me this quite soon before she passed. She said, "You know, I had so much pride when you girls would bring cookies and cakes and things, and I felt so much pride," because she didn't bake. But that was her tanoshimi, you know, in Japanese that was her happiness, I think, so say, "My girls made this."

VY: That's sweet.

JT: It is sweet, but not when you have to make a pie in three hours and deliver it. [Laughs]

VY: Right. [Laughs]

JT: But I know, Mom passed away almost ten years ago, and she still has a presence with us because she was such a... I can't even put it into words, she was just so present and kind and generous. But exhausted, but she never told us she was exhausted. Daddy, too. I think that's true of a lot of that generation, they did everything... well, that's a Japanese value, "for the sake of their children," kodomo no tame ni, and they did that. I think the opposite of that in the Japanese value, I loved the culture. The opposite is, kodomo no tame ni is, "we do for our children," and the opposite is oyako ko, "we lift up our parents." If the characters were oyako, is the parents, the kanji, and underneath it is a child. And the imagery is that the child is holding up the parent. It's so beautiful, Japanese kanji is really expressive that way, it tells a story. And that means a lot to me, that value of respecting your ancestors and the elderly.