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JT: So I guess as far as that goes, I'm not a real Sansei. Mom's a Nisei and Daddy's an Issei. And I don't know what we're called, but I refer to myself as a Sansei.

VY: You feel more like a Sansei?

JT: Uh-huh.

VY: Do you feel like sometimes you're straddling two worlds a little bit? Or do you feel like you're all of the Sansei generation?

JT: Actually, I feel more like an Issei generation myself, because I have old, those old values and those things that were kind of, not beaten into us. But our parents didn't lecture us, but we knew by their role modeling that we were to do our best, not bring shame or have dignity and all that, respect for our elders and all that, and that's a big part of the way we were brought up. And I still highly value those traits in people. I think it's essential, and that's one of the reasons I like to work with young people because I think that they need to be taught that because a lot of it has... I don't know. I don't want to use the word "diluted," but it's become, it wasn't as essential anymore because of the struggles of our parents. They didn't have time, they lost their pride and their dignity and all that. So what I saw in them, or what I noticed was a lot of anger and shame that they didn't want to talk about what happened to them so much about the internment. So I think Dad ended up in Los Angeles as a boy and he worked in the produce market down there. You know, California's a fruit and vegetable bowl of the world, really, so he got into produce and he worked in produce all his life.

VY: Oh, okay. So he was a teenager when he arrived.

JT: Yeah.

VY: Do you know why he went specifically there? Did he know somebody there?

JT: I think Uncle Kei, his brother, was there, yeah.

VY: And so how long was he in that part of California?

JT: He came, he was there as a young boy in his early twenties, and then he came up as a member of a baseball team. He lived in Azusa, and you know they had those sports teams and the competition was really heavy. And Daddy came up as one of the players on the team from Azusa, "A to Z in the USA," that's how they called Azusa. And I think that's where he met my mother, and I guess, I don't know who caught whose eyes, because they giggle when you ask. So I think, I'm pretty sure... I bet Mom, I bet Daddy caught Mom's eye, because he was such a... well, of course, all daddies were the most handsome in the world, but Daddy was. [Laughs] And my mom was an only child and spoiled, she used to tell us that. And she was supposed to marry, and in those days, they had those baishakunin, you know, they set up marriages. And she was supposed to marry this one person, one man, and she defied her parents and married Daddy, which is probably where I got a little of my streak of defiance.

VY: Yeah, I was going to ask you, who do you feel like you're more like, your mom or your dad?

JT: Oh, boy. I would say... I have to say I'm like both of them. Daddy had a lot of bitterness. I don't have bitterness, but I had a lot of, I find as I grew, I had a lot of, I guess, anger or pain that I didn't understand. But I think it was passed to me, not in words, but just maybe because of a lack of words. They didn't talk about camp, and when Mom told me about marrying Daddy, in defiance of what her parents wanted, it was kind of like she was proud of that. You know, because she did what she wanted to do, and, of course, the other guy said, "It's okay." He said, "Nellie, I'll always be your big brother," and he was. They became like uncle, he married and they became like uncles and aunts to us, because we didn't have any uncles or aunts, Mom was an only child.

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