<Begin Segment 29>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: And, you got the citizenship, didn't you? Issei couldn't get the citizenship until 1952, could they? But, you had been thinking about getting citizenship, hadn't you?

AT: Well, I went to school just a little while. I went to night school at a high school. And, these things, these things that would be asked were, usually like, who the president was, who the mayor was, in the beginning.

DG: In Japanese?

AT: Japanese, I was asked in Japanese. Toru Sakahara did it for me.

TY: The study at the night school, in your class...

AT: The night school.

TY: Were there only Japanese?

AT: I went to the night school.

TY: Were there only Japanese at the night school?

AT: Yeah, only Japanese.

TY: Then, did the teacher speak in Japanese?

AT: The teacher was Japanese, too.

TY: Oh, then, in Japanese.

AT: The teacher was Japanese, but she was Nisei.

TY: Oh, yes.

AT: So, she understood Japanese, too.

TY: Were you supposed to take the test in English? Or, were you supposed to take it in Japanese?

AT: In English at the iminkan.

TY: In English.

AT: It was Toru Sakahara, and he was related to me. [Laughs] He said, "Oh, Obasan, you are here," so I said, "Yeah. Easy on me," then, he said, "Oh, I will take good care of it." Three of us were there, and for all three of us, he hardly asked anything. He asked me who the president was then, who the mayor was, the total of three, four questions. He asked those questions, and he wrote the answers on the paper. [Laughs] He asked questions, but he just said the names right away. And, he wrote them down. When I was about to answer the questions, he just wrote all the answers down. For all three of us. He said, "I will just turn them in, and everything will be fine." And, we received the citizenship.

TY: But, you had been prepared, hadn't you? You had studied enough for that, right?

AT: I had to study for it. I studied at night school. So, I knew the answers. And, Toru was related to me. He said, "Oh, Obasan, you are here," so I said, "Just be easy on me," then he said, "Oh, I will let you get the citizenship." And, he answered questions and wrote them down on the paper by himself, so there was no mistake. [Laughs] All three of us passed it.

TY: Since it was in 1952, it was about forty-five years ago.

AT: Oh, it was quite a long time ago.

TY: That means that you got the citizenship after you were fifty-five years old.

AT: That's right. I think I put the certificate of the citizenship somewhere. I don't know what happened to it now. And, they gave me a small card like this. There was also a night school for people to get the citizenship. It was at Broadway High School. And, at that time, there was Mrs. Kanzaki. Oh, I asked Mrs. Kanzaki if she wanted to go with us. I said, "Let's go." She said, "No, I don't want the citizenship. I don't need it." Later on, where was it that we were going to visit. She came to want one. Then...

TY: When you went out of the U.S., right?

AT: The U.S.... It was when we went to visit somewhere. Then, I said, "You kept saying that you wouldn't get the citizenship, but if you had the citizenship card, you could go anywhere by just showing it." Oh, that's when we went to Canada. Then, she said, "That's right. I was scolded by my grandchildren, children, so I went to get it." "Who helped you? Did Toru help you?" "Oh, yeah, if Toru was there, everything goes all right." He is related to me. When I said, "Oh, Toru-san, you work here," he said, "You came to take the test?" "Yeah, that's right." He said, "I will take good care of it." He answered, the answers, he wrote down all the answers, on the paper. Like this. When I looked at it, he was writing who the president was. And, all three of us got the citizenship easily.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.