<Begin Segment 30>

[Translated from Japanese]

DG: Were you happy to receive it?

AT: Huh?

DG: The citizenship.

AT: Yeah, I was happy, but it was also useful. It was useful wherever I went, I just needed to carry it. In the beginning, they gave me a paper like this. Then, they switched it to a card.

TY: Then, you had been thinking about settling down in the U.S. permanently?

AT: Uh-huh. Oh, I can't go back to Japan any more. Even if I went back, I wouldn't be able to stay there. Everything is too meticulous. I wouldn't be able to stand it. Also, I have visited Alaska just for a little while.

TY: Your husband also got the citizenship, didn't he? Both of you.

AT: Uh-huh. He got it.

TY: Mrs. Kanzaki who you have talked about finally became a hundred years old the other day, and she finally received the citizenship.

AT: Yeah, yeah. She got it alone. [Laughs] I said that we should go together, but she said, "Oh, I don't need such a thing," and didn't go. And, once we all got it, she came to want one. You can just get it now. Nowadays, if you reach hundred years old, but it doesn't really matter if you submit it. Nowadays, she can't hear well.

TY: And...

AT: She is coming, Mrs. Kanzaki. To this apartment building.

TY: Yes.

AT: Yes. So, I said, "Do me a favor again." "All right." It was like, "Oh, if I am asked, then I ask. Asking and being asked, it just works out fine."

TY: When you went to Canada, Mrs. Terao, you just showed your citizenship card, right? Then, did Mrs. Kanzaki had to take the paper works and so on...

AT: No, she took... what was it? She took her passport. [Laughs] Her passport. When I said, "See, I've told you to get one," she said, "That's right," and she got it after she went back. Even if she went to the iminkan, she is too old. They weren't too hard on her. When I took the test, luckily, Toru Sakahara was there. He is my relative. I said, "Oh, Toru, you work here. I heard you can help me, so here I am." He asked me and answered who the president was at that time by himself, and he just wrote it down. "Who is the Mayor?" He wrote down the answer before I answered. He asked me three or four questions, I don't remember what they were, though. But, when they were answered, he said, "Oh, all right, all right, Obachan. I will turn it in," and he turned it in. And, I received something about the citizenship.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.