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AI: Well, now, also in, in a previous conversation you had mentioned about your household, that at times that you had one of your grandmothers living with you also, and that was your mother's mother?

LB: Uh-huh.

AI: Can you tell me a little bit about her, her name, and you mentioned already how she had raised her children as a, as a widow, and a little bit about her as, as one of your family household members?

LB: Her name was Tamiko Matsuno. During my very, very early years, (she) would go house to house among her daughters and stay for a few months with us and stay for a few months with another daughter's family and stay for a few months with another daughter's family. So she didn't live with us consistently throughout my childhood, but certainly for long stretches of time. And it was just really wonderful having her there. I feel so strongly about how much we learn from our elders. And I was so lucky to have my mother's mother living in our home as well as having my father's parents really close by.

But my Bachan Matsuno, my mother's mother, it was just really nice having her there. I could hear the language. I could hear Japanese every day. I could see what she ate, what she liked, what she enjoyed. She taught me a lot about quiet dignity and pride, family pride. She taught me a lot about having to be a really good girl and a lot of really good, solid Japanese cultural values. And I think having her live there with us gave me so much knowledge about the culture that I would not otherwise have had. We spent a lot of time together. I'd so often refuse to go to school because I knew that I could learn so much from her and gain so much from spending time with her. It was very difficult for her to get me to leave the house in the mornings.

AI: Well, in, in your learning from her, did much of that come from a verbal communication or was it more in the activities that you did together, watching her?

LB: Not at all from real verbal communication. In other words, not because she told me what, what values my culture could teach me, but really because she showed me by the way she conducted her life and the way that she spent time with us. I knew she was a very strong person. I knew that she had to be very strong. I mean, later on as I realized how she had raised these children on her own during prewar Los Angeles, I realized what a tremendously strong person she must have been, to deal with that type of adversity. She didn't know the language. She supported the family doing domestic work, cleaning homes and maybe doing laundry and things like that, and I can't imagine what kind of strength that must have taken. So I think I learned a lot about strength and perseverance. I learned a lot about family, that it was wonderful having this extended family together, and that I could always rely on her just like I knew that I could always rely on my parents. And that sense of family and that sense of perseverance and hard work, I think, has certainly stayed with me my entire life.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.