<Begin Segment 20>

AI: Well, I want to bring us up in time a little bit more, past, now time passed, and you had been in business with your brother in your family business. And a number of years later, you met the woman who you eventually married.

MK: Uh-huh.

AI: And you did get married in 1962. Would you tell me a little bit about how you went about...

MK: Well... [laughs]

AI: ...meeting her and...

MK: It's a, sort of a funny story. I, I went to Japan to visit my uncle, my step-uncle. He's the, my father's half-brother. And he showed me around, and he says, "How come you're not married yet?" I said, "Well, you know I, I've been very busy." Years that, just slipped by before I knew it. He said, "Hey, you want to meet some young Japanese girls?" That's the, that was the last thought on my mind, to marry a woman from Japan, because I was very anti-Japanese. I am. I think the Japanese people during the war, and before the war were very mean people. I know they're mean. From my experience in going to Japan, the men are very mean. I, I said, "Well, I don't mind meeting a few girls." So he took me to see, meet some girls, and I wouldn't say I'm popular or anything, but it seemed like every girl that I met wanted to come to America. I met my wife. She was very young. But she, she's, oh, yeah... very, I thought she was very attractive. She was over 5 feet, 5. And I thought, "Oh, she'd make a pretty, pretty nice wife." But I didn't realize that she was the last child and kind of spoiled. [Laughs] I, my uncle said, "What do you think of her?" And I said, "Oh, she's pretty nice." And said, "I'll, I'm gonna ask her if she wants to get married." So he asked her. She said, "Oh, yeah." She, she says, "Okay. I'll, I think he's a nice guy." Well, she didn't really know me then. [Laughs] "He's a nice guy. I think the Nisei are much kinder than the people in Japan, males in Japan."

So we got married. We went to, where did we go now? We went to Tokyo to get married, embassy. And there we met a guy that, he hated American Nisei. He wouldn't give me okay to get married. So I says, "What's wrong with this guy?" He got, he got real, real sarcastic with me. I says, I guess some people don't want Japanese girls to get married to especially a Nisei. I said, I went back to talk to my uncle, and he says, "Oh, you know something? This is, don't sound too good. This guy'll never let you get married." Then my wife's friend worked in Yamanashi-ken government. Oh, he says, "Oh, you should go to Yokohama because lot of Americans get married there. They have no problem." So my wife and I went there, and sure enough there was no problem. They treated me like an American. This guy in Japan says, "You're Japanese." I says, "No, I'm not Japanese. I'm American." He says, he pointed at me, looked at me and says, "Look at you. You're telling me you're not Japanese?" That kind of guy. I said, "Yeah. I, my features are Japanese, but I'm an American citizen. I'm an American." He didn't like that. So we finally got married, and that's it. Three kid, three grown children later, we're still married. [Laughs]

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2001 Densho. All Rights Reserved.