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AI: Well, it sounds as if perhaps your father had said that he would return to Japan, that he was getting married, he was going to finish college, and then perhaps he implied to the families that he would return permanently to Japan?

MY: Yeah. My, that's what my mother said, that, we asked her if she, she said she didn't have, she didn't have any intention of coming to the United States, that she, that my dad had said, "I have to go back to the United States to finish school, and as soon as I graduate from college, I'll come back. And then we'll live in Japan." And, but she -- he didn't come back. He apparently stayed and, and my mother at that point -- I think her mother was ill, and she was living with her in-laws. But then she went back, she went to the city, which was Hakata, where my mother lived. And she said that she was taking care of her mother. I don't know exactly what the timeline was, whether her mother died at that point, but apparently my dad's parent, father appeared at, at the house. My mother said that she was perfectly happy living back with her, with her family because she, she, her parents had a very, were, had a rather large business. Her family had a large bus-, lumber company there, and they had a very large, extended family living together. And, but her father-in-law, Kei, appeared one day and said that, "I'm sorry, but Kaichiro is supposed to come back and he's still not back, and it's not good for young people to be separated for such a long time." So they requested the family to, to send Hide to, to the United States. And so my mother said -- so my broth-, so my dad died when -- her dad died when she was eight years old. So her oldest brother was the, the head of the family. She was the youngest of eight children. And so she was sort of the baby of the family, and all her, her oldest brother -- sister was about twenty-four years old when my mother was born.

And so she said, "My older brothers and sisters had a family council." And I said, "Well, where were you?" I said, "Weren't you involved?" And she said, "No. They didn't even ask me to join the discussion." She said, "I was sitting in the next room listening. And my, my brothers and my sisters were talking about whether or not they should send me away." And she said, "My older sister said, 'No, no. Poor thing. We should keep her at home. She, don't send her away to such a foreign place, and why should we...'" And I think that, she said either her grand-, her, I think it was her sister, you know, she said she, she said, "Well, why should we exile her off? She's not a cripple or anything like that." It was a, the Japanese word for, katawa. You know, that you exile people off, send "undesired" people off to some foreign country. And then her youngest, her older, the younger of her older sisters said, she said, "My, that neesan was more modern, modan. You know, she said, "No. I think that nowadays, you know, modern women should be, expand their lives, and I think that she should go." And then, and then she said that then her niisan said, "Yappari..." That Hide, Hideko -- I guess they used to call her Nuni-chan -- and that, "she doesn't belong to us anymore. We gave her away to the Yasutake family and that, and that Yasutake, father said that she should go, then we have to honor his opinion and go." That it was, that "she now belongs to, to them, and this is what he wants. That's what we should do." And the comment that my mother made and that -- these tapes that, that I had made was that the -- that "Yappari, niisan ga chanto shita koto yu demo." You know, that my, my older brother was the wise one in the family and said the right thing, that, "she should go and join her family because she's, she now belongs to the Yasutakes." So and that, it was decided. And I remember asking her at that point, "Didn't you have anything to say about it? Didn't you ask, didn't they ask you for your opinion?" And she said, "No, I guess my opinion didn't count one way or the other." She had to do what her family ordered her, directed her to do, which I was thought was quite interesting. And as I, when I was younger, I remember, you know, "How come you didn't, how come they didn't ask you what your opinion was? Why, how come they didn't, they didn't do what you wanted to do? Ask you what, 'What do you want to do? Do you want to go or not?'" And apparently they didn't, and that was kind of --

TY: Well, I feel like -- she was the youngest, too. [Laughs]

MY: I know. And then her older brothers are all, and sisters all made her decisions for her apparently, including the person that she should marry.

TY: Well, actually the oldest brother was how much older than Mother? What? Twenty --

MY: Twenty-four years. Oh, the sis-, the, the oldest of the eight children were, was --

TY: Twenty-eight years older.

MY: Twenty-four years older.

TY: Twenty-four years older, so there was quite a spread in the family, yeah.

MY: Uh-huh. And she was the youngest, yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.