Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Ruby Inouye Interview
Narrator: Ruby Inouye
Interviewers: Alice Ito (primary), Dee Goto (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: April 3 & 4, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-iruby-01-0007

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AI: Do you remember other things that your mother or your father would tell you about, when you were young, about ways they wanted you to be, or to act, or things that were important?

RI: Well, I sort of remember that my father and mother never discussed things in front of us. They probably talked to themselves, but it was not a family discussion. But apparently my father wanted us to become Americanized because when my sister was a teenager -- I think she must've been in high school -- he told her, or sent her out to be a housegirl in a Caucasian family on Broadway. And so she was a schoolgirl who worked, well, I don't know, babysitting or something, and he told her to learn the ways of an American family, like how to set, set a table, where to put the fork and spoon and how, how they did things at home which could have been different from our home. But I remember my sister coming home and saying, "Well, this is the way you're supposed to do. That's how the Iversons did it." But, I think his intent was to have her learn some American ways in somebody else's home.

DG: So they didn't prepare you in any way to go back to Japan?

RI: No, no. They didn't. Except that when my sister was sixteen, my father's father, so my grandfather, became ill and my father, being the elder son, was supposed to go back and take care of him. So instead he sent my sister, and she was sixteen. She was supposed to go there to the, actually, very rural area, and take care of him. And she was there for almost two years. But she, I don't think she really liked it. But then, she, I don't know why she came back. Well, probably the grandfather died and so she came back. So when she came back to Seattle, she and I were in the same year in high school because I kept up and she got slowed down. So then, when she graduated high school, by going to summer school, she finished her high school in three and a half years and I stayed an extra half a year, and we called it like post-graduate, or post- something, we called it. And, because I was supposed to graduate in February, but then by staying another half a year I graduated in June of the following year. But in those days, school entrance was two times a year, in September and February. And since I was born in November, my entrance was in February, so in school I was half year behind the people who went in September. So that way, when my sister went to college, she was one year ahead of me. She went to college first, and then one year later, I went. And that way we weren't in the same class because that would have been sort of, not shameful, but, she wouldn't like it. So, that's how we did that.

AI: Did she say much about her time in Japan? You know, after she came back, did she tell you very much about what it was like for her living there in Japan?

RI: No, I don't remember her telling us a lot about Japan, but that, everything was very rural and nothing like what we had in America because, apparently our home, compared to our Japanese home, had lots of amenities and, like maybe even a washing machine, and being done in Japan, maybe by the river or in the water or something like that, and cooking facilities were different. So we call it inaka, which is very rural. But that, that's the kind of thing she said. Then fortunately, she, I think after the grandfather died, she was able to go to Tokyo where the elder brother, my father's younger brother, the younger brother was in Tokyo. And he was like a college professor or something like that. And his family was in Tokyo, so she spent about a half a year in Tokyo with that family and I think that was very nice because she was, I think she attended school there, too, probably a Japanese school.

DG: Was she treated like an outsider, being American?

RI: I don't know. I never, I'm sure that they were very curious about her, but then, she probably enjoyed it. And there was a little cousin who was much younger, so, I think she was sort of helping to take care of her.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.