Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto Interview
Narrator: Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: SeaTac, Washington and Seattle, Washington
Date: August 3 & 4, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-kmarion-01-0025

<Begin Segment 25>

AI: Well, in Minidoka, you were there through the summer and then also in the fall, I think the high school didn't, the junior/senior high school didn't start up until later, in November.

MK: Right, about a month later. We were about one, four to six weeks later, I believe. And I actually rejoiced at that news for some reason. I had joined a little, with friends, in the next block, in seventeen, we had a little knitting circle and that's where I went every day. And I was among older people. And that was my security. And I didn't mind that there was no school, for that short duration.

AI: When, so tell me more about the knitting circle. Who were some of the people who were part of the circle?

MK: Oh, my father's bookkeeper, who was an older Nisei, (Mina Kimura) was -- just recently passed away -- but she was my mentor. She was my strength. And she was a doer and so I just joined them and I learned a lot from her, the American ways. And of course my mother joined us also, my cousin (Hide Tsutakawa Yada) joined the group, so it was my happy little circle.

AI: So you had a group of women and girls --

MK: Right.

AI: -- doing some knitting and other handwork?

MK: Uh-huh. And my mother always had the philosophy from the Seattle days, that if I finish a garment I can start on another one. So, really, I made a sweater a week, for my brother, or a vest, or whatever. I never did knitting before that time, so, so long as you kept busy, I mean, the... I can't say it was real sad, I never sat in a corner and cried or anything, it was just...

AI: So it was a way to keep busy and...

MK: Keep busy and, uh-huh. And for my age group, I mean, really there weren't too many things we could do. Oh, the funny thing that no one really mentions is there were a few of those love magazines, Cosmopolitan, True Confession. By the time one friend offered it to me the magazine was all limp. You know, being fourteen and fifteen we were beginning to do those naughty things. But anyway, someone passed it on to me and said, "You want to read it?" Of course, my fath-, my mother didn't know English that well, so it was no big deal. But if it was my father, I'm sure he would've known. And he wasn't around, so I read a few and I learned some shocking things, but nevertheless, the magazine was actually so well-read, and passed around that I thought, well, as I think back on it, that was really a naughty thing to do. But that really did happen.

AI: Well, that must've been one of the few entertaining things around.

MK: Right. Isn't it -- [laughs] -- funny?

AI: And in those days, I think those True Confession kind of stories of these love affairs and so forth, that was considered very racy.

MK: Right, right, right. So we were typical teenagers, I guess.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.