<Begin Segment 3>

AI: Well, I have a picture here about, of you with your... if you could tell us about who's in that picture and about how old you were.

AS: That's, that's, oh, I don't know how old I was. But that's, that's my mother and myself, my sister, the sister right next to me, and myself.

AI: And what's her name? Your sister's name?

AS: Fusa, Fusako.

AI: And can you tell me about your other younger sisters and brothers, after Fusako?

AS: Kikue, Kikue and Akiko and then Kenichi, Takeshi and then George who was born in Seabrook and then Kazuko, who, she was born in Chicago.

AI: So, maybe this would be a good time to show this family picture with some of your other sisters and brothers. And who's in this picture? If you could point out who's in this picture.

AS: Yeah, that's myself, me, then Fusako is next, then Kikue, then Akiko, and Kenbo, Kenichi and Takeshi.

AI: And where was this picture taken?

AS: In Peru, in our house.

AI: And then you have one more here.

AS: This was taken, must have been taken in a park near the house. There's our car.

AI: And you were saying, it looks like you had the same clothes on as the --

AS: Yeah, it must've been taken the same day because, probably right after the other picture, probably went to the park and taken this.

AI: So tell me a little bit about your home and the neighborhood that you grew up in.

AS: Well, I, we grew up in a home where there weren't too many Japanese around our house.

AI: So it was a mostly Peruvian neighborhood and not very many other Japanese immigrant families?

AS: Well, yeah, European descents.

AI: And what did the neighborhood look like? Was it a lot of houses, mostly houses?

AS: Yeah, there were all houses.

AI: Residential area?

AS: Yeah, residential, right.

AI: And kind of a quiet area, or busy neighborhood?

AS: No, it was quiet. It was there, no, we didn't have any main drags around our neighborhood.

AI: And what about your house itself? Do you have a picture in your mind of what it looked like? Anything that you, kind of stands out in your mind about your home?

AS: Well, it was a pretty big home. And we had an atrium. I think that's where the picture was taken. And that's, in the atrium there was tile floors. And then in the other bedrooms were wooden floors. And I know we had lot of rooms.

AI: And so, and did your parents have help at the house? Did your mother have a housekeeper or assistant?

AS: Uh-huh. We had a maid. And then my father had a chauffeur. So, so I guess because my brothers and sister, the younger ones were small, the chauffeur used to take us to school. Because being a private school, Japanese private school, the school was pretty far away from the house. So, so we were driven to the school. Although I used to stay after school and we used to play baseball. So in those days I had to take the bus home because the chauffeur just took, just took the kids who were ready to go.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.