Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Arthur Ogami Interview
Narrator: Arthur Ogami
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 10, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-oarthur-01-0005

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AI: And then, so you continued your high school in Whittier?

AO: Yes. I went through freshman and graduated in 1940.

AI: Well, I wanted to ask you about high school because in high school years, that's a time when a lot of kids are, well, you're growing up. You're a teenager. And I was just wondering, how did you think of yourself at that time? Did you consider yourself an American or Japanese, or both?

AO: Well, I would say I'd considered myself both, 'cause my mother always talked to me about, as a family. And she talked and said that, "I'd like you to preserve the family name. Do not smear the name because the name is important and money cannot buy your family." And so she said that if you lived in Japan, and if you commit a crime, that crime will be registered on the family register in red ink. She called it akaji. And so I still remember that. And I would never do anything to smear the Japanese, our Japanese name.

AI: Well, tell me more about what was important to your parents, things that your mother or your father wanted you to know about or emphasized to you.

AO: I learned to work and not depend on the community for welfare. And that, being the oldest son -- the oldest living son -- my mother did have a boy earlier and I think he was born, I think the year 1919 and died probably about a year later. And his grave is, still is in Anaheim. And we did go and visit his grave. Then my mother died later of... and she wanted to be buried near the first-born son. So she's buried in the same cemetery, but in a different area 'cause the baby is buried in the baby section. And then we have other friends that we have made, also have, there's a baby there. And a close friend of the family during that time while I was growing up was Obas, and they have a baby buried there and we visit that, that site, too.

AI: So you grew up knowing that there was a baby who had died but you actually were then the oldest living son.

AO: Yes.

AI: So you had some extra responsibilities.

AO: That's true. And they kept telling me that chonan is responsible for the family name. And I had also thought to myself that I would take care of the family when they needed.

AI: Well, as you were growing up, did you have an -- or did your parents plan to return to Japan? Seeing as your father himself was an oldest son. So, as you were growing up, did they talk about going back to Japan or moving the family there?

AO: They had, my impression is that they did want to go, return to Japan, in time. And since my father had -- he did buy back the mortgage on the farm. So he felt that he could go back and reclaim the farm.

AI: But it would've been difficult to do that in the '30s as you were saying earlier.

AO: Yes, that's true. His income with his gardening route was not sufficient to be... short of being well-off and that's why I went to work. They asked me --

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.