<Begin Segment 6>

AI: So in your case, you didn't have a lot of...

MN: No, I was pretty carefree. [Laughs]

AI: Well, tell me a little bit more about, in school, did you have any special subjects that you enjoyed? Any particular activities in school or teachers that you recall?

MN: Just recess. No, I can't recall anything that I enjoyed more than anything, any other subjects.

AI: And at that time, while you were, when you were kids, young kids, was your mom mainly a homemaker, or did she work outside the home?

MN: She was mainly, when we were in grade school, she was mainly at home. And later on, she'd work out, but I know my father had an apartment for a while, and she used to go and clean apartments then. But that wasn't very long. And then he owned a restaurant, but... she did work a little bit, but not that much.

AI: So, and tell a little bit about your mother. What kinds of things did she emphasize to you kids as you were growing up, or what do you recall? Were there lessons that she wanted you to learn, or things that she wanted you to know about, or ways of behavior?

MN: I don't know whether she definitely said, "You gotta behave this way or that way," it was just, you, this is the way you're supposed to behave. And I remember my father used to say, "We're Japanese, and we have to speak only Japanese in the house." And it was tough on us; we had already gotten, started school, and we're starting to learn English, and then all of a sudden, that's the language we had to speak in the home. But soon, we just gradually changed over to English.

AI: And so among yourselves, especially, I imagine with Henry, Carol and Anne, you would be speaking English to each other.

MN: Definitely.

AI: What about Japanese school? Did you attend?

MN: We went, I went... when did I go? About twelve years. I didn't enjoy it, but it was our duty to go every day after school, and we, and school wasn't very far from us, so we used to walk about four blocks away and then go right after our regular schooling. And if I skipped, somebody would tattle on my mother, so we couldn't do that very often. [Laughs]

AI: Well, you mentioned earlier that your father had said that you're Japanese, and so you need to speak Japanese in the home, he was insisting on that. Did he say very much about what that meant, being Japanese, being Nihonjin? Or did he talk much about you being American?

MN: No, not that I recall.

AI: Now, what about religion in your family?

MN: My parents were Buddhists, but I don't know why, but they sent us to the Japanese Congregational Church, so we attended every Sunday. But we didn't participate that much. Only on special occasions my parents would come, Christmas plays or something like that.

AI: So while they were sending you to the Congregational church, did they also want you to know something about Buddhism, or did they...

MN: No, they never mentioned about their religion, and I remember they were into, what's the other offshoot of Buddhists? I can't remember the name.

AI: There's a, the other main religion in Japan, I believe, is Shinto.

MN: Yeah, one of those branches, and they were involved in that for a while.

AI: But for you, you didn't --

MN: It didn't have any meaning to me.

AI: And so you didn't feel any conflict --

MN: Connections or anything, no.

AI: Well, I'm wondering also, since your father had, at one time had the import/export business, and he had a restaurant, so he was a businessperson. I was wondering, was he very active with the Japanese businessmen's associations, or...

MN: He was quite active in the community.

AI: Tell me some of his activities.

MN: I don't know anything about what he was involved in.

AI: But he would attend meetings.

MN: Uh-huh.

AI: Did you have a sense that he was among the leaders of some of these associations?

MN: I kind of feel he was, but I don't know for sure.

AI: And what about the kenjinkai? Was that something that he or your family was involved in?

MN: What was that?

AI: The kenjinkai? The ken associations?

MN: Oh, Tottori-ken? It was a very small group. There weren't that many, like Hiroshima, they had, hundreds of people had come from Hiroshima. Well, maybe there were twenty, twenty-five from Tottori-ken, and so when we had a gathering, it would be very small.

AI: What about other kinds of community activities? Did your family participate in picnics or, during the summer, Bon Odori?

MN: Well, I know we, the Japanese school had a picnic every summer, and that was one of our big events, at Jefferson Park.

AI: So it seemed like since you were living in an area with lots of Japanese American families...

MN: Right, surrounded. Like I say, lived in a very protective area, so you didn't go out of that community, 'cause there was no need to go.

AI: Well then, as you were getting older, there also, of course, the Depression had been going on in the 1930s, and I was wondering, did that affect your father's business, do you know? Or did you feel any effect on your family of the Depression?

MN: Not really.

AI: So that didn't really affect you.

MN: No. I think maybe we were probably more fortunate than others.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.