<Begin Segment 5>

MA: Did you feel -- growing up -- did you feel a sense of community among the Japanese Americans in Fife?

GM: Well --

MA: Did you feel you were a part of that?

GM: As far as Japanese community in Fife was, we're very close. Very close. Your closest friends will be Japanese. They're still, you, they can't get away from it. They, you can't join the other side and stay away from your own kind. But we, we all stick together pretty close. But on the other hand, we didn't stay so close that we separated ourselves.

MA: What about your parents? How did they fit in with the Japanese American community?

GM: Well, my mother was not active in any social things. She kept the family together. My father was a pretty heavy drinker, and he had his fun drinking sake, working and drinking sake and partying and things like that. But as far as going to churches and be part of the church, I think that was out of my family. They, they didn't, my father and mother never did really attend the church, although my mother was more religious, my father was like me, to heck with the church.

MA: Do you know why your father felt that way, or why he didn't associate with the church at all?

GM: Well, I think he grew up that way. He was here before the church, I think, and he took care of himself before more people got organized. And church is something that you have to have in the community to keep, keep 'em together. I think my father felt he was okay, I don't know.

MA: And then what about your mother? You said she was more religious than your father. Did she attend church?

GM: Well, my mother thought she was a Buddhist, and then on the other hand, like other hand, she'd believe in anything, but I remember when I grew up, my mother had a picture of Virgin Mary by her bedside, and in front of that she had two Buddhist metal idols. And I remember telling her that, "Mom, according to the Ten Commandments, one of 'em is 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' and you have two of 'em here, two religions." And her answer was very good because it taught me a lot. And she says, "Well, I have these, this Christian religion and the Buddhist religion here on this table because," she says, "there may be a time when one can't help you, but then the other might be able to help you." [Laughs] So she didn't take a chance; two gods are better than one.

MA: And what did you, you said you learned a lot from that. What exactly did you learn?

GM: Well, it, it taught me a lot of things about you don't have to stick with one thing. You know, that you don't have to stick with the Japanese people all the time, because the other people will go and help you, too. And everything in life revolves around, if you have more friends, you're better off than having one friend. And same thing with religion, I myself believe right now that if somebody asked me what religion I am, I would like to tell 'em, "All of 'em," rather than saying I'm a Buddhist or a Christian. I got married in a Buddhist church, so that makes me a part Buddhist. My son, my wife, went to a Methodist church. I belong to the Methodist church, too, but I also take part just as much in any other church, of different faiths, and I look at them as one unit rather than separate churches.

MA: That's interesting. So even though your mother didn't necessarily, you know, go to church every, every week or whatever, she still had her own sense of religion, it seems.

GM: In a sense, yeah. Because one of my sister's a Buddhist today, and one is a Presbyterian or something in Tacoma, and my brother, I think he took up some sort of Protestant religion. And I kind of look at God myself as a supreme being, and there's only one God in this universe. Because if there was two, they'd be fighting each other. And if the two Gods fought each other, our little wars wouldn't mean a thing. [Laughs] They'd be blowing up the earth and all the other planets. But it's kind of far-fetched, but as long as you believe in some sort of religion, this is the main thing, because all religion is basically the same as far as what they teach.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.