<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Let's now go back to your sort of childhood in Seattle. Do you have any memories of Seattle before you went to Japan?

ET: I, only thing I remember was somehow our boat went to Hawaii. I remember seeing the girls dancing and the wonderful music coming, and I was in the arm of my uncle, uncle -- this, is, we have two George, uncle George and a cousin George. It was Uncle George, and I don't know why he was there, and I thought maybe I got mixed up, he was maybe at Seattle. But anyway, I wasn't, usually I was carried by my dad, but he was the one that was carrying me. I almost jumped out of his hands when the whistle blew, and that kind of stayed with me, I was only about five years old at the time.

TI: This was for a trip to Hawaii?

ET: Trip to Japan, actually.

TI: Oh, Japan.

ET: Yeah, so through Hawaii. Somehow the boat stopped in Hawaii. We didn't get off, we just stayed on the boat, heard these hula dancers dancing, I remember that. but before that, not very much. I don't think I remember hardly anything, but I did have, well, quite a lot of friends. Among that is Bob Ikeda, I remember him. So about nine years later when I came back, in 1936 --

TI: Okay, but before we go there, let's talk because about this time, when you were five or six, you went to Japan, to live there.

ET: Right.

TI: Can you tell me why they sent you to Japan?

ET: I think it's kind of... from what I hear from other people, it's kind of prestigious thing for a family to send their offspring to Japan to be educated there. I don't think I could ever do it myself. Why they did that, I have no idea. But everyone seemed to think that's the thing to do. The people here, like my father was so busy and he couldn't really devote his time to his family. So we were first sent to my grandmother, father's side, and then lived with them, the grandparents, at the beginning. And then I was so sick most of the time, so my aunt said, "Well, I think we'd better take him," and then went to, now it's a sister city of Spokane, it's Nishinomiya, Japan.

TI: So you spent most of the time living with your aunt?

ET: Yeah, uh-huh.

TI: This is on your mother's side or father's side?

ET: Father's side. That's Shozo's wife. I didn't have a good relationship with Shozo at all. He was, at times I thought he was a little too mean, and a very disciplinary type of person. And I know I was only about six, seven years old, and when he threw me out of the house, I hit the rock and I remember I was bleeding and everything else, and I just didn't want to go and see him anymore, so I started to run out. And my aunt came in and got me, and that was kind of a very sad memory.

TI: So what, what kind of child were you? When, you know, I hear these stories and later on about the jazz, were you viewed as more of a rebellious young man?

ET: Could be, yeah, but I don't think, that was not always... I think it was maybe a put-on rather than the real nature of my childhood. I think as a student I was okay, and I, I was accepted by a very good school when I went to high school. But, well, thank God my aunt was with me all the time. And so I had a very, very kind of feeling good, deep feeling about aunt, and I didn't have it with uncle. Because, again, I think I felt somewhat I was deserted by my parents. And every time I looked at my brother, he was even younger than I was. He hardly knew anything, and here he was. And he did real well, I mean, he did well in high school, and about the time I left Japan, he was about the second or third year in high school, and eventually he became a student at the law school.

TI: So was it both you and Henry, and did any of the other brothers like Thomas or Hideko, did they, it was just the two older boys?

ET: Well, actually, if I go through those few years, I was, I was actually brought up by my uncle and my aunt, Shozo and her name was Koteru, and then because of my health condition. But basically, it was completely over, and I stayed very healthy. And the Tsuyoshi didn't seem to be bothered. And my grandmother wouldn't let him go, because he said, "Well, no, he's going to stay with me." And my youngest aunt was living at the time, she was still single and living at the time, became kind of like a mother to him, too. So he was well-taken care of. But it was kind of sad that we were separated. I remember that real well, because every summer vacation, I used to go and join him.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.