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TI: So, today is Friday afternoon, December 22, 2006. We're in Seattle, Washington. I always like to talk about who else is in the room, Ehren, so my name is Tom Ikeda and I'm the executive director of Densho, doing the interview. On camera we have Don Sellers, and I think doing sound is Lucy Ostrander. And then also my daughter, Tani Ikeda, who is eighteen -- or I'm sorry, almost twenty, is in the room also. So let me explain, first, the purpose of this interview, and why we're doing it, and then we can get into it. But I just want to explain how what we're doing is a life history, so this might be a little bit different interview than what you've done in the past, where I'm actually going to explore your life from as early as you can remember, up to today. And then the other purpose is to use some of the clips from this interview to create a educational curriculum DVD for the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community.

[Interruption]

TI: Now, "Ehren," when I looked at it, is a name that I'm not that familiar with. Is there a story behind why your parents named you Ehren?

EW: No, I think the spelling is unusual, so some people always, when they see it, they go, "Wow, that's pretty unique." But I've seen Ehrens here and there with that same spelling. It does come from the German, it's an old German name or word. And I looked it up the other day 'cause somebody asked me, and it does mean "to revere" or "to honor." And my mother said she was just looking it up in a book, and she said, "Well, that's a pretty interesting spelling of the word, or the name Ehren," so that's why she gave it to me.

TI: So tell me when and where you were born.

EW: Well, I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and it's pretty interesting that I was born about three months before I was, before my mother was scheduled to give birth, because she was involved in a life-threatening accident in which both of us could have been killed. And her water broke, so they instituted an emergency C-section, and so I was born premature for about, by about (two) months.

TI: What was, an accident, or what was the life-threatening...

EW: It was a car accident. She was in a car, her friend was driving her home, and I guess something just happened, she swerved into oncoming traffic, and right into the path of a truck, a huge truck. And so my mother was hurt pretty badly, she had some pretty massive head, head injuries, and pretty much both of us could have been killed. Both of us were very fortunate.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.