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TI: Tell me about your father. What was his name?

MT: Minoru Takahashi, born in Japan, and immigrated to the United States, I'm not sure, about (1909), I believe.

TI: And do you recall from what area in Japan?

MT: Nagano-ken, which is near the Japan Alps, where they had the winter Olympic games a few years back.

TI: So that's, that's... for the Seattle area, that's a little unusual. Most, most people immigrated from more of the southern part of Japan.

MT: Yeah, uh-huh. I think you take Hiroshima, Kagoshima, and (places) like that, they had the biggest group of Issei, and the Nagano-ken people, when they used to have get-together, oh, there were maybe about twenty families, maybe thirty, I'm not sure. But it was a fair group, but not as big as the southern Japan provinces.

TI: And do you know why your father decided to come to the United States?

MT: I guess the American dollar, huh? [Laughs]

TI: So it was to, for work, to find work. And you said around (1910), which is a little bit later than a lot of...

MT: He might have been a little bit earlier, then. Maybe he went back to Japan about 1918 and married my mother, and then he came back. I think because my oldest sister was born in, I think, 1919, so probably my dad came over here maybe 1915 or something like that.

TI: Okay, and then went back, married your mother, and then, then came back to Seattle.

MT: (Yes).

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.