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TI: So let's talk a little bit about your mother. Where was she from?

MT: She was born in Nagano-ken, too, fairly close to my dad's place. And oh, can't say very much about her background except that they were an old, old family back there, too. I mean, well, I guess they were all old families back in Japan, but at one time, they were supposed have been a fairly prominent family in that area. But they were farmers, and she is one of three kids, I guess. She had a brother and a sister, and then married my dad and came over here.

TI: And I didn't ask, but what was her name?

MT: Her name? Kanee, K-A-N-E-E.

TI: And do you know what her family name?

MT: Futatsugi.

TI: And so she had a brother and sister, and farmers. Going back to your father, do you know what kind of work the family did in Japan?

MT: They were predominately farmers, too.

TI: And up north -- so I haven't interviewed anyone that came from this area -- what kind of farming? Was it...

MT: It was mainly rice, and more or less truck farming, raising things for them to be able to supply their own food. They owned a little property, maybe half an acre or something, which in those days, or in Japan, that's a fairly good size piece of property.

TI: And so earlier we talked about how most people came from the southern part of Japan, and you mentioned Nagano, you're like, when you get together, like, twenty families. Economically, do you know if they were hit as hard as the southern parts of Japan? I'm wondering why there were more from the south and not as much from the north.

MT: I think the Nagano-ken area was, it was mainly a farming area. The typhoons and things did not hit them as much, so they didn't have the fluctuation of famine and good times and things. I think, like, in southern Japan, often the rice crops were completely devastated when the typhoon hit. In Nagano-ken, I don't think they had the severe weather that they had in southern Japan. So I think, on the whole, probably central Japan area people, farmers, were on the whole, not financially, but economically, they led a fairly comfortable life as far as food and things go. Where in southern Japan, I think there was famine and things like that, which caused a lot of 'em to possibly come over to this country more than other parts of the States.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.