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[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

TI: Okay, so 1923, let's talk about it because now they're married, and they...

SA: He went back and got her and came back. At the time she came back, they did not have this store. Got married in 1919 (and) came in 1919. So up to 1923 when they got the store, she was working at the newspaper office of what is now the Hokubei Hochi. And I was very pleased that when she died, they ran an article acknowledging she had been there (in early years).

TI: And do you know what she did at the newspaper?

SA: She was a (writer-)reporter. She had always wanted to learn about America, she had heard about America, and I think that's why she was willing to come.

TI: Now, was it common to have woman reporters back then for the Japanese newspapers?

SA: (...) I don't know, but it seems to me she was doing a lot of the writing. So maybe someone went out and got the (news) report and she refined it (enough to print). I don't know how they operated. But it would be interesting to look into it, but I don't know if they keep an archive of old papers.

TI: Yeah, that would be something interesting. So I'm thinking, so education-wise, how much education did she have in Japan?

SA: She had close to, what she writes is fourteen years. Because she did go (to Keitoku Elementary (K-8)) eight years to elementary, then she went to the high school, which they called the (Kitakata Women's School). Well, I think she had that, and then she went to the (Kitakata Saito) finishing school. And then after that she went down to Tokyo and went four years to (the Tokyo Fu Gyoshi Sheeban Gakko) normal school, and then she taught third grade at (Tokyo Kybashi-ku Taimay Shogakko) in Tokyo that I saw later. (...)

TI: Oh, that's okay. So let's talk a little bit, before we talk about the children, just what your mother was like as a person. I know a little bit more about her education, her upbringing, she married your father, but what was she like as a person?

SA: Well, all the Issei women appear like they're submissive, but I tell you, they were iron-fisted. [Laughs] But anyway, she was not a usual one. Of course, I think, as all families, they pressed education, she more than anyone. Because she felt that it was an important part to her. She had finished first in her class, which was why they thought they would allow her to go on to Tokyo, and she evidently excelled there. So it was hard on my sister, the firstborn. And as they say, they do devote more time to the firstborn and my poor sister, aside from her regular classes, she finished valedictorian of Broadway High in 1938. But besides the six hours there she had to take flower arrangement and she had piano lessons, she had voice lessons, she had sewing lessons, and she felt she was really being pressured. I could see why when I see what she's accomplished. And as you know, she went into chemistry (as her major at the University of Washington). One of the bedrooms (in our home), at her request, was turned into a chem. lab.

TI: Well, get to that later, but let's go back in terms of your relationship with your mother. What was that like?

SA: Well, I was the third child by then. [Laughs] Actually, the fourth, because I think the first child was miscarried. She said she lost a son, and I don't know to what month, if she had carried him or if he was born and had died at childbirth. So my sister was born in 1920, my brother Frank, well, he goes by Shig Tanagi, (...) was born in 1922, and I was in '25. But he, being the boy, of course, was prized more by the family. And then I came after that, so I was quite free. I was, I felt I was really lucky in a way. I wasn't pressured; my sister was, my brother was, but I think she gave up on me. (...) I had a little bit of tap dancing, (a few) ballet lessons, and I started Japanese school with the rest. But I had, think I had a chronic thing, and I was having -- now I kind of realize this, because my father smoked two packs a day, it was secondhand smoke, but I had respiratory weakness. I developed a bronchitis of some sort, so I was out of school (a lot), and I think that's another reason they didn't push me, and I was very glad of that.

TI: Okay, and I just want to go back, and your older sister's name was?

SA: Chiyeko, and she adopted a name, Rose. So it's Chiyeko Rose.

TI: Okay, so Chiyeko Rose, born in about 1920, Frank or Shig, born about (1922), and then you were the... and then 1925.

SA: (...)

TI: Okay. And there was one other that you think died.

SA: At childbirth, he was the oldest. That was a boy.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.