<Begin Segment 19>

MA: And at that point, your grandfather was working you said in --

NM: Gardening.

MA: Gardening, and the country club? Was your grandmother working?

NM: No, she never did work. She always stayed home.

MA: Did you speak Japanese or English with them during that time?

NM: It was really hard to communicate, because I lost, I didn't know hardly any Japanese. So it was really hard to speak to them. Very hard. 'Cause my aunt and uncle, they're all Niseis and they speak English. So I understood more than I could speak. That was hard.

MA: And your grandparents would only communicate in Japanese?

NM: Right. Although my grandfather got his citizenship in, what year was it that they got it? 1954 was it?

MA: Or something like that. '50s.

NM: In the '50s.

MA: So your grandfather got his citizenship. Did your grandmother try for her citizenship?

NM: I think she tried, but she didn't make it.

MA: So you were in Denver during the, you said 1946 was when you moved. Did you notice a big change when the Japanese started moving back to the West Coast? Especially at Denver, it seemed like there was a vibrant community and, you know, what was that like, you know, when people started moving back?

NM: It seemed like, how should I say it, like some of our parts, our life was missing. It got a little lonely. And of course, after we got married, we moved to an area that was just hardly any Japanese. And because we didn't belong to the Japanese church, churches, well, so we didn't do very many things as far as Japanese.

MA: What area was this that you moved to?

NM: The east side. But then, where we were, there wasn't any Japanese. And my kids went to Presbyterian school, Methodist and Presbyterian, and then they married, they all married Caucasians.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.