Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Bernadette Suda Horiuchi Interview
Narrator: Bernadette Suda Horiuchi
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: May 19, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-hbernadette-01-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: So tell me a little bit about your father, you just mentioned your father. What was your father's name?

BH: Teikichi. I noticed on that thing that it's misspelled, but T-E-I-K-I... when I break it up, I can't spell it. [Laughs] Teikichi.

TI: And tell me a little bit about him. Where was he born?

BH: He was born in Japan in, way down in the southern part of the Izu Peninsula.

TI: And so do you know what prefecture that would be?

BH: Gosh, I don't know. Izu? Part of it is called Izu. It's a fishing village way down there. Actually, it's directly across from where... what do you call that man? Oh, what's his name, Townsend (Harris) or somebody?

TI: No, I don't know that. But that's okay. So Izu, and tell me a little bit about what your father's family did.

BH: I don't know what he did. Actually, I don't know too much about my family.

TI: Do you know why he decided to come to America?

BH: I think that's when everybody started to come. I think he landed in San Francisco.

TI: And do you know about what year that was?

BH: It was several years before I was born, so it must have been in the late 1890s or something? Is it 1890?

TI: Because you were born in 1913?

BH: 1913.

TI: In February. And so tell me a little bit about your mother. What was your mother's name, first?

BH: Her name was Iso, I-S-O. That's all I know. I think there was another name, but I don't know what the other one is. And I don't even know what Iso is. But she was called Iso, I-S-O.

TI: Do you know her maiden name?

BH: Suzuki.

TI: And what part of Japan was she from?

BH: That's down in, gosh, it's way down in the south, I don't know what you call that place.

TI: You mean like Kagoshima area? Down there?

BH: No, it's in Shizuoka.

TI: Oh, okay.

BH: But it's practically way at the tip of the, almost to the tip of the Shizuoka, sticks way out, I think. We were there, but I can't... Matsuzaki is actually, I think, what the place, the city or town or whatever it is. That I remember, Matsuzaki.

TI: And do you know much, anything about your mother's family in terms of what they did?

BH: I don't know anything about my mother's.

TI: How about how your mother and father met?

BH: I don't know either, 'cause they were in the same village, so I guess... I have no idea. They didn't... I wasn't interested in those days, either.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.