<Begin Segment 16>

DG: So then you finished school and you graduated 19...

MH: '33?

DG: '33. So...

MH: And then that year, November, I married.

DG: Tell us a little bit about meeting your husband.

MH: I had came from Japan and I had teeth trouble, cavity, and so forth and then Terminal Island goes to Dr. Ohira, that's a very good dentist. So I went there and then my husband was there helping after graduate USC. So Dr. Ohira is the one, "If you marry, this girl is the right person." And then the doctor told me that, "If you marry, this man is very good." I don't think about it. Just came from Japan and went through the school and then...

BF: So what changed your mind or got you interested?

MH: We are going around with him four years.

BF: That's a long time.

MH: From beginning of, I came from Japan.

BF: Is he also first-generation?

MH: Yes. But he came, he's through the high school and then came to America and went to Hollywood High School, graduate. Three years and graduate and then went to USC dental.

DG: What ken was he from?

MH: Shizuoka-ken. Hamamatsu.

DG: So did you have baishakunin, formal?

MH: Yes, have to ask.

DG: Right. Because in those days, it was more proper to, for the father to choose, wasn't it, kind of?

MH: Yeah, but mine is not...

DG: Right. So yours was different.

MH: He came to church every Sunday and then not that, several men came, USC graduate.

BF: Who were interested in dating you?

MH: I think so. I don't know. You know, Japanese people doesn't date.

DG: But that's why I'm wondering what you did.

MH: See, some church, Hollywood Church, that my husband belongs to the church and then also my nakodo, too, their church having a some kind of program wants me to teach them my Japanese dancing. So I had to go there and then my husband said, "I will take you."

DG: So did you go out on actual dates after that? Did you go to movies or what they...

MH: Until marry, I think movie or something, but just a few times, maybe two, three times.

DG: So what made you decide to get married?

MH: I found he's a very nice person, but quite an age difference, too, eleven years different. So just like I'm close to the father.

DG: Right. But it's not so unusual for that time. Seems like most of, like my parents were ten years apart.

[Interruption]

BF: When you were saying that, you said that it was unusual for Japanese to date, so they were set up and they just got married right away, no dating to get to know each other?

MH: No, but date or not, he came to me for the, take me to his church and he take me home. That's, his church is Hollywood and my home was Gardena so maybe that's that date.

BF: That's the way in groups and meeting the family and nothing like just you two going to a movie like nowadays.

MH: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.