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MA: When your children were growing up, how did they, how did you talk to them about your background and your husband's background and about the internment? Was that something that your kids asked you about growing up?

IK: No. Again, yeah, I'd have to ask my daughter and my son. But I don't remember... in fact, I know it didn't really happen with my mother and father. 'Cause I did mention during our phone interview that they were working from sunup to sundown. And so that was very number one, and the number two was the difference in language. Even though I went to Japanese school all my life, I was surrounded by English, and so that makes a big difference. And all the other factors of I don't think it really was the "Japanese way," the "Japanese-Japanese way," to sit down and talk with the kids. Although there were a few in my focus group where they talked about one father that told the kids stories. And it turned out to be, he said when he grew up he found out that his father had told them all these stories, and they ended up being about the Japanese tales of history. And so that's how he got his education without even realizing it. Now, with my kids, I don't know... because I think if something just comes up naturally, I don't know if there's a memory for things that just happen, especially if it happens over and over and over. I do know that my daughter, especially, more than my son, is very aware. Well, she's the one that founded that Asian American Studies (minor) at Fullerton. And then when we were doing the Historical Society activities, we started that Historical Society when they were... let's see. We incorporated in 1980, my son was born in '71, my daughter was born in '73. So since their childhood, that's all they remember is the Historical Society. But all the meetings were at our house, and my husband and I led twelve, I think, bus trips for the Manzanar pilgrimage. Our daughter, both of them, actually, while they were in high school, middle school and high school, they would go with us because they had to go. [Laughs] I wasn't gonna leave them home alone. And there were quite a few of the activities where they were also helping there, too. So I think it was kind of just this natural thing we're doing, and so you're doing it, too. So I think it's not just conversation. And then there were all those classes that they could take when they hit college.

MA: Right, 'cause they were born in the early '70s, and by that time, there were some Asian American... I don't know if there Asian American Studies programs at that time, but there were definitely classes.

IK: Yeah, and they were in school in the '80s and early '90s. Late '80s and early '90s, so by then.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.