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TI: So your grandparents were already here in the United States farming. Your dad was, went to school, getting educated in Japan. Then after he graduated, he essentially came to join your grandparents?

FK: Not immediately after that, but somewhere in between there, he happened to go to another doctor's home, and my mother was working there as a nanny, taking care of this doctor's children. And my mother caught my dad's eye, and somehow or another, he asked for her hand and they got married, and fine. He decided that was done, he was going to come stateside, and left my mother there. But in the meanwhile, they had a baby. So rather than traveling with an infant, he left her and came over stateside back in '21 or '22.

TI: Okay. So let me back up a little bit. And your, name of your mother, her maiden name, her full name?

FK: Oh, her given name was Moto, her family name was Mori.

TI: Moto Mori. And then your father's given name?

FK: Kikuwo, K-I-K-U-W-O Tashiro.

TI: And do you know your, on your father's side, your grandparents' names, the ones that were...

FK: My grandfather's name was Saburo. He was from a family of boys, and so this land that they had had to be split into however they worked it. So maybe that's the reason he came stateside, I don't know.

TI: Now, did your grandparents ever return to Japan?

FK: Yes, they did. That's another complicated story, but my grandparents were over here with my father's younger brother. And this younger brother was working in the Santa Monica area as a houseboy for a hakujin family. And so I guess he picked up some English, and somehow or another, I don't know the details, but he went to Santa Monica High School and then to Santa Monica... I don't know if they had a junior college back then, but whatever. And somehow or another he made it up to Stanford. And there used to be a Stanford house for Japanese students. Like here at USC, they have Gakuseikai, and Stanford had this arrangement also. And my uncle, whom none of us ever met, went to Stanford for three years.

TI: And do you know about what year this would be?

FK: [Shakes head].

TI: But this is probably the '20s or '30s, probably?

FK: No. Early '20s, maybe. I don't know.

TI: Okay.

FK: I wish I did know. He had one child back in Kumamoto, and he doesn't remember anything.

TI: But so he went to Stanford, and then what happened?

FK: Well, there are so many little asides. [Laughs]

TI: This is what makes history so interesting. I love these asides. So go ahead and tell us.

FK: Well, he was... I guess my uncle was doing well. But in the meanwhile, my grandparents, my grandfather Saburo and his wife, after my mother came over here, went back to Japan. And my father was supposed to be supporting them, I guess he did. That's another question mark, none of us has the answer. But he, my grandparents returned to Kumamoto, and I guess they were doing well, except my grandmother, Saburo's wife, died. And Japanese men being the way they are, he wrote my father and said, "I can't take care of myself. Send your brother back to Kumamoto." So with just a year left in his education, he left and went to Japan.

TI: To take care of his father, or your grandfather.

FK: Yeah. So that was the end of his education. That's the Issei kind of mentality.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.