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MN: Okay. Today is February 28, 2010, we're at Cal State Los Angeles, Tani Ikeda is on video, we have Tommy Ochi in the room. We'll be interviewing Rose Ochi, and I will be interviewing her, and I am Martha Nakagawa. Okay, Rose, let's start with, what is your father's name?

RO: My father's name is Roy Yoshiaki Matsui.

MN: And you were talking about how, before he came to the United States, how high did he go in his education?

RO: I believe he began at Waseda University. And the reason I know this is that my father's uncle was a classmate, and he's the one that recommended my dad for her spouse.

MN: Your mother?

RO: Yeah.

MN: And, you know, a lot of people during that era were not able to go to university. So number one, that tells me your father was very bright, and number two, he probably came from a well-to-do family. Is that, my assumption correct?

RO: My sense is, yes, definitely he was bright, but I don't think that they were particularly wealthy in the scheme of things. I think my mother's side, I think she married down when she married my dad. [Laughs] Can I talk about that a bit? I believe that my mother was betrothed to an even more prominent family's first son. But my grandmother did not want her to marry him because it would be very hard for my mother to live with this particular mother-in-law. And so I think they decided that she would marry someone else, and then Uncle knew my father from the university and said, "He's a nice man."

MN: And so that's... the uncle, your mother's uncle arranged the marriage together?

RO: Or recommended, yeah, somehow.

MN: But prior to that, did your father come to the United States before he got married, or was he already married when he came to the United States?

RO: Yes, he came to the U.S. before. I believe his father and his brother came, and they worked in the roundhouses. I don't know exactly where, but I believe in Nevada and Utah. And then my dad came to the U.S. to join them, but I don't believe he worked, he was, he didn't do manual labor.

MN: Did he go to school here?

RO: He came here and he studied somewhere, and somehow I think it was a business school.

MN: And then he returned to get married.

RO: And returned.

MN: And did your mother return with him at the same time?

RO: Yes.

MN: And did they, where did they land when they came back together?

RO: San Francisco. Actually, I have pictures of them from the ship, and landing in the Bay Area.

MN: Oh, and your mother, what prefecture was she from and what prefecture was your dad from?

RO: They're both from Kumamoto. But actually, my mother's side was not from Kumamoto. Earlier, I understand that... I learned this when I went to Japan and I met my mother's older sister, and they said that the family's lineage is on the back of a temple. And I can't remember the prefecture, but that Jirozaemon Mizuno was a retainer for the Hosokawas from Kumamoto, but somehow, after some major battle and all, the Hosokawas got a lot of land at Kumamoto. And so then Jirozaemon and their family joined them in Kumamoto. So our history in Kumamoto was shorter.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.