<Begin Segment 22>

MN: Paul Thomas Minerich. And I wanted to ask a little bit about your background. Are you from southern California?

PM: No, I was born in Euclid, Ohio, which is a suburb of Cleveland. But I came to Santa Ana where my mother currently lives, to that home in 1959. My dad transported all of us out here, and I've been here ever since.

MN: Now, while you were growing up, had you heard about the incarceration of Japanese Americans before?

PM: Not in particular that I recall. I didn't know too much about it until really I guess my college days, and when I started to date my wife, Lisa, I became more aware of that.

MN: And did you meet Lisa in college, or how did you meet Lisa?

PM: We went to high school together, at Santiago High School in Garden Grove. We never went out or anything in high school, we started dating in college. We both attended Cal State Fullerton and started dating in college, so we graduated from high school in 1969, and graduated from college in June of '73. We were married in August of '73.

MN: Now, how did you feel about Lisa's father's reaction to you coming to the house and not really wanting to talk to you?

PM: I didn't know she had a father for a while, because whenever I came over, he wouldn't be there. [Laughs] I mean that to say that he didn't associate with me that much. I don't mean that literally, you know, but it was cool. He, I think it was clear that he was really not in favor of me dating his daughter, but I did anyway, thinking that, well, what's not to like? So he'll learn to like me.

MN: Did your own parents have any problems of you marrying a Japanese American?

PM: No, no. No, they just had the concerns that... we were young when we got married. I was only twenty-one, so they just had the concerns that we were maybe too young to get married. But never in particular a problem with regard to the, to the different ethnicities. I think my dad had mentioned it at one time, but it was never a serious problem.

[Interruption]

MN: Okay, what is the ethnic background of the last name "Minerich"?

PM: Yugoslav. My grandparents, when they got off the boat, so to speak, when they came from Yugoslavia, my name was M-A-J-N-A-R-I-C. And phonetically it's "Mine-rich," that's close, and so my dad has kept it ever since like that.

MN: Your mother's also Yugoslav?

PM: Yeah, my father is Croatian and my mother is Slovenia. They were both born here, but their parents were born in Yugoslavia. Croatians and Slovenians is kind of like the Hatfields and McCoys, I guess, to some extent. But they, that's as much of an issue of them getting together as me and Lisa, you know. 'Cause, oh, Slovenians and Croatians, they don't get married. But there was no problem with that, yeah. They're both from Yugoslavia, their parents.

MN: Yugoslavia doesn't exist anymore.

PM: No. No, it's all been broken up into the different countries.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.