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MN: Now, when you were five years old, your mother decided to return to Hawaii. Why is that?

AT: Well, my grandparents actually are the ones that encouraged her to go, because they felt she might make a better life in Hawaii, and she might be able to, for her children, us, that, better education in Hawaii. Because, you know, to remarry in Japan, Japanese custom was very rare at that time, so they said, "Okay, you have your siblings in Hawaii, your family there, so try going to Hawaii. And if it's not what you want, then you can always come back." So she wasn't, but she didn't want to go by herself, so she took my sister. But my sister actually was too young to, for U.S. to permit, but she had her, she said her birth certificate had to be altered, that she was born a little earlier. So then she came on U.S. passport with my mother. So I was definitely from beginning, no.

MN: So if you, she altered her, the year that she was born, how was she able... can you explain that a little bit, how she was able to come here?

AT: Yeah, she said, "Well you go to yakuba." When you're born, you report to yakuba, you put your name and birth date in their document. Of course, that's all handwritten, so I think that's how... 'cause she was born in June of 1941, and they said you have to be born... so she had to alter six months earlier. So like end of '40, or something to do with the war, bombing was done in '41? Was it, Pearl Harbor was December, right? So you could not be in that year. It was, I don't remember, but it was something that you have to be a year before, something like that. And so she had to alter, and then she came on her... my mother had U.S. passport, so she came on her passport. But again, my, I have a friend who was born in Okinawa, and she and her sister both were born in Okinawa. But her, both parents were U.S. citizen, but then were like first ship that came out. And the whole family came, and she had, they had no problem. But I think her father was, had somehow with the U.S. government connection. But they were also in those repatriation act or whatever, that the U.S. granted the people with U.S. citizen the right to return to America. And so my mother was born, so she was one of those. And they were, they were some of her, a few of her high school classmates, that they were born in America and they were all, like, sent to Okinawa to go to school. They came, and I believe there were three or four ships. And my mother was second from the last ship, so I don't know if that's second or third ship that she came. And, but they were mostly, they were all to Hawaii. But, except for one... yeah, some people came to San Francisco, from Hawaii to San Francisco, but I don't know how that ship worked. But they were, that's how my mother and my sister came to Hawaii. And they lived in Kauai with the grandparents a little, and then my mother went to Honolulu to work. Not knowing the language, only job she could get was work as a maid, housework.

MN: Well, how did you feel about being left behind in Okinawa?

AT: I don't think I knew, you know, feel any lonely because I know they were gone, but I was with my grandparents, so I probably was more spoiled than missing. But there's a PTA where the parents, mother, you know, young mother comes, and I thought, "Oh, why do I have to be like old grandmother?" That's the kind of feeling. But other than that, I didn't really feel anything. They would get me a lot of magazines and things like that, and then my grandfather was able to read English. So he would translate a lot of those golden books that we had, Cinderella and those. So he would tell me all the, read me all these books telling me, tell the stories in Japanese. So, and so a lot of... I think a lot of those magazines might have been things that we picked up in U.S. dumps. [Laughs] 'Cause we did have, like, National Geographics and those children's books, U.S. books. And yeah, whatever books that we can find. And, of course, after, when we were going to school, lot of Japanese children's magazines were out. You know, they would buy 'em and those things. And that kept me... and then living in village with all your classmates, all neighborhood there, children are constantly playing with each other. So I think that, thought of being lonely.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.