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MN: Now, your mother left Kauai and went to live in Okinawa.

AT: Uh-huh.

MN: How old was she when she did this, and why did she go to Okinawa?

AT: Well, my grandmother's family, her siblings didn't have any children, except one child by her older brother had one son, rest she had four other sisters. And no one had any children. So my mother was adopted by my grandmother's immediate older sister, who lived in Okinawa. And so she was adopted, and that's how she ended up in Japan.

MN: Was this a common practice among the Japanese or the Okinawans, to adopt?

AT: I believe so. Adopt or being just raised by your aunt, uncle, grandparents, especially around that time, I guess, 1920s or '30s. I think many of the Hawaii immigrants, they sent their children to Japan to be educated. So my mother was legally adopted, but her siblings, her immediate younger brother, was also sent to Okinawa to be educated. So he lived there until he graduated high school. So I assume it's, it was a common practice. Everybody was like their own children or own sibling.

MN: And how old was your mother when she was adopted?

AT: I'm not quite sure exactly, but I believe she was between eight, ten, around there.

MN: And what was your mother's new adopted name?

AT: Oshiro. Oshiro, so she went as Sachiko Oshiro.

MN: Any idea what year she arrived in Okinawa?

AT: Probably around 1930, '31. Very close to that.

MN: And do you know how she got to Okinawa? Did she go by herself?

AT: She, she said someone in Hawaii, her neighbor, was also going to Okinawa. So her parents had asked the person to take her all the way to Okinawa. And of course it's traveling by sea, so I would think it would take a couple weeks or more, around that time. And there, she said, her adopted parents came to meet her in Yokohama. Yokohama or Kobe, I think she said Yokohama.

MN: And then from there they traveled to Okinawa.

AT: Okinawa in a different ship.

MN: Now, when she arrived in Okinawa, did she speak only English or Japanese or Uchinaguchi, or do you know what she spoke?

AT: I think, I believe she was strong in Japanese. I don't know how, if she knew how to read and write, but I think speaking, she was probably speaking with her parents. So it was mostly English and Japanese. But, well, she sure forgot her English very quickly because she hardly speaks English now.

MN: Did your Yabiku grandmother ever talk about regretting having her oldest daughter go to Okinawa?

AT: She did at times, because she said, being the oldest and being the girl, she said, would have really helped her around the house with other children. So that was, she said, oh, she would have been much, you know, more help, that I hear. So that was the only time. [Laughs] But as samishii and all that, I haven't heard anything. [Laughs] But she thought, oh, she felt that she was lucky being adopted. That she would have had a, she probably had a much better life than other younger siblings living in plantation in Hawaii, whereas she would have been the only child by the adopted parents.

MN: What about your mother? Has she ever talked about how she felt about being adopted?

AT: She said she was told that her actual real parents lived in Okinawa. That she, it's time for her to go back. So she said she truly thought that she was, that was her real parents. And according to my sister, she didn't really find out until her high school, school high school year, that she was told that she was adopted. But of course it was aunt and mother, so I don't think she really felt that much of regret or mad at her parents or anything like that. I think she felt that she was more fortunate being in a better situation.

MN: Can you share with us a little bit about your Oshiro grandparents in Okinawa? What kind of occupation did your Oshiro grandfather have?

AT: They were in education. My grandfather... my grandmother, too, at that time, went through a school, and she was more or less home economics, teaching dying, sewing, and those things, and was, had some students in outer, smaller island near main island. She would go there to teach. And my grandfather was a schoolteacher, and he was teaching in junior high, high school level, and during that time, he felt that he wanted to go back and further his education. So he went back to a university. I wouldn't say went back to a university. At the time, in Okinawa, there was school after, from the high school time. It was a regular high school or teacher training high school, they called it, normal school and teacher training school. So he had, yeah, graduated there with a teaching certificate and was able to teach. But he wanted to get regular four-year university education, so he applied in Tokyo, so they moved to Tokyo during his college years. That was including, I mean, both grandparents and my mother also went there, too.

MN: Before we to go Tokyo, can you tell me, you mentioned your Oshiro grandfather was an expert in Chinese literature, not Japanese literature, and why is that?

AT: I don't know exactly why, the reason, but Okinawan history, culture, is very close to Chinese. So I don't know if that was the reason, but his field or his major or whatever, was Chinese literature. And Chinese literature plus the Okinawan culture. So he, well, these professors who was teaching at, he went to Kokugakuin university, and I think they, his professors were, as well as Chinese, more into Okinawan culture. So he befriended with them. But my feeling is that because it was much closer to Okinawan and Chinese history, literature, culture, part of the reason that he went into Chinese literature.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.