<Begin Segment 14>

TI: And how well did they survive the war? I mean, how hard was it for them during the war?

MT: Times were tough. City folks had it tough. They would raise their own vegetables outside their house. They had a little plot of ground that they could raise vegetables and stuff. She used to raise flowers there, my grandmother, but they had to raise vegetables. And then I didn't know it, I would go there and I would buy stuff at the PX and I would take it to them. My sister couldn't go 'cause she, even though she was a U.S. citizen, she didn't have a military pass, so, and the first time we went there it was very sad because I asked her what would she like to have from the PX and she said Babe Ruth, Abba-Zaba, Uno bar.

TI: So all this candy.

MT: Candy, 'cause she's eleven when she left the United States.

TI: I see, so these were her fond memories from American food, is candy.

MT: So I just bought boxes and stuff for her, and then I bought other things too.

TI: So this was your sister, so she left --

MT: My older sister.

TI: She left when she was about eleven.

MT: She's the one that took my hand when I was a baby and took to see my mother when she had my brother. She was always good to me.

TI: Back on Terminal Island, back then?

MT: That's right. She came to America once when she was about sixteen, summer vacation. She never wanted to be in Japan, but she was deemed to be a companion to my brother who had to be in Japan, so it was very sad for her, always sad for her. Then she had, ended up being adopted by my mother's family 'cause they had no children and taking a yoshi and carrying the family name. So when I used to visit her afterwards, when she said "home" she meant America.

TI: And how about your brother, what happened to your brother?

MT: He came back in 1948. My father said, he's my oldest son. He has to come back. And he brought him back in 1948, and he went to Poly High School for a year to learn English 'cause he, he was nine when he went and he forgot all his English. Only thing yes, no, Papa, Mama, about all he knew 'cause... and they say nine is a crucial age. If you leave, if you're eleven or older, or if you're nine, up through nine, after nine, then you can remember the language. Eleven you're pretty good, and my sister was eleven. She could, her T-Hs and Rs and Ls, her grammar was a child, but her English was impeccable, pronunciation. My brother knew nothing. He had to learn it all again. And then he went to Poly High School to learn -- just digress a little bit -- poor guy, we, I decided that he has to, we have to give him total immersion to learn faster, so my sister and brother agreed with me that we will not speak to him in anything but English. If he talked to us in Japanese we won't answer him. He had to speak English. This is after he'd been there for a little while. Very cruel, but he learned English fast. My friends couldn't believe how quickly he learned English.

TI: And so why would you say cruel, I mean, if it helped him?

MT: Well, because he couldn't speak. It was hard for him. Here, I'm his brother, younger brother, and he was eldest son of the Tonai family, the whole clan, and yet I was telling him what to do. He, if he said it himself it would have been different, but I did it. So that's what was cruel. I'm sure that nobody ever did that to him previously like I did to him.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.