<Begin Segment 15>

TI: We got into your, you were talking about sitting next to the girl that people kind of ostracized and then you were talking about by being out --

NA: Oh, because here we were out and so my mom was, and again, this is very hard because I was, we were also taught you don't ever talk about how privileged you could be, but my mom was able to have a washing machine when we were outside in Provo and all that, so that we all took into camp, so into the camp, into the, the community laundry room, my mother has a washing machine that then she has everybody using and all. I end up being able to come in from the outside with at least ten different dolls, Shirley Temple curls to boot. I mean, being able, the family had the means if we needed warm clothes they can afford to buy warm clothes or my dad's out there working, so he comes in with new clothes. In one of the pictures that was in the America's Concentration Camp, the original one, the poster picture they chose, it just shocked me 'cause it was a picture of us with Dad just coming back and we're dressed up in our new winter clothes, new snowsuits for the boys and I had my nice, and with Shirley Temple curls.

TI: So what was the reaction of others, with all the things that you had, the washing machine, the new clothes?

NA: Well, it's like, I'm sure it's just like anything else. I don't know, but there was this sense of, there was a sense of, again, back to, well, it's not your, it's, I guess you just, it's your fortune, but it's not a fortune that you abuse or you taunt or you display, but you share kind of thing. It's like that somehow, because that's a real kind of deep seated value and it's, knowing your place, to have gratitude but also know that it's just a matter of chance, as well. Something like that. I can't, I'm not explaining it very well. I almost have to revert to some Japanese, but I won't. And, but it's kind of like that kind of ingraining. I remember coming, after the post war, man, we'd go to school and all and even Nihon gakkou and, boy, there was a lot of people who were of samurai descent and I came home one time and said, "Baachan, there's a lot of people who say they're descended from samurai," and she said, "That's good." "But how do I say I'm descended from daimyo?" She says, "You don't." "Well how come, Baachan, because then I'm the big boss?" Or that's the feeling you have as a kid. She says, "Because if you really know it and if you know it you don't have to flaunt it." So it's kind of like...

TI: So it's kind of like United States, almost a difference between, sometimes they say old money versus nouveau riche, in terms of old money, there's a just a way people carry themselves. They don't need to talk about their wealth, versus a new rich, or nouveau riche, they flaunt it more.

NA: Yeah, I guess that would be the equivalent to what she was trying to say, or, but it's, now it's really in the sense of identity, right, because that's what everybody was trying to capture after the war. But it's something like that to illustrate what is the dilemma in the camps. And part of this is my interpretation as adult looking back, too, but I just knew there was some differences and, in a way. And the other part was I was always being, I hate it, put on stage to, on these, I guess they would have block programs or something, and I would be, had to go and stand in front and do a recitation or whatever in Japanese. I also started koto, which then I had to, I had to drop and I asked my mother later why and she told me, but then I got into piano. But...

TI: So why did you have to stop koto?

NA: Well, apparently the, there was, the teacher's husband was a lecherous old man and my parents got kind of wind of it and just, just instead of any confrontation just kind of cut it there, so that I didn't know until I was an adult, because I often wondered, well, 'cause I loved koto music and I wondered why I didn't pursue that. And it's things like that that you find out as an adult.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.