Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Nancy K. Araki Interview I
Narrator: Nancy K. Araki
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: September 3, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-anancy-01-0025

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TI: Before we talk about your, your dad establishing the farming, reestablishing that, talk about your grandmother's death, 'cause you were really close to her. So what, what was the impact on you at ten with your grandmother dying?

NA: That was pretty, pretty heavy for me. So as I explained, we shared a room all our lives together, getting bathed and, okay, I hate to admit it, everyone accuses me in my family that I was a little pea princess, but, yeah, she had my clothes laid out and my hair done. Yeah. But it was really very, and even when I was very young, bathing together. I was always the gobo, she says, and she's the daikon because, being a kid, you run around. And so there was a lot of, and I had, I would accompany her to Japanese movies. I knew one, one scene was just horrendous and I couldn't, I couldn't understand it and she would say, "No, I'll tell you later." And it was a rape scene, but she then later on explained it me, and so I had that in my head since, and not in any kind of fearful way, but she really presented things in a matter of fact kind of way.

Then there were times that she wanted to go to hear theater, like the joururi performances, the Noh plays, only there's no dancer, but it'd be the songs that are being sung or any of that that would happen. So I would be accompanying her and we'd sit there and I'd remember saying, [whispers] "Baachan, he sang for forty-five minutes." Things like that, but, "Shh," you know. And I'd know all of her friends as a result because I'm the companion, and we also started odori because I'm really, I guess I wanted to, and we checked out a couple of places, but we found this one odori sisters that we, I really liked, and so we started my odori. And I really loved it.

But shortly after that, one day as I got dressed and was ready to go to school, she says, "Come. I want to talk to you." And she brought me to the front window and, and this is the third floor flat of that property and it kind of hangs a little bit out over the sidewalk, so from the round window you could look down the sidewalk and you could see the cablecar from these windows, but she took me to that room and she said that she's gonna go into the hospital and that she may not return. What? It's, it was relayed to me just like that and I couldn't understand. She says, well, there's gonna, they're gonna, there's, she has a little growth that they're look at, "and I may not be coming back." So it was, I was sent off to school that way. Going down the stairs, 'cause steep stairs and out the door, and walking down and I turned around and I see her, and that was kind of like I'm not gonna ever see her again. Well it turned out to be a lie because she came back, but bedridden and dying. And I was moved out of the room that we shared because my mom became the caretaker, and so, and in my head it's like, is that really her? Is she, it wasn't her, because obviously she was now, what she had was cancer that was in her liver, and in those days, and even now, it's a very hard thing. They just open and close and basically brought home to then be as comfortable as she could to pass on. What little I could do or was asked to do is like make chipped ice, or then Obaachan one time wanted to have asparagus, so "Kei-chan, can you go and find asparagus?" Well, there was right down beyond the school, a block from the school, so it must've been, like, four and a half blocks away, was the, a very fancy, one of the high end grocery store that had pate and everything else, that kind of store, and still is, and so I went there. Mom says they might have asparagus, so I went and bought some, brought it back. So I was doing that kind of thing, but really feeling kind of detached. I ended up, I guess, trying to share a room with my brothers. You know, I really blank out where I was sharing because it was so just like that, my room was kind of distant. But we were there on hand when she did finally pass, and so I watched her die and really recognized, like, well maybe she's talking to someone because there seem to be very much of a, kind of a nodding kind of thing, at that time, like a "no" kind of thing. So I watched this process and, and her, one of her best friends, she had two good friends, and she seemed to wait until Minamoto-san from Oakland got over and was at the bedside before she actually passed on. But all that time was kind of like a vigil of watching and, and really observing a person dying, not in any undignified way or horrendously frightening way.

And all that time you just kind of realize it's that passing, but I guess emotionally I got, well, we went through the funeral and all, and emotionally I just got very ill after that and took to bed actually, and partly asthma, which ultimately started very, very early as my, when Ojiichan died and after his funeral, started asthmatic attack. I attributed it to stocks, which not necessarily, but it's that kind of thing. And ultimately when I eventually got to a place I knew that that was just a crutch for me, so after that sinks in I don't have asthma. Except one time, legitimately, as an adult. But it was that kind of a cocoon, I guess, where you could be alone but people watched over you and, but you could be alone and trying to work it out.

And it's at this time that my auntie comes and says, "I'm gonna sponsor an oshosan from Japan and it would be so, it would look very badly if your daughter," they tell my parents, "would be taking odori from this other teacher and not my teacher." And she brings a beautiful fan, sensu and a parasol and some other stuff that goes with classical dancing, and so the part, 'cause this is another life lesson, is that, I guess, this is a older brother's wife, so ooki neesan, so my parents, instead of making this decision, left the decision to me. And I remember just knowing that this is kind of like my link to my grandma. This is something that we chose together. And I just remember just feeling, like, in a dilemma because I also knew from a lot of this stuff that happened in camp between relatives or just community about this and that, and some of the stuff that my mom ended up being the brunt of within family matters, so I thought, jeez, this is, I have to do something right here. And when you think about it, I don't know if they were caught in a bind, and then Obasan, this is probably the obasan that I knew that I grew up with and I have an endearing term that I call her, but it was like, on the line and here I'm feeling really, I was still in that recovery mode. It was probably about a month after my grandmother had died. So I came to a decision. I had to do right by my mother and father, but I have to do right for myself, and what I decided, I said, okay, I will go with the oshosan, but I get the, I have the opportunity to quit when I want to quit. And they agreed to those terms. So I got a pretty fan -- no, it was serious, and here I was ten years old. So somehow you know, I'm not too young to understand that, and in my little, devious little head I plotted out what would be an appropriate amount of time that I could get out from it and still save everybody's face, including my auntie's, but that meant I'm not gonna ever dance again, under any other... and that was really sad to me. And, and that's why you see me out in Obon Odori being the fool that I am to dance in ondos, because that's the opportunity that I could participate in something that I really had loved.

TI: That was, that was beautiful, Nancy. Thank you.

NA: That was part of choices.

TI: Thank you for sharing that. At this point we're gonna take a break and stop today's interview. I think now's a good breaking point.

NA: Yeah.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.