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TI: So, so Nancy, the first hour we really talked about your mother and father and their families and so we got to the point where they got married. Let, where I want to jump to next is let's talk about your siblings, just in terms of, of how many children your parents had.

NA: Okay, all told there are five of us. I'm the oldest. I have a brother Eugene Takeshi who's a year and a half younger than me. Then year and a half younger than he is Arthur Hiroshi, and then, think he's, like, five years after that is Francis Yutaka who's born in Topaz, and then postwar baby Claudia Taiko, so she's fourteen years younger than me.

TI: When we, earlier you talked about working on the farm, but you, you at the very beginning said you were born in San Francisco, so I just want to get a sense, because I, from what we've covered so far, your mother sort of grew up more in an urban environment and your father had the pea ranch, so let's talk about your life. So where, what are some of your early childhood memories? Where, where was that?

NA: Should I explain the hospital first, why I'm born in San Francisco even though the family lived in, the address would be Elk, Mendocino County, California?

TI: Sure. Right.

NA: It's partly because, remember, it's just a one crop farm, one crop season, and my father and my mom, it's interesting, her multicultural background truly, one in Japan but also here in the United States and having been under this kind of sphere of Anglo young women's dormitory, I mean, that's a whole different kind of life, and knew that influenced a lot about how she understood about being, what it is like to be in America and herself being an American. Her language --

TI: Because these young women that were in this dormitory --

NA: They're college women.

TI: Yeah, so tend to be from affluent families, families of privilege in some ways.

NA: Yeah. And in Japan my mom was placed into families of privilege. It's the bank of, the banking family, even though she told, I mean, at least she relates to us, she always felt like Cinderella because she was young, but she knew that the, the garments, the kimono that they would receive at New Year's were kind of lesser than the, the daughters of the house, so she understood and she says the other part about it was that she knew that she knew that she needed to be appreciative, and so she'd always be kind of like the appreciative person, whereas her younger sister was a little tomboy and wouldn't behave and all that. So there's those elements when she comes to America and she really is immersed in whatever's American college life, basically, even though she's just going through high school. So my mom actually, we talked to her about, talked to her about, "So how come you were, in a way, different than all the other aunties?" 'Cause all the cousins, if they got in trouble at home or got kicked out, our house was where they all came, some of our mischievous cousins. I don't know what, they had loggerheads.

TI: So when you said she was different, she was like, her doors were always open? What, explain that. How was she different?

NA: She was always just very generous and gracious and hospitable and open door. My, my dad was this kind of same way, too.

TI: Well, from your, say, from some of your cousins' perspective. They would come to your house and your mom would, would welcome them or let 'em stay there. How would they describe your mother?

NA: Well one, one cousin brought home a German bride from after the war and, oh man, that was, like, all kinds of conniptions. Another cousin married a Chinese man and that was a whole 'nother thing. And we're talking about (late) '40s, (early) '50s, and, but it was my mom who kind of was very genuinely open and welcoming and when their kids came she would make sure that the children always (...) got Christmas gifts. And they always did that kind of thing, not just think that they were ever gonna get it back, I don't think, because both of the cousins weren't ever gotten into the economic arena that, but she would just do those kinds of kind things. But I know Josie would always say, "Oh, if it wasn't for Auntie Masa," says, "My life was hell, but she was really an angel," and her children, would be my cousins, they, they still, they still remember that whenever we meet in family gatherings, say, "My mom always talked about how your mom really, really made life bearable, which was unbearable, but your mom really remembered."

TI: And, and it sounds like part of it was your mom's upbringing. She was exposed to so many different things growing up that she was, it just, she was more accepting of when your, some of your cousins would...

NA: Right. But also down the road we, in a kind of an interview I did with her, so I said, "You know, I know that you always felt that you wanted to raise your children as individuals, as equally as possible. Where did you get those ideas?" And she says, frankly, she didn't know how to raise kids. She was never around little kids, so what she did was to write to the U.S. government public health and got all the pamphlets and there's a man named Dr. Spock that was coming on the horizon, so she read all those things.

TI: That's interesting.

NA: Okay, so there's like, oh. I'm a U.S. government-raised kid? [Laughs] And she says, oh yeah, she did a lot of that, kind of like understanding that her mom was her mom and her husband kind of was, grew up on his own, and who does she turn to? Her sister ended up being stuck in Japan. I don't mean stuck in a bad way, but she ended up marrying in Japan, so she really didn't have anybody other than herself and her husband. I mean, there was enough sister-in-laws, but that's a, that's a different thing.

TI: So that's an interesting combination. So you had your mother who, who read Dr. Spock to help her think about how to raise you, but you also had your grandmother there and, and she had, probably, her ideas of how you and others should be raised. And was there, was there sometimes, what's the right word, not, maybe not conflicts but differences in approaches in terms of what your mother or your grandmother? 'Cause it's almost like, when I think of reading Dr. Spock, very kind of American philosophy and way of doing it, and then you have your grandmother who's more Japanese, and so how did that play out?

NA: The, from my perspective, the only time, I almost remember this when I must've been, like, around eight, this is the, this is the one moment that all of us and I understood, "I could play the two off of each other." I mean, it just, whatever the incident was, I began to understand what is this and what power I could have. Nasty little kid.

TI: 'Cause there was this difference. You saw all of a sudden that...

NA: Right. I mean, there was this conflict, and I can't name it off because all I could remember is this "Aha" moment that I had, right, but basically I don't think on the whole there might not have been that conflict because there were enough kids to go around. [Laughs] So almost everybody knew I was Baachan's kid. My mom had, well, my dad, my brother, my brother next to me, Gene likes to think he was Dad's kid, and Mom's kid was Arthur. This was the prewar birth order, right? I get troubled with that a little bit. I could see that before the war, but I get troubled with that kind of statement after war because we have Francis and we have Claudia, for god sakes. But in, in one part it was that alignment also, before the war, and so going into the camps, of course, one, one adult, one kid, one, one hand, the other hand suitcase kind of image. But I was definitely Grandma's child, moving in with her when I was three months old.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.