Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Toru Saito Interview
Narrator: Toru Saito
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: San Jose, California
Date: December 1, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-storu-01-0001

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MN: Okay, today is December 1, 2010. We're at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. We have Dana Hoshide on video. We will be interviewing Toru Saito. I will be interviewing him; my name is Martha Nakagawa. So let's start with, when were you born?

TS: I was born December 11, 1937.

MN: And where were you born?

TS: San Francisco Japantown.

MN: Were you delivered by a samba-san?

TS: No, I was born in the Stanford Lane Hospital.

MN: Now, children your generation mostly were delivered by samba-san. How did you end up at a hospital?

TS: I'll have to ask my mother for that information. I don't know.

MN: What is your birth name?

TS: Toru Saito.

MN: And a lot of people from your generation, Japanese Americans, end up adopting an Anglicized name. Did you ever have an Anglicized name?

TS: I did. In junior high school, in the eighth grade, my social studies teacher -- and I used to dread the first day of school and I used to dread when they got to the S's 'cause Saito was always the first S and the teacher would stumble and, and mumble and "T-T-To-Toru?" And she said, "I can't say your name, so I'm gonna call you Tom." And I was so happy. Finally I have a name that nobody has to stumble around with, and so I used that name, Tom, until, well, I was working at Kaiser Hospital in the psych unit and this was when, you know, "I'm black and I'm," black is beautiful, "I'm black and I'm proud" was popular, 1974, and during one of the staff meetings I said -- and I was in therapy at the time, too, and my therapist said, "You know, Toru, Toru is such a beautiful name and Tom sounds so blah. Why don't you use your real name?" And I said, "Yeah, that's a good idea." So I said, well, if people could be proud of being black, why can't I be proud of being Japanese, you know? So I went to the staff, the meeting and I said, "From now on I want to be called my real name, which is Toru." And since that time I've been Toru. No more Tom.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.