<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Okay. So let's go back to you, so you're in the hospital with a sickness. You said you were there for about three weeks?

JM: Yeah.

TI: And then you come out.

JM: Yeah.

TI: At this point, so you're well now, what did the family decide to do next?

JM: Well, the American consulate says there's gonna be no boat going to America, so my uncle says, "You people can't go back to America no more, so you got to stay here and study Japanese, so, and school right away," which, I was, what, twelve, thirteen, I went in the first grade. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, so this is where you talk about your, your hair is longer, your clothes were different --

JM: Oh yeah, different.

TI: -- and the kids, sounds like they teased you.

JM: Oh, they'd tease us, 'cause red, if I had a red sweater on, "Oh, look at that stupid guy there, he's wearing a woman's, girl clothes," and everything like that.

TI: And so, so you said even though you're much older, like twelve or thirteen, you start at first grade?

JM: First grade.

TI: So these are five, six year old...

JM: Yes. Yes, that's why if we go somewhere or something, all the small children, here you see a big head popped up, and that's, too, when they'll start lookin' at -- well, any Japanese people, schoolkids, if they see somethin' like that they start teasing. "Look at that tall guy."

[Off camera speaking]

JM: Yeah, yeah.

TI: So how did, how did you, during this time, feel? I mean, here, just weeks before you had told the principal you're only going to be gone for a short time and now all of a sudden you're living in Japan going to Japanese school? What was going through your mind then? Do you recall how you felt about this?

JM: Well, my mother says, "No, we got to start learning Japanese," so I went to school during the daytime and during the evening we had a private teacher coming every night to study Japanese. And then my cousin too, he was going to real top Japanese school, and every time he'd come home, too, he'd help us 'cause he spoke a little English, 'cause in school I guess they still understood a lot of English.

SF: Do you recall how you felt in --

JM: Well, it's really hard to explain. I mean, everywhere we'd go we line up and go in here and then all the Japanese people just walkin' on the street stop and look, stop and look because... yeah. [Laughs]

TI: And how was it like for your older sisters? What were they doing?

JM: No, my sisters, they were going to high school already in Japan. It was called, it was a missionary lady, she had a school in Japan there, so they were okay. But when the war broke out, the Japanese military told them they had to go back to America.

TI: The missionaries?

JM: Yeah, the missionaries.

TI: Okay, so your sisters, older, they went to a high school where everything was done in English, so they were fine, but when the war broke out, then, then they...

JM: Uh-huh.

TI: Okay. And then, so you were teased by the kids.

JM: Kids.

TI: How about the teachers? How did they treat you?

JM: Well the teachers, they would say, "Don't tease. These people are from America and they can't speak Japanese, so they're here to study Japanese." And finally, as we were going every day to school, I guess they got used to us.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.