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TI: Okay, so let's, let me jump to your mother then. So she came back, you said mid '30s, was that to marry your father? Was that part of, was the arrangement made while she was in Japan, or did she come --

RH: Yes.

TI: Okay. So who, who did the arrangement? Do you know who the...

RH: Actually, it was my, I believe it was my uncle, my mother's oldest sister's husband, so my, yeah. He, he kind of arranged it by, through people he knew.

TI: Now, was there any family connection between your mother's family and your father's family that you're aware of?

RH: Not that I know, no. Even though they're from the Hiroshima area, no.

TI: And your mother's name?

RH: Shizuze.

TI: And siblings for her?

RH: She has one, let's see, she's, there's three sisters and there're two younger brothers, and so, so there's two older sisters and, yeah, two younger brothers. Right now the, actually youngest brother passed away. He was the one that was born in Japan and never came over here.

TI: Okay. So it sounds like, what, mid '30s they got married, or mid to late '30s, your mother and father got married?

RH: Right.

TI: And then when the war broke out they go to Topaz, so they go together as two and then you mentioned your two brothers were born at Topaz?

RH: Yes.

TI: Okay. Any stories that you, that they, that you recall about Topaz and, and raising two boys?

RH: Well, just that it was very hard for them. And they wouldn't talk about it much and so, about the camp experience and what it meant, and it was, and just growing up I never really realized what was, what that was all about. And actually, my brothers who were born there, since they were very young, they, they don't recall very much about that whole experience either. My oldest brother, Steve, he was born, I think it was in '43 or so, and so it was right during the camp and my other brother, Sam, it was just before they left the camps, so it was, I think, in '45 or so. And so they have very little recollection of what it was like to be in there, but my parents, there were little things that would kind of pop up as, as I was growing up that I would see, just wonder, what is that, or where did that come from? What happened? Why were you in Utah for a period of time, and stuff like this, and so they would just say, "Well, it was very difficult and we, we couldn't speak much English. It was very hard for us because people didn't," even though there was Japanese people, the Nisei kind of were questioning them because they didn't speak much English, being Kibei and all this kind of stuff. But they would have to try to do their best, basically, and so for them, just, they just tried to do what they had to do in order to kind of survive in the camps.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.