<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Anything else before the war? Any other stories or anything you want to talk about before we go to December 7th? I'm trying to think.

RM: I can't remember anything outstanding other than what I've told you so far as far as the family.

TI: How about things like church or language school?

RM: Well, language school was something that my two brothers and my sister Margaret went to. They went to Japanese school after Punahou, and of course they both learned how, all three of 'em learned how to read and write, and of course I never had to go. [Laughs]

KN: Why did your parents send you and your siblings to Punahou, which at that time was for predominantly white children, missionary...

RM: Yeah, but of course, there was no question that Punahou had a huge amount of, what is it, class, social class, and of course excellence. The best school in the state. In fact, best school west of the Mississippi. [Laughs] I remember that. That was drummed into us for a while. But in fact, I think it really is. And so it was a must, must go to school, so all five of us went to Punahou.

TI: Well, and your oldest brother, Arthur, so he was, when the war broke out he was back East at Yale. Is that right?

RM: Yes.

TI: So was that common for Punahou grads back then to go to Ivy League schools?

RM: It has always been so, yes. We were always made to understand. I didn't, I won't say "say" because that's, there's no, they didn't propagandize it, but it was obvious that the smartest ones went to Punahou and the ones that were best, you know, people that could afford to go went. And it was a, it was a school that, I think, socially everybody wanted to go to but couldn't, and especially if you were Oriental, it was only ten percent that they took, so only the best could go.

TI: So within the Japanese community, your family, I mean, the kids were quite privileged in many ways. I mean, the best school...

RM: Definitely. Definitely. As I said, like my mother, my mother pointed out when she first came, one-third of the patients at Kuakini Hospital were Mori patients.

TI: Now, did that prominence put any pressure on you? Did you sense that as an eight-year-old, that you were perhaps different, because --

RM: Well, we have to get into the wartime period there because when everybody starts sayin', "Your father's one spy and your mother's one spy and you get spy radio in your house," and this kind of thing, any such, any such feeling of pride in being that, in that social class disappeared immediately. There were, of course, some friends that were not permitted to play with me anymore, once the war started.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.