<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Going back to your college, I think it was about that time when you met your husband. Was it in college or right around then, or after?

MB: No, I worked in, after college I worked in Stockton for several years and then came to San Francisco, then that's where I met him.

TI: So tell me about your husband a little bit. So who was your husband and how did you meet him?

MB: Through other Japanese friends.

TI: And so what's your husband's name?

MB: David Bernardo.

TI: And so, I've done lots of interviews with Niseis and for most Niseis they tended to marry other Niseis, and so you married, you out-married pretty early for the Japanese American community. Now it's very common.

MB: I was twenty-nine when I married, so I was pretty old.

TI: But was there any, oh, what's the right, controversy or anything that you were not marrying another Japanese American?

MB: I know my father was not for it, probably my brothers too.

TI: And when you say they weren't for it, did they say it or you could just sense it? Did they, did they say anything to you?

MB: One of my brothers told me that my father was very much against it, and there were things said that, you know, kind of felt that was the reason.

TI: And how did that make you feel, when your brother or father were against it? How did you feel?

MB: I didn't like it, but they weren't going to make me change my mind.

TI: Now did your husband know this too? Did you...

MB: Oh yeah, he did.

TI: And how would you explain that to him? What would, what would you say when, when he'd say, "Why don't they like me?"

MB: I don't know, we just know that Japanese marry Japanese and not anyone outside the Japanese community.

TI: And so for you to do that, most, I think, during that era, most Japanese Americans would want to marry within Japanese Americans. What made you different? Why were you different?

MB: I don't know. I certainly had a different lifestyle from the others, even from when I was young. I mean, having to go way out to New York and meeting all these people, and going across the country in those days was not done. I was a, what, sophomore year in high school and I'm crossing the United States and there's nothing but GIs on the train -- of course, I couldn't afford a plane -- but they were all trying to buy things, and you're told never to talk with strangers and they're just being nice. They were going overseas, and a lot of them were Japanese, and they'd buy me a pillow I'd throw it back at them. I was so rude. [Laughs] But so all this experience made me a little different from other Japanese or Asian people, I would think.

TI: Well especially, here you were, a girl from Walnut Grove, Japanese girl from Walnut Grove, to think that you would go to a New York boarding school, you would marry a non Japanese American, you would, your life was probably so different than what someone would have expected as, when they saw you as a little girl, so different. Which I love. I mean, I think your story's so interesting because of that, that you really --

MB: I don't know if I would've done that if, had my mother been living. But I, our next door neighbor from Walnut Grove lived in New York, and so I went there frequently, weekends, holidays, and it was very nice.

BT: Betty?

MB: Huh?

BT: Betty Matsuoka?

MB: No, Fujisakis. Bessie you're thinking of, yeah, and I used to see Bessie here. We'd take her out to dinners and whatever, and I notice she was getting really funny mentally. She'd say, "Oh, I'll take you out to dinner this time," and I'd say, "No, no, you took us out last time" -- I mean she said because she retired, but she had Alzheimer's, very severe, and she, we'd go see her in Sacramento I don't think she really remembered or realized. She did in some way, but not completely. She had, she had some questions, and it was sad.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.