<Begin Segment 23>

TS: Or Sansei, for that matter, I think it's -- getting now where most of the Sansei are marrying other than Japanese, huh? Or a lotta of 'em.

CK: Well, a lot of 'em, but --

YM: Would you say about 50 percent, is it?

TS: Oh, pretty big chunk. My kids all married Caucasians.

YM: I have one that's married to a Caucasian.

TS: Yeah. So you have no choice.

SF: Okay. Anything else we need to touch base on?

TS: Well, one thing, in the old days that has been mentioned, the marriage part -- what was it? -- baishakunin?

YM: Oh. Not too many among the Niseis...

TS: Yeah.

YM: I think. There were probably between the Kibeis and the Isseis, but not too many in the Nisei --

TS: Yeah.

SF: So even if you had a person who, say, an untalented young man and a less talented, or less desirable, for whatever reason, woman, it's unlikely that they would find a mate that -- no one would intervene, the family, or something, to try to find someone for them?

TS: Well, the parents, some of 'em might.

SF: So they -- it was strictly kind of like a parent trying to, kind of find someone for that person?

YM: Well, I think the Isseis asked maybe their good friend or whoever, some people were go-betweens a lot. And they go, maybe go to them and ask them to, if they would find a wife or a husband for their, their children.

TS: For the older Nisei, maybe?

YM: For the older, maybe old Nisei...

TS: Issei.

YM: But Kibeis, mostly --

TS: Oh.

YM: Maybe. Kibeis --

TS: Yeah.

YM: Or Isseis that were not married yet.

TS: Oh.

YM: They'd do that.

SF: Did the Niseis ever rebel against sort of family pressure to, to marry, marry right and a particular guy or gal, where it was -- was it always free choice and the parents never meddled or put pressure on kids to marry X or Y or someone from the appropriate family or something like that?

YM: I know if they, in my, in the, my sister's age group or the older Niseis, if they married a hakujin, they would be kicked out of the house. And that was a few of them that were, the folks wouldn't have anything to do with them.

SF: So --

TS: That's quite a few years ago.

YM: Oh, yeah. This is a, the real older...

TS: Yeah.

YM: Nisei -- not too much our age group...

TS: Yeah.

YM: But...

SF: So in virtually all those instances where there was that kind of intermarriage, the person got thrown out --

YM: In fact, there was some intermarriages among Isseis, too. But I don't, I don't know of any right off-hand, but there were some instances like that...

TS: Yeah.

YM: That...

TS: Very few.

YM: Maybe there weren't any Issei ladies, so they married hakujins or any other ethnic group.

SF: So how much approval did mom, mom and dad have to give to the other person or other family? Could -- I mean, did they have some veto power or a lot of veto power? Say that you had a not-so-desirable Nisei girlfriend or guy friend, did mom and dad ever, ever sort of pressure people to --

TS: You mean the Isseis pressure the Nisei?

SF: Yeah.

CK: Oh, yeah.

YM: Well, it could be that some of 'em were sent back to Japan to kinda separate them, too.

TS: Well, that was years ago, though, huh?

YM: Years ago.

CK: Years ago.

SF: If a Nisei was rowdy, would that happen to them?

YM: Yeah, I think some of 'em were sent back to Japan because, to discipline them or something. They sent them to Japan.

SF: Okay. Okay. Very good. I think we, you guys did a great job.

YM: Well --

SF: Thanks a lot.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.