<Begin Segment 1>

TI: So Ted, the way I start this is always kind of the date and where we are, so today is Wednesday, May 25, 2011. We're in San Jose at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, and on camera we have Dana Hoshide, and I'm Tom Ikeda, the interviewer. And so Ted, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna start. Can you tell me when you were born and where you were born?

TK: I was born on July 27, 1929, on Bainbridge Island, Washington, which is located about seven miles due west of Seattle, Washington.

TI: And when you were born, what was the name given to you at birth?

TK: Sadamu Kitayama.

TI: And where did, where did Ted come in?

TK: What my mother told me is that she said that, I don't know when it was, but she said I didn't like the name Sadamu and I kept on saying "Te-Te" and "Te-Te" became Ted.

TI: Oh, so you gave yourself your own name?

TK: I guess so, yeah. [Laughs] I'm not sure.

TI: Okay, that's good. And let me start with your father, so can you tell me what your father's name was and where he was from?

TK: My father's name is Takeshi Kitayama, and he was, I think he was born in Numazu, Japan, which is in Shizuoka, in eighteen, I'm not sure, 1889 I think.

TI: And what kind of work did his family do, or he did, in Japan? What did he do?

TK: I'm not exactly sure. Someone said he came from a samurai family, and I guess, I guess when the Meiji revolution was, I think he was on, he must've been on the Tokugawa side because I think he was on the losing end, and I think part of the samurai group went north and some of it went south to Shizuoka. And I think his family went south. But what they did in Japan or, I'm not sure because I think we don't have too much history of my father's family, and I think we just lost it.

TI: So do you have any stories about how he ended up in Bainbridge Island? So how did he get to Bainbridge?

TK: I'm not exactly sure. I think he was working in Seattle, and then I think after he married my mother, I think then they moved to Bainbridge and he rented a greenhouse on Bainbridge, I guess. That's where we were.

TI: And so he married your mother in Seattle?

TK: In Seattle.

TI: So tell me a little about your mother first. So what was your mother's name and where was she from?

TK: My mother's name is Masuko, her name was Masuko Hasegawa, and she was born in Yui, Shizuoka in Japan, which is about, I don't know, it's not too far from Numazu. And I think she came, she came to America as a picture bride, but I think the picture and person that she was supposed to marry, I think, didn't match, so I think she was pretty independent so she left. [Laughs] She didn't marry him. And then I think there was a, what do you call it, a baishakunin, and I think they met, my mother and my father were, got together somehow.

TI: And so do you know any of the story? So here, I'm imagining she comes off the ship, she has a picture.

TK: Right.

TI: And then the person who comes to meet her doesn't match the picture.

TK: Something like that, yeah.

TI: And so she says, "No, so I'm not gonna do this."

TK: Yeah.

TI: At that point what happens? Do you know, did she tell any stories about if, was he mad or was there a problem?

TK: She didn't mention anything about this and we just picked it up later on, because when we've seen her passport, she didn't come as a Hasegawa. I think she came as another name.

TI: And why was that? Why, so Hasegawa was...

TK: I think she came with her so-called husband's name.

TI: Oh, I understand. Okay.

TK: Yeah. But I don't have that passport.

TI: Oh, so when someone saw that they wondered, it's a different last name, and then they could kind of figure out, so this must've been the person she was supposed to marry.

TK: Yeah. Yeah, but my mother or father didn't, we didn't speak about it and we never got this information directly from them.

TI: Okay. But the, but it worked out because your father was the same prefecture, or they were pretty, pretty close and so the baishakunin matched them?

TK: Right. Yeah, I think the baishakunin was also from Shizuoka.

TI: How interesting. Yeah, you always hear about those stories, but you rarely come across people who actually lived that, so that's...

TK: [Laughs] Yeah, maybe.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.