<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Okay, so Min, we're gonna start the second section of this. Where we had left off was you were five years old, in Japan, 1934, and this is after eight months and now you're returning back to Terminal Island.

MT: To Terminal Island.

TI: So let's pick up the story there.

MT: Well, we arrived in Terminal Island in September of 1934. I had already, because I was a half year student -- L.A. used to have half years, two semesters -- I went to kindergarten in Terminal Island. Elementary school was called Walizer School, and aside from that one family, everybody else was Japanese. And I was put into the second semester of kindergarten, and Terminal Island was such that, because people did not have any English skills or very little English skill, that they had a extra semester of a class when you went into the first grade, and it was called Transition B1. B was the early, I'm sorry, B was the first semester and A was the second semester, so I went to B1. Now, if you did well enough in B1 they would put you in A1, but most people then, if you didn't do well, then you went to the regular B1 and then the other one. So most people in Terminal Island were a half year behind in school. Well, I did well enough in Transition B1 to be what we used to call Little B1, to move on to A1, and I finished that.

And meanwhile, my, the principal had talked to my mother and said, "It's so futile to teach these kids English because soon as they leave the school they speak Japanese." Albeit, very bad Japanese, but they would speak the Japanese, and so this was frustrating. Said, "Now, you," she said to my mother that, "Your husband is no longer a fisherman or involved with fishing, so you should get off the island so your children have a better chance of learning English." So she moved off the island and... well, there's a little bit of a story there, but we can talk about that later. But I was actually left, here they were trying to, I should talk about... I was, in Japan my uncle wanted to, my aunt, uncle wanted to adopt me. I thought that's what they wanted, to leave me in Japan. Then I refused that and came back. When my folks now wanted, felt that they should move for the children's sake, move to San Pedro. They're gonna... it was difficult because people would not rent homes to Japanese. They finally found a place and they moved in there. My sister and brother were angels, and they claimed that they didn't want to show me there because they might refuse to rent the place, and that was their excuse 'cause I was a brat. Well, what happened is that they left me with my aunt, uncle who had no son, just a daughter, and even at six and a half years old I said, "I'm suspicious of what they're doing to me." Yeah, I get to eat well, I got to do things and I had a lot of freedom, but that's not, and I didn't like that. So when my folks would come to visit me from San Pedro at the end of the day on Sunday, end of the day, I would hide in their car. Obviously I can't hide; they can see me. But my mother would say, "Oh, let him go. We'll take him. We'll take him to San Pedro." So they would drive me to San Pedro, I would sleep with them, and then in the morning my father would take me back to Terminal Island.

And that happened for a while, and then one day I decided that, I heard that there were some fishing on Terminal Island off the pier, so I want to go fishing. I didn't know how to fish, but I went. So I took my uncle's rod and reel without permission, went out to the pier. I didn't know how to handle it, so I backlashed everything and I couldn't, so I brought it back, I was coming back. When I was coming back, the son of one of the stores there, little grocery store there, saw me and I, and he quickly saw that he was gonna tell, rat on me, he's gonna go tell my cousin's cousin about it, which he did, and so now I'm in trouble. I knew he had done that. I guess I saw them or something. Anyway, I was now in trouble so I decided I'd better hide, so I was, I hid, so I hid under my uncle and aunt's bed, that's furthest where, from where we were. Well, underneath the bed I fell asleep. When I woke up suddenly I find all kinds of commotion. My mother and father's there, my aunt's there and my cousin's running around and everything else, and pretty soon the police is there. They thought I was kidnapped. They couldn't find me. Or I ran away or something. And I thought, well, I can't get caught, so I hid in the closet. I thought, "Well, I got to be caught 'cause this is getting too bad," so I, no one would catch me, so I thought, "Well, I'll go back under the bed and I'll crawl where they could see me." Nobody could see me, so I keep crawling further and further out and then my cousin, cousin's cousin, I think, was sitting on the rocking chair that was in that bedroom. Rocking, and finally I moved far enough away that she could see me. "Oh," all excited. 'Course, everyone was glad that I was there, everything, but my mother said, "Oh no, we'll just take him home from now on." And that's how I got...

TI: And what was behind your staying there? Did, was the thinking that --

MT: I suspect that they were trying to adopt me. I don't think it was anything else but that. So they told me that I was, that they had to be careful or else they couldn't rent the place, but I always suspected that they were, my uncle didn't have a son and he was a very prominent member of the community, so he needed a son.

TI: That's a good story.

MT: But, but that's how I ended living with my parents again.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.