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TI: Let's talk about your siblings right now. So why don't we just talk about your sisters and brother in birth order?

MT: My older sister and brother, I said, were born in San Pedro. My older sister's name was Mizuyo, but when she was in San Pedro as a child and people would ask her what her name was she would say, "I'm Mary." So even my parents called her Mary. She's the only one in our family that has an American name 'cause she gave it to herself, and she, and again, it's a complex name because my father was a calligraphy, into that and then later came back to fishing and so forth in Terminal Island. When my father came back, my brother was then also born in San Pedro and he, his name is, but he was born when my father was living in Terminal Island, and he was away at sea and the child was born. They had not discussed name, my father, mother had not discussed any names and she didn't know what to do so she gave him the firstborn name, Ichiro, means firstborn, right? When he came back he got really angry at her 'cause that's just such a simplistic name. It doesn't go with Tonai, see? And got angry, she said, "He really got angry at me because I didn't know. I didn't know what to name him." It was the simplest thing you could think of, so that's, that's how he got the simple name. So then they lived in Terminal Island and after, then they moved to San Pedro again when he, when he started a business again, Pop and Mom grocery store, and so back and forth like that. And then my sister was born, when we, it was back in Terminal Island, sister was born, then this time they were, they didn't live, first time they lived in San Pedro, this time they still lived in Terminal Island and they would commute to the store in Wilmington. That's when my sister was young. And then later on when I was born, they had a, by then they had stores in San Pedro and he started to expand.

TI: Your, your sister, the third born, what was her name?

MT: Rumi. R-U-M-I. And as I said before, she was named basically after Lummi Island.

TI: That's a good one. I'll have to tell people in the Northwest about that one. They'll like that.

MT: Rumi is a, there were very few people named Rumi. A lot of Rumiko, but she was named Rumi. Today there's more people named Rumi. I'm talking about Japan.

TI: And then, Min, after you were born you had one more sibling, a brother?

MT: Had a younger brother name Yutaka, and he was born in Terminal Island itself.

TI: And tell me a little bit about the age difference in terms of your oldest sister, how much older was she?

MT: My oldest sister was born in 1922 in, in August of '22.

TI: Okay, about six and a half years older than you.

MT: Yeah. And then my brother was born in, in September of '24, and my sister above me was born in July of '27. And then my younger brother was born in January of 1931.

TI: Okay.

MT: He's almost, January 11th, so almost one year, eleven months younger than I. And that's, that's my earliest recollection of anything, is when he was born.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.