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TI: So we should talk a little bit about that because when your grandmother was around you would attend the Buddhist church.

NA: Yeah. Practicing Buddhist, yeah.

TI: And so after she's gone you are now Christian, so how did that, that transformation happen?

NA: Well, I think until you're about ten years old you're still not gonna go on your own and make friends or run around with your friends, or at least that was what was happening to me. I mean, certainly we had a lot of the, in the Buddhist temple we'd have a lot of plays and Hanamatsuri shows and all, so it wasn't like I didn't know anybody, but most of the people were either two years, two and a half years older than me, or they were at least a year, year and a half younger than me. And at that age, as you're getting to be into sub-teens, that's a big, one year, one year and a half, especially among girls, it seemed to be a huge, big jump in interests, in things that you do and all, so I think it had, some of that timing had to do with how old I became. And then I was into basketball by now, Girl Scouts, and our Girl Scout troop pulled from all over, all different religious churches, and so some of that and then getting into basketball. The basketball teams, the YBA, the Buddhist churches had a basketball team, but again, I was the age that I'm too young for them, and so, but with the Girl Scouts we were all the same group, and we came from different churches and we formed the Links. And then within that there were Christians, there were Konko, there were Bukkyo, and there were two, Pine Methodists and the Church of Christ kids. There was also Episcopalian kids, so we were kind of like a mixture more than just one group that were in the same Sunday school class, and then became the basketball team, club and all that. So we were in this kind of much more...

TI: So it sounds like the conversion happened, there were a lot of social reasons for that.

NA: Yeah, lot of social.

TI: Once you made that change, how about the practice of Christianity, the philosophy of Christianity? How, how did that play in your life at this point?

NA: Well, it was kind of interesting and new. And the other thing that happened to me is, like, I went there, I don't remember exactly what season I started or anything, but come the next summer Reverend Toriumi says, "Nancy, I want you to help me with the vacation bible school." I said okay, and he says, "I want you to take over the whole crafts and all of that," and he'll take care of the religious lessons. Okay. So I was given responsibilities real early at Church of Christ, and later on when I met Mrs. Toriumi here in Los Angeles she kept saying, "Oh yeah, we were training you," and I go like, yeah, I guess that's what was happening. They were kind of giving me responsibilities so that I would learn to take leadership role. And through the Christian church process of being there I got active in becoming part of the youth leadership activities.

TI: Now, did she ever share what it was that they saw in you?

NA: No, because this is, this happened maybe about ten years ago here, and she was, she just, all that kind of stuff, and I'm going like, oh, we were there for a different reason and we don't need to pursue that.

TI: Yeah, I guess later in my life when people say things like that, maybe it's my oral history training now, I say, so why, what were you thinking? [Laughs] I'm just curious.

NA: I was there on museum work, to interface with the JEMS Christian missionary work. They wanted to start doing oral history work and all that.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.