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MN: 2011, we are at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles. We will be interviewing Roy Nakagawa; Tani Ikeda is on the video camera, and I will be interviewing, my name is Martha Nakagawa. Roy, I want to start with your father's name.

RN: Japanese name? Okay, I'll give you his full name, everything, so tell me when you want me to start talkin'. Okay, his name is Yoshikichi Tony Nakagawa.

MN: How did he get the name Tony?

RN: I don't know. He just, he just picked it up. I don't know how he got it.

MN: What is your mother's name?

RN: Tama, T-A-M-A.

MN: Do you remember her maiden name? [RN shakes head] What prefecture are they from?

RN: Hiroshima.

MN: Your parents were married in Hiroshima and had one daughter in Japan. Can you share with us what happened to this one daughter?

RN: When my father came to this country and after he called my mother, they left the first daughter with one of their relatives. It's the Japanese style in those days, and so my oldest daughter, sister rather, was left in Japan with the grandparents, I guess. So my mother came over here and we were all born in this country, five children.

MN: Did you ever meet the oldest sister?

RN: No.

MN: Did your father come to the United States first, before your mother?

RN: Yes.

MN: Where did he land?

RN: Seattle.

MN: What did he do there?

RN: I don't know what he did, but I assume that he came, those Japanese men, they all worked on the railroad, building the Great Northern railroad. So he would, they were shipped to Montana when they're building the railroad, and him and his coworkers were all Japanese single men.

MN: Is that why your father decided to live in Montana?

RN: I guess so, 'cause after they quit working on the railroad he had a boarding house full of Japanese men because they had no place to stay, and then he, then he went and went into farming. He leased the farmland from some American people, I guess, so he started the farm.

MN: And this is, the boarding house and the farm is in Montana? Is that correct?

RN: Right.

MN: And is that when he called your mother over?

RN: Yes.

MN: Where in Montana did your parents live?

RN: Place called Missoula, Montana.

MN: Were they in the city of Missoula or right outside?

RN: Right outside.

MN: And you said your parents had five children?

RN: Huh?

MN: Five children in the United States?

RN: I didn't hear that.

MN: Your parents had five children in the United States?

RN: Yes.

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