<Begin Segment 23>

SY: So the women, did you have a... were there clubs here that formed for women?

MK: I belonged to the Maharanis, so we used to call them... (...) we adopted a boy from Japan and we used to have all these fundraisers. I remember packing senbei and stuff like that, we'd send money to them every month. I remember his name was Ma-chan and to this day I'm wondering what happened to him. I wish we could trace him. For all we know he could be prime minister or somebody. [Laughs] But we sponsored him for many years.

SY: And this was like young adult women. So it was kind of like all housewives kind of that got together and decided to form?

MK: I think the Maharanis probably formed when the girls were single but by then, when I came in I was married but couple of the friends asked me to join. I was already married then.

SY: And you would get together and talk? What else did they do besides sponsoring?

MK: We used to do social things but most of it was fundraisers.

SY: It was mainly fundraising.

MK: Fundraisers just to have enough money to send to this orphanage in Japan. We did that every month.

SY: Wow, that's amazing.

MK: We still have this scrapbook here about it (and) I would love to... I wonder if there's some way we could trace it.

SY: And really it's sort of a kind of a volunteer group that all the women in it were happy but it was also kind of social group.

MK: Yeah, it was. We did things like having dances and stuff like that.

SY: Oh, you still had dances even though everybody was married.

MK: Yeah, in fact we sponsored dances. (...)

SY: At the time do you remember there were a lot of these clubs?

MK: I'm sure that there were.

SY: All JA women?

MK: JAs are good at that.

SY: Different areas of the city had different groups so it wasn't unusual and you never kind of all did things together. It was more you formed your own little...

MK: Yeah, we'd get together and at that time that's when we socialized and that's it.

SY: That's great.

MK: A couple of the (ladies) like Chris Ichikawa (...) from Go for Broke, we still keep in touch.

SY: And she was an original of one of those groups?

MK: Yeah.

SY: And then the guys when they would have their meetings or the 442 guys, then were the women involved in that too?

MK: Yes, always. I don't think the guys could have a meeting without the women.

SY: So you would be involved in both of those. So you would go to those meetings and then you'd be a part of the Maharanis. And then you did all your kids' stuff and this was all outside of your regular job.

MK: Well, I guess when I was doing Camp Fire and that... yeah, I guess I was working, I was thinking maybe I wasn't.

SY: Part of that time.

MK: Yeah.

SY: So it was a way of... you must have been very busy I was thinking.

MK: I'm thinking now I must have had a messy house.

SY: With your kids, did they... they didn't get involved with all these other social activities, did all these people at that time did they have kids?

MK: They all had their own little groups of friends too. Because they were all were in the same class most of the time, school. Because even now my daughter is always talking about the kids that were still in that group.

SY: Really?

MK: They get together, well now with email and Facebook or whatever, they're closer together than ever and all the guys too.

SY: So they managed to stay in touch with the people you met back in the '60s here.

MK: Yeah, well, it's actually their classmates. I guess my group is mostly gone now.

SY: The people that you were with.

MK: The parents and all.

SY: So did they become lifelong friends then? Or did you lose touch eventually?

MK: You mean with...

SY: People from the Maharanis.

MK: A few of them I'm still in touch with but most of them I think have passed on now.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.