<Begin Segment 4>

SY: I'm sorry, we should probably back up. I never got the names of your parents. Your mother's name was?

PS: Lillian, my mother was Lillian and her stepfather's name or my grandmother married a Dr. Miyamoto, and Dr. Miyamoto had his family the San Fernando Valley. He was from Tottori-ken and Tottori was largely established and had roots in the San Fernando Valley so that was the connection.

SY: So did she take your... Dr. Miyamoto's last name? Did your mother?

PS: Yeah, so I went... I kind of assumed that name for a while. In fact, I think when I went to... I had that name for quite a while. When I went to school, starting kindergarten at Thirty-seventh Street School I used Miyamoto and then I think my sister did also. And when we were in camp we were registered as Miyamoto. We were kind of an oddity in that no one was divorced in camp so they didn't quite know what to do with us. So at first they had us all together and --

SY: You mean your grandmother?

PS: Yeah, my grandmother, my mother and then finally we found separate lodging in a different block.

SY: So did you feel a kind of a little strange because of your mother's situation? I mean, was that uncomfortable for you as a child growing up in this sort of more of a maternal atmosphere?

PS: Yeah, I didn't give it much thought but in Santa Anita for some reason I was... there were some older boys who wanted to see me fight this guy about my age and the guy was I think the youngest in his family, Makoto Mizukami was his name and he came from family of boys. So they were after me to fight this guy and this guy, he made threatening gestures to me for no particular... I didn't even know the guy it was really strange. I could understand it if we had words or there was some kind of conflict between us that caused this but there was no particular reason. I think it was a matter of boredom. People are just looking for something to occupy themselves. There was nothing to do. Schools were not established in that time, it was just six months so it was a temporary arrangement. So we got together, I threw a couple of punches that didn't land and he did the same and it was all over. But then my mother realized that she felt as though she wanted to do something but she felt kind of helpless. So she asked this Christian minister, George Takaya I remember his name... and he died fairly recently. His advice was, "You have to let him fight his own battles," so that wasn't very reassuring to her. So I think she felt the need to find a father for me and my sister, Evelyn. So I think that was... and then of course he had an out from camp, he did have the skill, he was able to get the job, and so she took that opportunity.

SY: And what was his name?

PS: Tunney, T-U-N-N-E-Y. He was also athletic; he was a boxer. And he got the name Tunney because one of his friends gave him the name of Gene Tunney.

SY: So it was a nickname?

PS: Yeah, his name was Tsuneo.

SY: And his last name was?

PS: Shigekuni.

SY: Oh, so then you took --

PS: Right, so I adopted that name.

SY: I see.

PS: So just like I picked up Miyamoto I adopted Shigekuni even though it wasn't legally mine and I didn't find that out until I went into the army and I had to get a security clearance. I was stationed in Camp Carson right outside of Colorado Springs. I had to go into town in Colorado Springs and go to court and legally have it changed so I could get the security.

SY: Your legal name was Miyamoto? What was your legal name?

PS: Well, on my birth certificate it was Morisue, M-O-R-I-S-U-E. So that was legally my name.

SY: And that was your father's name?

PS: Yeah, my birth father, my natural father.

SY: Yeah, that must have been interesting having to go through all that.

PS: Yeah, it was quite an experience. Actually, my so-called natural father really as much as I found him obnoxious, he did us a favor because -- I mentioned to you this before -- that he had mentioned the thing that broke up the family was that my mother had run away with this man. And through a series of coincidences my sister was able to connect with a man who knew this man that my mother had run away with. And it was in the state of, I think it was in Nevada or Utah, but anyway he had this picture of this man with my mother along with another woman that we couldn't identify but it was amazing because this man looked very much like me, more than the guy who showed up on our doorstep. So I'm convinced that this man who was purported to be half Filipino was my natural father, so my sister and I have different fathers.

SY: And she never married that man that she ran away with.

PS: No, so that was kind of what precipitated the divorce. So the interesting thing is that this man who shows up, my supposed natural father, brings up this whole thing. I didn't even know about it and because he has a big mouth, fortunately he told us the whole story. But then he says that my mother said that he was not my father. And this man had a big ego so he says, "Oh, no, I know that I was your father." It wasn't even an issue for me but then since he brought it up I thought well, gee. So then I started thinking about it and looking at my birth certificate, of course, it does say Morisue, his name. However, my middle name is Masanori and he told me that this man that my mother ran away with was named Mas. I don't know his full name but his name was Mas. The other clue that my mother left was my name, Philip, "Filipino." It just clicked with me that my mother was trying to tell me but I could never... I found about this while she was still living, however my mother had problems with depression, it was very difficult for my stepfather to really live with her but I give him a lot of credit because he stayed with her and was very understanding of her. But I couldn't put myself in the position of asking her to make her more depressed. Although I think she probably would have told me, but it's one thing that I somewhat regret but I think if I had to do it again I probably wouldn't have asked her. I suppose I knew.

SY: It was clear.

PS: And it was good. I mean, all and all it was a good thing that I met this man because I could get an understanding of my mother's motivations for doing what she did, and I don't hold it against her. And I think because she needed to get out of the house to get away from her mother, and I had contact with her mother, my grandmother and I could see what kind of person she was. I could understand all that was going on and I could see that because of my grandmother's personality that she wasn't a good person to raise a family. So I could understand my mother made some bad choices, obviously some bad choices.

SY: Yeah, probably kind of courageous choices too because at the time it was probably very unheard of to be, again, to get divorced, to remarry, all of that.

PS: Right.

SY: But then that was also a model that was set by her mother.

PS: Yeah.

SY: Which was probably even more unusual.

PS: Yeah, and my sister has gotten a divorce so you know there's been some research I think, and so I think the tradition kind of gets carried on.

SY: And you really don't know anything about your grandmother's divorce?

PS: No, nothing. My mother never, never talked about it but I know that even her third marriage was not a very stable marriage.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.