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SY: And when did she pass away? When did your grandmother pass away?

PS: You know I don't know the year but I think it was back in the early '60s someplace. She was seventy-five, seventy-six or so, about the same age as my mother.

SY: So you kind of lost contact when you went to Minneapolis, did you lose contact with your grandmother when your family moved?

PS: At what point did we lose contact with my grandmother?

SY: Yeah, I'm asking that, do you remember? I was thinking when your stepfather after the war moved to Minneapolis.

PS: To Milwaukee.

SY: I'm sorry, Milwaukee.

PS: We lived in Milwaukee.

SY: Okay so in Milwaukee then you lost contact?

PS: No, no we knew where my grandmother was. We stayed in contact, we wrote letters and all.

SY: Okay and then you were there for how long?

PS: For two years during the war.

SY: Two years.

PS: So that's one of the reasons we decided to move back. It's not as though we were moving back not knowing anybody and I'll have to say that my mother's stepfather, Dr. Miyamoto, was good enough to lend them money so that they could start the gas station. So I give him credit for that. He was a good man, Dr. Miyamoto was a good man, very kind man.

SY: Not very many doctors in the area.

PS: No.

SY: One of the first probably, physicians, right, he was a physician?

PS: Yeah, he was a very spunky guy. He went to San Fernando High, graduated from San Fernando High. He was a very short man but had a lot of drive. Actually he was an osteopath at first, he went to school of osteopathy and then things were changed and the osteopaths were able to become MDs so that's what he did. He became an MD after that was possible.

SY: So he was Issei or Nisei?

PS: He was Nisei.

SY: He was Nisei. So getting back to you're half Yonsei and probably half Nisei?

PS: Yeah, on my stepfather's side. My natural father was Nisei I believe.

SY: So half Sansei, half Sansei, half Yonsei.

PS: My mother was probably more influential in shaping me and my attitudes although yeah, she was very liberal in her viewpoints, her outlook, but it didn't carry over for me. I did pick up on it a little bit was when I remember during the Vietnam War she was very much upset at what was going on and how we were involved in Vietnam and how we should be getting out and all. And I was not political at all so she was upset at me that I was un-phased, I was unwilling to take a stand. It wasn't until I got involved with Paul Tsuneishi, you know, I showed you his interview that I did with him that we put down.

SY: This was much, much later, you were --

PS: Much, much later back in the mid-'70s.

SY: Right.

PS: So in the process of redress is when I got socially active and Paul was --

SY: I was going to say just to back up because we'll get into that but so would you consider your mother very liberal activist or just very liberal?

PS: Just very liberal. She just stayed at home, she did a lot of reading. She was very bright woman but her eyes were very bad so she... that kept her from really doing very much, couldn't go to school or anything. So amazingly back in Milwaukee contact lens came out and her eyes could not be corrected by normal means because he had scars on her retina, but contact lens saved her. She was able to get good vision.

SY: That's great.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.