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Title: Takayo Tsubouchi Fischer Interview
Narrator: Takayo Tsubouchi Fischer
Interviewer: Sharon Yamato
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: October 25, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-ftakayo-01-0001

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SY: Okay. Today we're talking to Takayo Fischer, welcome.

TF: Thank you.

SY: Today is October 25, 2011. We're at Centenary United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, and my name is Sharon Yamato and Tani Ikeda is on camera. So, Takayo, it's really a pleasure to have you here, and wanted... maybe first talk about your parents.

TF: Okay. I had wonderful parents. You know, you don't always realize when you're growing up, but I have some facts, and so I'd like to just read a little bit about my mother and the background. So my mother, her name was Kinko Hatakeda, and she was born on October 12, 1901, in Tokyo, Japan. She was the daughter of Arito Shozo of Tokyo, and Saku Hatakeda of Hiroshima. Ten or twelve years earlier, when Saku was probably fifteen or sixteen -- that's my mother's mother -- she had been married into the Kawanishi family and they had one son, Wataru Kawanishi. And it seems that her husband was unfaithful and had an affair with another woman, had a child, and a divorce ensued. But in accordance with the custom where the man is so powerful in Japan, and in response to the pressure from the husband's family, Saku gave up her son so that the father's family could raise him. At age twenty-five, about, Saku Hatakeda, my mother's mother, moved to Tokyo in response to advertisements promising greater job opportunities. She went to work in a fabric factory in Nino-gun, Tokyo, and while working in the factory, she fell in love, met a man who was the son of the factory owner. And they fathered a child which was my mother, Kinko. And although he wanted to marry her, his family forbid it because of the class disparities, and the liaison between the two of them, however, continued.

And as they... then, of course, she became pregnant again, and three or four years later, there was a son born, my mother's younger brother. He decided he wanted to marry my grandmother despite the parents' objections, and he instructed my grandmother to move back to Hiroshima, and he was going to go talk to his parents and he would join her there. While he was home with his parents, he died of pneumonia before the marriage could take place, and so she was left alone with the children. And after his death, his parents pressed Saku, my grandmother, to please send Kinko to them and they would take care, but she said absolutely not. She had given up one child, she would never do that again. And so she vowed to take care of her two children the rest of her life, and she subsequently refused all future marriage proposals. And her brother was born in 1905. So that is the story of my mother.

SY: Wow. Now, I have to ask you, because it's an unusual story, right? I mean, the fact that there was any divorce...

TF: Well, I was shocked to find... I was shocked to find this out because growing up, I mean, the one thing your parents are always, you know, emphasizing to girls, I mean, they never really said it, that you mustn't have sex. Sex was never discussed, but it was still, I mean, that would never happen. And here to find that my grandmother had been living with a man...

SY: Children out of wedlock.

TF: And children out of wedlock.

SY: And divorce. Divorce was probably not...

TF: No, divorce -- I'm jumping ahead -- but I've been married twice. And when I divorced the first time and I was going back to Japan, my mother said, "Don't tell the relatives." I said, "I can't lie. I won't bring up the subject, but somehow if it comes around, I've got to tell the truth. I'm very uncomfortable lying." I mean, it always comes out anyway, right?

SY: Right.

TF: So I felt it just easier -- but they pleaded with me, "Don't tell the family, it's such a shame." I mean, I kept getting messages, "Don't think about yourself, stay together for the sake of your children. Do whatever it is... forget about your life, think about the children." And I tried and tried and then finally I decided I think it's absolutely wrong. Because, really, you're ruining the children's lives. They don't see a healthy relationship.

SY: So now how did you find out all of this about your grandmother?

TF: Well, this one, I don't know who sent me this, but when I was talking to my mother, I also found out something else. I have a little piece I wanted to read for you, and then it kind of tells you a little story and the hardships my mother had in a relationship. And again, I can see why she kept emphasizing, you know, to be careful. I don't know about your parents, but my parents never discussed sex or having children, but I just knew I'd probably have to go commit suicide if such a thing happened. [Laughs]

SY: But what's interesting is that this happened to your mother's mother.

TF: This happened to my mother's mother.

SY: And your mother then went...

TF: I'm going to tell you another story about my mother later.

SY: Okay, okay.

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