<Begin Segment 1>

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.

<Begin Segment 2>

TF: Well, I can read you a piece about... I wrote a piece once called "Conversations with My Mother About Love." Should I read it to you?

SY: I would love to hear it.

TF: Okay, and then we can discuss my mother. I'm going to do it with a slight accent, and I haven't looked at this in a long time. But one Mother's Day I had my children come over to have Mother's Day, and then they're all set to go out right away and I said, "No, no. Part of your coming here today is 'cause I wrote a piece about my mother and I want to share it with you." When my mother came to visit with me, she told me this story. If it were a performance piece, you would see my mother drinking tea. "I so happy when I come visit with you and husband. So nice. Oh, because you happy now. You have good life, good husband. All time you kiss, kiss, say, 'I love you.' Never see like that before in my family. No. I not touch your father before I met him. I not know him. We have baishakunin, marriage broker, arrange marriage. When I young, love was not necessary for marriage. To live with respect for parents of all important. Honor important. To survive was hard. Your father was good man, hard worker. Marriage, very hard, not easy. Not fun, not bad, not happy. Is way of life. Necessary. You say you be wife. You be wife. Many Japanese men in old days like Papa, so bossy, so grumpy. Always think their way, right way. They think women should obey, do everything they say. That only way I know. My father died when I was very young. He loved my mother like your husband love you. So my mother, your grandmother, was happy only short time in life. You be good to husband because he very special man, like Taisho, important person like a general. Oh, he so kind, so nice, so thoughtful. He always thinking how he can make you happy.

First time my mother marriage was arranged, baishakunin marriage. She have a baby boy, my older brother. Mother's husband love another woman and have baby with that woman, too. He tell my mother, 'Go away. Go another town,' but must leave baby boy with him. Husband no want her anymore. He want to live with girlfriend and their baby. Mother's own family tell her she should do what husband want and go live in another city. Mother left little village outside Hiroshima by herself and go to live in big city, Tokyo. She find job in factory. In time, she meet man who work same company, man with important job. He want to marry your grandmother, my mother, but his parents say no. His parents tell him, 'She not of same class. She married before and have baby and husband not want her.' They forbid marriage. In time I was born. My daddy so good to me. I remember he always take me to barber shop with him. When he gets face shave, he have my face shave, too. That's why I shave every day. Makes me think of Daddy, of happy times together. Daddy wants to marry Mother but his parents still say no. In few years, my baby brother is born. Once more, Daddy goes back to his parents' home in another city to beg permission to marry my mother, but still his parents say no. When he visiting with his parents, he gets pneumonia and die. I know when he die. One night when I sleeping, he came in my dream to tell me he love me, but he cannot see me again. I know he dead. Mother go back to village outside Hiroshima to live with her mother, your grandmother. My mother so kind, so good in her heart, but grandmother very mean to us. She feel we bring much shame for her. She feel shame when she sees us. My father's parents try to take us away from my mother, but this time Mother very strong and say no. She say she never give us up. She already lose first son to first husband. Mother needs work, so she work very hard as midwife, never home. Only mean Grandmother look after us.

Mother still beautiful and look young, and one day, a rich merchant come to house and ask her to marry. My young brother and I could hear him talking in next room. When we hear he want to marry her, my brother and I, we so excited, we pray so hard she will say yes. We hold hands, pray together, 'Please, please, Namu Amida Butsu, please say yes.' Then, quietly, we could hear her say, 'No.' She still love our father. She say he was so good to her, she never forget him. She never marry again. Love, I remember. Long time ago, I was so young. I used to sit outside house sewing by hand. I used to see young man. We say hello and talk. Just hello and talk. When I think about him, my heart so happy, then sad. Always feel connection from heart. This kind of love you talk about, it makes sun shine in your heart. Our whole body feel good. I remember I wanted to make him smile. I wanted to make him laugh, I wanted to make his heart and body happy. I wanted everything be so good for him. He tell me he love me, he want to marry me, but no can do. His family say no, they not accept me. They not accept my family. He tell his parents that he never marry anybody else. We so sad. I think, 'How can he ever really be happy then?' What can I do? So when I hear that faraway Cousin Chukuro come back from America to look for wife, I let baishakunin know that if Chukuro like me, I go to America with him. I think maybe it's good idea if I go far, far away, so my friend can forget me. So he can have full life, can marry, be happy, have a family. I hope and hope that Chukuro choose me so my friend can fall in love with another woman his family will approve of. To be his wife, to have children, forget me and be happy.

Chukuro, your father, choose me. We marry. When we leave village to catch train in Hiroshima, your father put suitcase in wheelbarrow and we have long walk to train station. As Chukuro, your father, and I are walking to train station, my girlfriend comes to say goodbye at outskirts of village. She gives me letter from man I love. In letter he say he's sorry. He never forget me. He love me. I look up the hill and he is standing at the very top. He looks so far away, so small. When he sees me, he looks up. When he saw me look up, he bows very low to me. Your father was a good man. He knew about my friend but never jealous, never mean. Did I learn to love your father? Not like you love your husband and not like I loved my friend, but your father and I stayed married for fifty-five years. We survived together. It was okay."

That's the piece I wrote, and then years later, I went to Hiroshima and I spoke to my cousin, and I told him that my mother told me about this story and how there was a man that she loved. Then he said, "I have a secret that I was told never to divulge, but I'm older now and my mother was dead, my father was dead, I only had one living sister, and he made me promise not to tell her. She's still alive, but I'm going to tell you." My mother had a child with this man. And she left that child, which is my brother, in Japan, and he had a very troubled, unhappy life. Of course, he had to feel very abandoned, and her mother took care of him. And then when she went back to Japan, everybody was dead. It was after World War II. So that's the story of my mother. And so when I think of her, she was, she talked about when she got over to this country, and she would look at the moon. I didn't understand then. She would look and, of course, she didn't have a wonderful place to stay. They stayed in a barn with animals first, and she would cry and cry. But I thought it was... that's why I think she was always saying , just always to careful, don't do anything that you're not supposed to. And she had a very unhappy life in that way, and her mother had the same kind of unhappy life, she lost a son, my mother lost a son, and I'm sure she didn't want any of her children to go through that pain and here we were, all girls in our family.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

TF: Okay. Now, the other thing I wanted to tell you is after my cousin told me, he took me to... it's just walking distance where my brother was. I said I want to know where he is, and so they took me over there.

SY: So he was still alive?

TF: No, no, they took me to where he, where they have his ashes. In Japan I think they have just little places where, little small places where people keep their loved ones' ashes. So it was walking distance and I was able to visit with my brother. Always wanted an older brother.

SY: Oh, and he was the only male?

TS: And he was the only male.

SY: He would have been the only male.

TS: No, but I can imagine how difficult life must have been for him, too, for that whole family.

SY: Now when your mother told you this story, and it's written so beautifully.

TS: Well, she told it just like... she never talked about a real romance, she talked about just saying hello, just talking, you know, when he would pass by, but obviously there was more than that.

SY: Right, right. But even in the way you wrote it, it's very understated. She was very understated, she didn't want to reveal everything.

TS: No, absolutely not.

SY: Just their facts were amazing, just an amazing story. So when she... so the relationship between your mother and father, how did you perceive that? How as a young child did you, did the thought ever cross your mind that it was sort of a marriage of convenience?

TS: No, I think I always knew that it was probably arranged. And the other thing was I was shocked to discover years later, when I was an adult, they're cousins. They're related.

SY: Which was... was that a practice?

TS: I don't know. I don't know if that was a practice or not, but I can read you a piece just about my father coming to -- it's not a piece, but it's just talking about his journey in a way. My father was Chukuro, and then he used the nickname Jack, Tsubouchi, and he was born in Hiroshima, Inokuchimachi, on September 23, 1900. He landed in Seattle, Washington, June 11, 1916, and he started working at the Harding Sawmill in Tacoma, Washington, June 14, 1916. On October of 1918, he went to Lemoore, California. In October 1919 he went back to Seattle, back to California, in 1922. In October of 1922 he went to Japan to look for a wife. He told me he rode on a bicycle to look at women and then he married my mother, chose my mother. That's all I knew from my dad. They got married in December of 1922, and the children were born in different towns in California. But farming was always his main source of income. He left Jerome relocation camp to work at a sod farm in Naperville, Illinois, and when Jerome relocation camp closed, he continued to work in Naperville and would come home on weekends until he found employment as a carpenter at Stensgard, they made trailer homes. He worked there until April 1950, until June 1953 he worked for Travel Light trailer. June 1953, September 1954, with Link and Smith Manufacturers, September '54 to December '59 with Continental Trailer, and January 27, 1960, he started working at Trailsramp company and retired in June 1970 and took a trip to Japan.

And my father was a jack of all trades, he could do anything, he made many things. And when he was... my mother I think was coming back from visiting me, and he went to pick her up at the airport, and he had a heart attack on the way back to their home. And he must have sensed something because he went to the shoulder of the road, and he went over a rail guard, and fortunately, the car didn't catch on fire 'cause it had severed the gas tank. My mother had injured her vertebrae and was hospitalized and couldn't attend the funeral. Now, there was something else that talked about, you know, actually about his father who came to California early on. Let's see.

SY: He must have come very early.

TF: Yeah, he came extremely early, and I'm just wondering where I might have that.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

TF: My father had two brothers and a sister, Tsuchiye, a brother, I think, Raymond, one of 'em. But his father, Ikutaro, served in the Japanese army in the artillery with a horse drawn cannon. He went to war twice. Once against the Russians in 1904, and then the invasion of China in 1933. And my father's father, Ikutaro, immigrated to the United States in 1912. In 1916 he returned back to Japan to get the two sons, my father, Chukuro, and Raymond, the younger brother. The father and the two sons set sail for the United States. It took eighteen days, it said, sailing on the Chicago Maru, sound right? It sounds funny to me.

SY: Oh, yeah, it's true, Chicago.

TF: Chicago Maru to sail from Kobe, Japan, to Tacoma, Washington, including a stop in Hawaii. And it mentions where my father worked in a sawmill for two years before moving to California. My father was in farming, raising walnuts, grapes, apricots and berries. He raised cotton one year when the business was bad, and returned to Japan in 1922 to marry my mother, and they returned February 1923 on the Taiyo Maru. And it seems that Raymond, the brother, and Ikutaro returned to Japan in 1933 so that Raymond could find a woman to marry. And when the younger brother returned to Japan, he was drafted into the army medical unit and he made many trips between China and Japan. Evidently he married and he had children, but Raymond died of disease before the end of World War II. His wife and one boy died in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. And somehow Ikutaro must have returned to the United States before the outbreak of World War II. He died in Portland in 1952. He apparently was part of the group of internees who would not disavow allegiance to Japan, and he was interned at Heart Mountain relocation center in Wyoming. He was sent to Formosa after his discharge. When or how he returned to the United States is unknown.

Now, see, I never knew I had a grandfather in the United States. When I was growing up, I never knew I had any relatives. I didn't know what a grandmother or grandfather or cousin or aunt or any of that was. And then I'm reading this and discovering I had a grandfather, but my father, I think, had a falling out with both his father and grandfather because I think in those days, he had probably an older brother. They worked and then they sent money back home, and everything always went to the oldest son, so I think somewhere along the way they came to a parting of the ways. And so my father never talked about any of the relatives.

SY: And he never talked about it.

TF: So I never knew that I had a grandfather who lived in the United States.

SY: And his younger brother was Raymond?

TF: Raymond. I had heard of Raymond, but I didn't hear about the older brother. I think probably there was discord there.

SY: And so how did you get all this information?

TF: This was from my sister. I don't know where she got some of this information. And then my oldest sister's son is interested in, son-in-law is interested in genealogy. So he collected some things but I noticed he had some of the information wrong and he was trying to get some things from tapes where they had taped my mother talking, and of course she didn't want to say something. And he said he didn't always understand, so there were always little question marks. But once I knew I was gonna talk to you I thought, "Let me see whatever information I can find out about the family."

SY: Right.

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

<Begin Segment 5>

SY: And now your siblings, all your siblings you said. You just have one sister?

TF: No. I have, I collected some of that information right here. My older sister Sumiko... my mother became ill after, I think after I was born she had a lot of health issues, so my oldest sister actually almost became like a mother to me. Her name was Sumiko, and then I think it must have been after the war started, everyone wants to have an American name, so she chose the name Jeanette somewhere, I think, during camp days, I don't remember when. She was born in Delano, California, on March 17, 1924, and she passed away very early with berry aneurism on August 21. She was very active with the Buddhist church in Chicago, and it was right around the Ginza holiday. She was at work... it's interesting because my sisters, they must have had that old fashioned Japanese attitude, you go to work for a company, you stay with that company, you work with that company 'til the day you die, and, I mean, my oldest sister went to work for a company, she was always there, I think it was the only company she ever worked for. And at the end, she was quite young, but she was working towards buying into the company, I think. She had a couple of jobs. I don't ever remember her having fun. You know, when the war broke out, she was a senior. I had heard, I don't know if it's true that she might have been the valedictorian, and she was always kind of hardworking and she had a temper like my father. Outspoken, really, you know, she was like my mom to me. She used to take me to school with her when I was a child.

SY: Must have been hard when she passed away then.

TF: She had a lot of headaches and she was always taking aspirins. I was, by the time she died, I was living in California and she was in Chicago. But she went by ambulance to Rush Presbyterian emergency and they didn't find anything wrong with her. And she called my mother and I guess my mother talked her into staying and getting a checkup, and she was going to do that, and then she just went into a coma, and then she passed away within a day or so. And she didn't want to be put on any life support, so they didn't. I remember that when I went to her funeral I couldn't believe it 'cause I think just the weekend before I had seen her. I had flown there, and I couldn't believe she was just dead so suddenly. I wanted to see her. She had said, no, she wanted to be remembered as she was, she wanted her casket closed, and so just to remember that. But it was hard for me to believe she was gone until I saw her, and then once they reminded me, then I honored that. But she was wonderful to me in every way.

SY: It must have been very difficult for your mother.

TF: Oh, it was difficult for my mother, but where I really saw it was in my father. You know, Japanese parents don't hug and kiss and tell you they love you, but he, every day went to where she was buried, brought flowers, took care of her plot. And I saw the pain, the pain. And I used to, when I was young, I'd pray, "Please don't let anything happen to my parents. Let me die first." I couldn't bear the thought of my parents being gone. And then when I saw the pain of losing a child, I finally realized that's not the way it's supposed to go. 'Cause by then I had children, and I thought, no, I don't want to lose a child. I'd rather go first. So I thought... he just loved her so much. You know, she was the firstborn and she was like him. I was the baby, I was pampered more. [Laughs] She was active in the Chicago, in the Resettlers, now Japanese American Service Committee and she was very active in the Midwest Buddhist Temple as a Sunday school teacher and superintendent, and the first woman to serve on the board of the temple. She was very intense, short tempered, cleanliness and neatness were very important to her. I think that... I think of all my sisters, probably she was bitter. Because I think her dreams of going to college... she was very smart, she worked so hard.

Not only was she like a mother, but the reason I think I am here and I'm an American, I owe to her. Because when we were in camp, I didn't know this and it was my third sister, the one just above me who told me, that all our bags were packed to go to Tule Lake or one of those camps before you get sent back to Japan, because my mother was so unhappy. We were having, we're behind barbed wires, we've got machine guns pointing at us, we're treated like prisoners, and she said, "Why do we stay here? We can go back to Japan." And we were always brought up, we never in our family, it was always quiet. We never talked back to our parents. What the parents said was law in a way. But here's my feisty sister, she had turned eighteen and she was angry. She was angry at just being put in camp, she felt it was so wrong, here she is an American, and she said, "I'm not Japanese; I'm an American. I'm eighteen, I can make up my own mind. I am not going back. And so the sister above me said, "All our bags were on that truck to be shipped," and my father said, "I'm not going to separate the family. And he didn't want to leave her alone in the United States, and he had them take the bags off. So I didn't know until much later she was gone that I have her to thank for being here. Because I saw that documentary 99 Years of Love, it's about... and the producer was saying how lucky I was that I stayed here because those who went back did not have an easy time. They were not really accepted by the Japanese. And if she hadn't been that feisty personality and if she had been that dutiful daughter, my whole life would be different.

So that was my oldest sister. And she died so early, and she worked, she worked several jobs just so she could make ends meet and make everything -- she was married twice. The first husband was named George Miyata, second husband was named George Shizuru. So I thought she could never make a mistake when she said, "George." [Laughs] Romantically.

SY: [Laughs] That's true. That does slip out sometimes.

TF: So they had one child, Maxine. It was a very contentious relationship. But my brother-in-law, George, I liked him. He was with the 442nd, and he did come back, he survived. But you know, after camp, when we all... we were all separated during the war. But finally when we were all able to pool our money together and everything, we lived in one household, they lived in the basement, and I could hear the battles that would take place. And so I think, to this day I think, "It's not a good idea ever to live with your family." [Laughs] You don't want everyone to know your business. And my sister was very strong, so on the second marriage she ran that marriage, too. I think, actually, she was the boss of both marriages. She was a tough, strong lady.

SY: And very much, you say very much like your father.

TF: Very much like my father.

SY: He was tough and strong.

TF: Tough and strong, and he was the boss. In a way, she was kind of like him. My second sister is named Akiko, and she chose the name Louise. And she was born August 18, 1925, in Armona, California, and passed away on January 29, 1993, of emphysema. She was happy-go-lucky person, she had a lot of friends, and I use the term "happy-go-lucky" because the sister below her, they were good friends, and that's how she saw her. But I was the baby, so in a way, I don't know that I saw her quite that way. When I think of her, I think of her as serious, honest, doing everything by the book. An example of her honesty was when I went to visit her once when she was living -- I was in Massachusetts and I had the children, and I didn't have very much money so we took a Greyhound bus. I think we went from Massachusetts to Chicago to... so it was long. And then coming back, I had to get my bus ticket, and one of my children was just at that age limit, twelve or something, when the price goes up. But just turned, so I was thinking I'll get that cheaper ticket. She said, "I wouldn't do that because you are teaching your children that it's okay not to be honest." And I always remembered that. That was so many years ago. And so, to me, the important thing is it's me. It's what I'm gonna think of myself. For a few dollars are you gonna do that? Shouldn't do that. Do you want your children to know, for some little thing, would you want that to be known?

So I think of her always just... and the way she brought up her children, the kind of people they are. They do service; they want to help people. Christmas, you know, for Christmas I... first of all, we were Buddhist, so I didn't know about Santa Claus and everything. And then one year when I was just a little older, someone brought over a tree and presents and said, "Something from Santa." And I thought, "Santa Claus?" I never heard of Santa Claus. But, so I wasn't sure. I wrote a letter to Santa Claus to see, maybe there is a Santa Claus. Of course, there was no Santa Claus. But because of that, I suppose, when Christmas came, I was always buying my children too many things. It was just filling that sock with things and buying all kinds of things. And her children got maybe one present that they wanted, and instead, they filled bags with things and they would give it to homeless people. And they would all physically do that. I thought, isn't that better? But I couldn't do that. I mean, it was just, we're so different. But, I mean, I looked up to my sisters. They were really such good people. Let me see what else I have. [Laughs]

SY: We have to get through your sisters so we can talk more about you.

TF: Yeah. Well, she graduated from high school in Jerome relocation camp in 1943 and then she signed up for the nurse's training course offered by the government, a four-year course in St. Louis, Missouri. I don't know if it was the cadet nursing corps, whatever. After graduation she came back to Chicago, worked at St. Luke's hospital, and she married a boy from Hawaii called Frank Ichikawa, and they moved to Renton, Washington, he was an aeronautical engineer, and he was employed at Boeing for many years. Then they moved from Seattle to Bellevue. She could do anything. Even when we were in camp she'd find some crates and then make it into a beautiful little table. She was handy with everything. When I would go visit her at her home, there was a garage full of power tools. She would paint the house, she would fix just one eighth of an inch on her husband's shirt, she would use... he didn't know how to use any of it, she would do everything. I mean, she came to visit us and my husband was squeamish about, there was a mouse running around, he was saying, "Call somebody, get this." She said, "Oh, for goodness sake, I'll take care of it." [Laughs] She was very good with her hands, full of energy. Crocheting, knitting, sewing, cooking baking, anything. She never had to call for someone. And she's got two sons and one is just like her. I mean, they were building things in the house and he's doing it all by himself. And his son is the same way. Whereas his brother will call up someone to ask them to help.

And my youngest sister, the one right above me, is named Kazuko. And she chose the name May, she was born in March 13, 1927, in Armona, California, and she graduated from Denson High School while in Jerome camp in 1944. She had gone to Layton High School before we went into camp. And then comes me. My sister Kazuko is still alive, she's in Chicago, she's had a lot of problems with her heart. She's got a lot of health problems, and she's in her eighties now, but she's my only sister.

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

<Begin Segment 6>

TF: I was born November 25, 1932, the day after Thanksgiving. And I was told that a midwife who was related, I think, to my father, was the one who delivered me 'cause I didn't know.

SY: What an interesting family. And all girls.

TF: All girls. My poor dad. And I was brought up like a boy in some ways. I remember wearing boys' overalls and boys' shoes and going with my dad everywhere.

SY: Really? Were you the one that got, was the one who went, got to go with your dad or your other sisters also?

TF: Well, I think just... I just remember the few years before camp on the farm. I don't know, I kind of just followed my dad around. I remember, though, when I was really little, being placed under the grape arbor and I hated it 'cause there were worms and everything. That's when I couldn't work. But as I got older, then I would be on the, what do you call it, like a (wagon), and I'd have the horse, so I knew how to just go through the aisles and people would throw whatever it is, the food onto the cart. And then I used to cut apricots and peaches and I knew how to get them drying.

SY: So you were, all the girls sort of helped out?

TF: Oh, we all helped out.

SY: And it was, was it pretty hard work or did you do it sort of...

TF: You know, when you're young like that you don't think of it as hard work. I didn't, they probably, because I was still, when I went into camp I was nine years old. So even though I was doing, cutting apricots and peaches and helping out with some of those things, I just probably wanted to be grown up and doing what everyone else did, so I didn't think of it in terms of work. But we lived on a farmhouse, we had the outhouse. But my father built a Japanese tub, so we had Japanese bath where we scrub and clean yourself. He would build a fire.

SY: Did you ever sense, because there were four girls, that your mother and father might have... they were very happy with this four girl arrangement? Did you ever sense that...

TF: I think my dad would have liked a son, but I think I was oblivious to any of that. I mean, we were... when I think back to those farm days, and people would always admire the beautiful farmland. And whenever I look at beautiful farmland, I think, "What a lot of work." 'Cause it seemed like my father was always working night and day, there was no cutoff time. I remember... when I think of the days sometime, there's a beautiful peace to it because it is beautiful in the country. We had a ditch, and I remember the ditch being so, the water was so clean and you could see down to the dirt down below. And then I would get in and swim around and it would be all mud. I don't want to get in there now and have mud all around me, but at the time, it just seemed like such a wonderful thing to do. And you have dogs running around... but two of our dogs, one was a German shepherd and one was a small dog. They were poisoned when the war broke out. Yeah, and I always thought, god, those dogs weren't Japanese, they just had the bad luck of being owned by a Japanese family. I always felt so bad.

SY: Well, you would have to have left them.

TF: Yeah, but hopefully someone would take them. But to... yes, I didn't think as far as what would we have done with them, I think I was thinking more that, why did they have to be killed?

SY: So you did have a sense of that whole sort of racial...

TF: Oh, I don't think until then that I really noticed it. We had, on the farm we had a lot of Mexican help, so I got to really love fresh made beans and rice and all that by the Mexican families. I don't know that I ever really noticed any racial tension or the fact that I was Japanese until after the war broke out.

SY: And sort of describing the environment that you lived in, was it a lot of Japanese American farmers?

TF: No. In Hardwick, I don't remember another Japanese family, but Lemoore, Fowler, all those areas had Japanese. We would go to Hanford, I don't know how many miles that is, but we would go to Hanford to the Buddhist church. And on Sundays I remember we'd go early and then I'd take Japanese lessons. I did learn katakana a little bit. I don't think I got much past that, I didn't really get into hiragana. So Sunday was always a nice day because we would go off to, it was the day that we'd go into town. And in Hanford, I think, was it Hanford or Fresno? There was the Kumoto department store where all the farmers, they had everything.

SY: And it served the whole valley.

TF: Yes. So I remember Sundays was a very nice day of family going off and being together. The things I remember before the war were just kind of lovely, nice memories that I have.

SY: Family working together?

TF: Uh-huh. Family working together, going off to the Buddhist temple together and swimming in the ditch, playing with my dogs. Being the baby you have a lot more freedom.

SY: And during this time, your mom was pretty much helping your dad?

TF: I think my mother had a lot of health problems, and that's when my sister also took over. And I have a, I recall when we were in camp, once seeing a lot of blood, and so I don't know if she had the operation in camp or not, hysterectomy. But I know that oftentimes my sister would take me to school, that must have meant my mother was sick and she couldn't take care of me. So when she would go off to high school or grammar school... you know, it seems strange now to think of a child, a young student taking another child to school, but I remember going with her.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

SY: There was how much of an age difference between the oldest and the youngest? It seems as if you were pretty, born like two years apart, two or three years apart?

TF: Yes, yes.

SY: So it was still a sizeable difference in age.

TF: Yeah, two, four, six, eight, so let's say eight years' difference. Nine, eighteen, sure. It would be about eight, nine years' difference between my oldest sister and myself. And, oh, I did have an American name. When my mother... you know, at one time it was very popular, you go to the dime store -- I used to love the dime store, I used to love paper dolls. You could go and buy a name, your name, Nancy or some very typical American name. And I always wanted the name Nancy 'cause I thought then my initials would be TNT. [Laughs] So stupid. But my mother came home with the name Doris. So it was... then a friend said, "Oh, TD is very good, touchdown, TD." So I became TD.

SY: So people actually called you Doris?

TF: Doris, yeah, but only for a short while. Because I didn't really, I didn't connect with that name somehow, and I liked my name. I always say my name Takayo, the way the characters were written, it's "high, tall, rich, rare, expensive." I was an expensive child. I was born in the Depression, they looked forward to a more prosperous world, and depending on how you write it, that's how it was described to me. And as I got older, right after, during the war, you want to be so American, you want to be so white American, everything that it stands for. But as I've gotten older, I mean, I was never ashamed of who I am or what I was. But somewhere in there, I know there was that desire to not be who I was because there was so much prejudice. I remember being shoved down on a sidewalk in New York saying, "Only a good Jap is a dead Jap," or thinking of my dogs being poisoned. And in high school when I was, you know, going to be going to a prom and a party, this tall, good looking, I don't even remember his name, boy was inviting me. And then he had to uninvite me because his family would not have me in the home. And so of course somewhere in there you're trying so hard to fit in. But I never denied who I was, because I remember soon after, no one would ever say to you, "Are you Japanese?" after the war. It's, "Are you Chinese?" because if you were Chinese you'd be insulting them if you said, "Are you Japanese?" And then when I was married and I had my children and I could hear kids, they'd say, "Oh, that's John, Juliet, they're Chinese." And I'd run out of the house and I'd say, "No, no, they're half Japanese and a quarter English and a quarter Irish." I had to get the Japanese out because I didn't want to try to pass for something I was not, and I feel it's important that unless you can accept who you are. And so then I worried about my children, too, but then I thought, "They're growing up in a time when it's more acceptable, more, maybe it's even an advantage to be mixed." But whatever you are, you better accept it because there's no changing it, right?

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

SY: So, Takayo, you were nine when Pearl Harbor broke out. And I wonder if you remember anything about that.

TF: I don't have a lot of clear memories about that time. I was always very proud of my Japanese background. I remember talking to some of the neighbor children, and I always felt Japan was so strong. You know, I was really quite Japanese, I think. And so this was really, a real conflict. That's not like Japan was fighting another country, it was fighting where I lived. But I don't remember how or how we got to Fresno Assembly Center. What I remember before though is... it's really kind of painful to think about 'cause it's my father, who was always so quiet. And they had very few possessions, but one of the things he loved was the Japanese music. I remember going out into the farm, and he propped up records that he loved. He loved baseball, and he got the baseball and he broke 'em. And I thought, oh... I don't know that it affected me quite so much then, but thinking about it now, I think, how was he ever going to get those records again? Did he ever get those recordings back? So I remember that. And my sister said, I think, he also buried some Buddhist altar piece or something that he may have had. So that I remember before going into camp. And then I remember we were at Fresno Assembly Center, and I remember filling up our mattress with hay. And all the tops of the barracks were kind of open, so you could hear the other people. We were four girls, my mother and father, we had one end, the end of the barrack, and there was a Japanese girl who had been adopted, and she wore a turban, I think she had lost her hair. But she had been adopted by a Caucasian family, but I didn't understand why she had to be in camp with us.

But everybody who was of Japanese blood, and I see really now, even all my great grandchildren, they have enough Japanese blood. Had they been with me, they would have all been... and they're blond, blue-eyed, you'd never know they belong to me. And so I want them to know what we went through, and I'm always sending them DVDs or things about the camp days, and particularly because my youngest granddaughter, when she was ten or something -- I have three children, and my son kept getting married and divorced, married and divorced and having children. The youngest one, they live in Cincinnati and she knows so little about the Japanese American community. And I don't know that she always saw that much of her father, and one day when I went to visit she asked me a question which startled me and I had to control myself. She said something about "your people," the term "your people." And I had to explain to her, "When you use that term, we're all the same. 'Cause you come from me. It's not like I'm separate, 'your people,' you're Japanese. You have Japanese blood." And after that, she became very interested. So when the grandchildren turn twelve, they can come and visit with me and spend a week with me if their mother agreed. So when it was her turn to come visit me, her mother said, "Well, she'd like to sleep on the floor Japanese-style." I said, "Well, if it's okay with you, I'll take her to Japan, and we can really sleep at my cousin's home, and it will have to be Japanese-style on the floor."

SY: So she got to go to Japan.

TF: She got to go to Japan, and she got to know what "our people" are like. [Laughs] And I got her all made up like a geisha, a maiko, so we have pictures of her looking like that. So I look at that picture periodically, 'cause I have it right on my bureau. I wonder what she thinks.

SY: She's how old now?

TF: She's now eighteen.

SY: She's got that connection now.

TS: Now she's got, now she knows she's got that connection. She may be nineteen. Gosh, I think she's had another year.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

SY: You talked about this adopted young woman.

TS: Oh, yes. And I don't know whatever happened to her, 'cause she was only with us in Fresno, and then from Fresno -- oh, I remember one of the things used to drive my father crazy was right next door to us was a bunch of bachelors and he could hear them talking, and then they'd be talking about the girls. So it was not happy-making there. And from... I remember being like a Brownie or Girl Scout, seeing people come to visit. Then I, then we went to Jerome. And I don't know if it was a three-day trip or five-day trip on the train, but...

SY: It was, well, considering it was the furthest from, one of the further camps.

TS: So probably five days at least, I think. But I remember they had all the shades down, yes, and then they'd stop periodically, let us out, and walk around in the middle of nowhere. And it was in the camps, I don't know if it started in Fresno, but in the camps, I took an interest in learning how to twirl a baton. I remember my father bought me white boots, majorette boots, and I had a book, I learned how to twirl, and then I started giving lessons. And then I was like a little majorette, teaching, so sometimes I meet people and they remember me teaching them how to twirl a baton. And my mother, who up to this point, being a farm wife, all of a sudden she's surrounded by a lot of Japanese people, and she is artistic and she does have an artistic soul. She became friends with the dancers, Japanese dancers and shamisen players, and got me involved in doing kabuki plays. And learning odori, I don't know how, I think the Japanese did a lot of bartering. Maybe my mother sewed or did something in exchange, so I was able to get Japanese dance lessons, I got shamisen lessons, I got nagauta singing lessons. I didn't read or write Japanese other than katakana. So what would happen is that my mother would be very involved. She would tell me the words, she would tell me what they meant, and I would mouth them and say them back. I just remember one line that I absolutely loved. It was from Hichidan menno okaru. And if you were to speak Japanese the regular way it would be "Yurasanka, watasho mae ni moritsubusare." But the way you would say it in kabuki is, "Yurasanka, watasho mae ni moritsubusare," very dramatic. [Laughs]

I don't think most Japanese people even knew, but what I loved also in the camps, they had signs in the mess halls. And so if someone wanted to give you a dollar, fifty cents, they would say, "From so and so to so and so." And it's a little envelope, and you got a little money. If they liked what you were doing, they'd say, "Umaizo," you're wonderful. Or if they didn't like you, they would yell out, too. I mean, it was like an immediate... and when I think about it, Japanese are so polite and they don't really say much of anything, so how did they become so animated when you go to see a play like that? But she gave me a love of the theater and it started in camp. None of my other sisters have it, they could care less. They played the violin, the enjoyed the violin, two of my older sisters, not the oldest. So sometime when they would have programs in camp, they used to play the violin together. But I would do either my baton twirling or my Japanese drama.

SY: Do you remember telling your mother this is something you wanted to do?

TF: No, no, it's just something... actually, I think it was just something she wanted me to do and I just did it. And then it wasn't until later that I realized I really loved doing it. I loved the sound of it, it's strange, it's weird, I didn't always know what's going on, but I remember years later when the kabuki first came to the United States, I got on a Greyhound bus, I didn't even know enough that I should order the tickets ahead of time, I went to the box office. I was only there, I mean, I was there overnight just expecting I'm gonna get in. How silly is that? I mean, this is the first time the kabuki is coming, and I pleaded to the lady at the box office, "I've come all this way, I love this, please, I want one ticket. Can I get one ticket to get in?" And I got in, and I didn't understand what was going on but I loved the sound, I loved the feeling, it just reminded me. So in a way, it reminded me of the good part of the camp days. I remember Fukami-sensei from the Stockton area, and Nishiyori-sensei from, I think, the Seattle area. I don't even remember what part of camp or which camp, 'cause I was in Jerome, Arkansas, and then I went to Rohwer, Arkansas, when Jerome closed, we went to Rohwer. But to me, when I think of camp days, I think of those particular incidents.

SY: Now were you the youngest in this troop?

TF: I probably... I don't know if I was absolute youngest, but yes, pretty much.

SY: There weren't too many other young people.

TF: No, no. But when I went to Rohwer camp, there was one girl that I... to this day, she is one of my very best friends. We lost touch for about forty-five years, but I think when I left Jerome and I went to Rohwer camp, we were in seventh grade together. And forty-five years after that, she was trying to have a reunion and she got my name, got me, and since then we've slowly started seeing each other. And then I remembered that when we left camp, she lived in Denver, I lived in Chicago. She came to visit once, and I went to visit her once. But, you know, I was never a good correspondent, never really kept in touch. But you know, there's almost, when you meet someone from camp days, there's an instant bonding. I go to a gathering of Chicago All Clubs, all the teenagers belonged to different clubs. And it may have been the Silhouettes, may have been the Romans, the Robabes, whatever, and no one had real names. It was Chango and Yogo, and used strange names. But the minute I know that someone's been in camp, I just gravitate to them and I feel we can communicate and we have something.

SY: Kind of unspoken.

TF: Yes. We shared a piece of history that... and when I think about it, I think it's just amazing the journey we've all taken to come from there, all of us with nothing, going out to various parts of the world. And now, years later, just coming back together. The last time I was with the whole group it was sixty-five years since I'd seen some of them, and I thought it's wonderful. And first, people would get together. They'd all get together in Las Vegas. First, no one, everyone's busy gambling and eating and having a good time. They used it as an excuse just to go to Las Vegas, I felt. But in the last few years where so many have died out and there's just a handful left, I noticed people are talking to one another. And some of the... one club in particular, Robabes, where the members are so close they really stay in touch. And it had a meaning, strong meaning for each of them.

SY: So these were clubs that formed after camp?

TF: These were clubs that formed in Chicago after camp. And in the old days, we didn't date like people date now. It was like, let's say, the Silhouettes would give a dance, and so they decorate some gym. Abe Hagiwara was very active, he was an older man, he's the uncle of Mike Hagiwara who's an actor, very active in the community. And then everyone would go. Everyone would go just as a group. And you have your first dance, last dance, and then it's not like you have a date that you go to that, but that was our dating.

SY: Probably very similar to what happened in camp, too.

TF: Yes. In camp, when they would have those dances, I would sit outside and listen to the music and watch through the window.

SY: You were too young.

TF: I was too young.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

SY: Did your sisters...

TF: Yes, they went to the dances. I don't remember peeking in on them, but I know that they were of the age where you could go.

SY: So it was kind of fun for you, too, then.

TF: Yeah. I try not to let anything interfere with getting together because I feel like I want to share that time together.

SY: Yeah, because the age in which you were in camp, most people that were your age don't necessarily have the negative memories.

TF: No. My older sister, I think, she was very bitter and had negative memories. I mean, she just felt, "How can they do this to me? I'm an American citizen." That was my older sister. My second sister, Akiko, who brought her children up to be so Americanized, they'll even tell you themselves. She never really cooked Japanese meals for them. They wanted to fit in. They didn't want to do anything that would emphasize their being different. When I asked her when she was still alive once about camp, because I said, "There are some things I'd like to know," and she said, "Well, I wasn't in camp." She just denied it in her mind that she was ever there. And I said, "No, I was there with you. I remember you. You're my older sister, you were there. And then you went out, that's how you got to be a nurse."

I got to tell you a story about my older sister, though. When she was in camp, she got married, and then she got a job with a banker and his wife in Sikeston, Missouri, as a maid, and the husband was a chauffeur. And the family, I think, got a lot of negative comments from other townspeople, they didn't like the fact that they were a Japanese couple. And then my sister and her husband were really lonely there because no one for them to communicate with. So that couple got one of their friends to get another couple to join them, and they became very good friends with my sister and her husband. And they always stayed good friends while they were alive. But what is unusual in thinking back now is the couple who hired my sister, they were president of a bank in Sikeston, Missouri. They went to the trouble to get clearance for my mother and I to be guests in their home, and we took a bus. I remember my mother being so sick on that bus ride the whole time, but they picked us up. And at the time, as a child, I just had a good time. Looking back on it, I find it, parts of it very painful. But I wanted to, when it was too late, my sister was dead, I didn't know who the name of these people, I didn't know how to get in touch with them. I wanted to thank then because they got my mother and I a pass, paid for our bus trip, to be a guest in their home. And we were really treated as royal guests. But what makes me sad is my sister was the maid. Her husband was the chauffeur. So when we're eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, I as a child, I'm having a great time because there's a little buzzer. She let me be in charge. I'm pressing that buzzer, "I would like this, I would like that." My sister's waiting on me hand and foot 'cause I'm a guest. But how terrible. My sister was like a mother to me. But I'm not thinking.

SY: That's an odd situation to be in.

TF: Yes, but how nice that this family got us out. It wasn't just like you could pull someone out of camp, they had to go through a lot of paperwork, I'm sure, right? So I think, gosh, I would have loved to have let them know that that left me with, very thankful that they did that. Very kind, very kind of them to do that.

SY: Amazing. I find it so interesting that you developed all these traits, or you really developed while you were in camp, in your thinking about how you saw yourself, how others perceived you. The acting itself is, I mean, being involved on stage. I mean, that was the foundation there.

TF: Yeah, the foundation was really from camp.

SY: But do you think that you felt more comfortable because everybody else was Japanese?

TF: It was really strange. It was really strange to see all Japanese, 'cause I really, unless I went to Sunday school, went to Buddhist church on Sundays. My world was completely a Caucasian world.

SY: So it didn't even occur to you.

TF: No. And I didn't know anything about prejudice really, I guess, until the war. Maybe my sisters may have felt it earlier, but you know when you're young and you're pampered, it doesn't matter when you're young if your parents have a lot of money or no money. And I know they went through tough times, 'cause one year I heard that my father, must have been just about when I was born, my father had, he wasn't paid for his crops for the year. And so they had very little to eat and very little to get by on. And you know those hundred pound sacks of rice with the cloth? Well, I think my mother probably took that and made outfits. Today you'd pay a lot of money 'cause it's very fashionable to have a dress out of that sack, old sack. But in those days, you surely didn't really want to show up with a dress that had a hundred-pound sack of rice or whatever it was on it.

SY: Tough times.

TF: It was tough times.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

SY: The camps were, in some ways, maybe in some way, easier for your parents, because they didn't have to scramble so much to make a living.

TF: Uh-huh. In camp, my father was cleared, I remember for a while he was a policeman, and then he was cleared to work on a sugar beet farm. The sad thing also about camp is there's... family life, to me, fell apart. There is, I was always, maybe because of the camp life, I've always been very independent. I mean, I was nine, but we no longer had to sit and eat together. I mean, I'm running around all day doing what I want to do, and the only time I probably was home was when I went to sleep. Because otherwise we'd go to the mess hall, eat with your friends, do what you want with your friends. And then my father went to work on a sugar beet farm. I never saw my parents. They'd separate for months or whatever, and all they did was just bow to one another. They never touched, they never showed affection. I was shocked when I found out how babies are born, or kissing. I never saw kissing. I don't think I ever saw kissing and then I was kissed one day. And I had, my sister came back from, she had a child, she was gonna have a child, so she came back to camp from Sikeston, Missouri. And so I helped bring up my niece at that time, and changed her diapers and do everything. And then it must have been when I was in camp maybe, that I was still young, I was twelve when I left camp. Could it have happened then or was it later? It may have... I don't remember. But somewhere along the way, I got my first kiss. Well, I didn't know what it was, but it sure felt good. [Laughs] So I kissed my niece, because I thought, oh, she said, "What are you doing?" Well, what I didn't know, it was a French kiss. I had no idea. I thought that was a kiss. Well, I didn't let a boy get near me for years after that, 'cause she made me feel like it was so bad and so awful and so dirty. "Don't let anyone give you a kiss, it's yuck." But then I remember someone holding my hand, and it was so thrilling, and I thought, "Kids today don't know the thrill of just having someone hold your hand." It was so beautiful.

SY: That's interesting how you learned how, that first kiss.

TF: That first kiss, and then to find out it was... 'cause I'd never been kissed. I'd never had a kiss on the cheek or a hug or something.

SY: That's amazing.

TF: So it must have been someone older who led me astray. [Laughs]

SY: Yeah. I always marvel at how people became pregnant in camp, because, you know, it was not, you didn't have any...

TF: No, there's no privacy. My mother and father and then four girls were all together. I knew nothing about sex. I mean, it just seemed natural. You sleep. I mean, that's what you do, right? My sister got married and she went to live in another barrack, I'd go over and I'd sleep with them. Whoever knew what they did in bed? So naive. Children in those days maybe were a little more -- and here I am a farmer's daughter. I should have known better. I see what animals do, but somehow I didn't make a connection of what animals do and what humans do. So it's a little dumb. But no one talked about the birds and the bees. Parents didn't... I don't know if your parents ever talked to you about that.

SY: That was probably very cultural. Yeah, not to talk about it, especially back in those days.

TF: Well, yes.

SY: And you were younger. Yeah, 'cause I am curious about that.

TF: No, when I was leaving camp, I went from Jerome to Rohwer, and then I left camp when they decided there wasn't going to be any more school. My mother stayed in camp. My mother was one of the longest people who stayed in the camp. But I took the train by myself to Chicago from Arkansas, and at first I sat on my suitcase, there was no room, and then in the middle of the night there was a chair available and I went to go sit there. It wasn't 'til years later I realized that the man I was sitting next to was trying to molest me. I just thought... and I never put it together because I knew nothing about sex. And I was trying to sleep and then these hands would be on, and I thought, well, you know, when people sleep they do strange things, they move. And then afterwards I thought, "Ah, that's what it was." I just didn't put it together.

SY: Amazing. Innocence might be good in that case.

TF: Yes. If I had been older I probably would have been aware of it. But I was still into paper dolls and all that. But another thing, you're so poor after, and you don't have anything. We went in with one suitcase or whatever, and so when I went out, I'm sure I had very little. And when I went to grammar school, I finished eighth grade outside camp. I went to live in Chicago with the sister who was just above me. I think she graduated very early, sixteen or something, she went to work for a company, and to the day that she retired, she was with the same company. Years and years after, I said to her, "But you're getting any pension." She said, "You shouldn't always be thinking about money. There's loyalty. You've got to think of loyalty, and they hired me." It's that old Japanese way of thinking. But anyway, we had one bedroom that we shared, and just a little hotpot or something, and a bathroom down the hall. The Elevated train was going by the apartment. I went to Oakenwald grammar school in Chicago. And I probably had a handful of clothes. It was a pink sweater, but I must have worn it all the time, 'cause I remember some child yelling out to me, "Is that the only sweater you wear? We're sick of seeing that pink sweater." And then it's all I had, really. And then years later I thought, "Is that why I have so many sweaters?" I have too many things. I don't need all these things. But is it because of some insecurity from those grammar school days? I have to have more than one sweater. Why do I need all these shoes? Now I'm trying to simplify and it's hard. But little things affect you, and you don't know how it's gonna affect you. But I always remember her yelling at me, "Is that the only sweater? Sick of seeing that sweater."

SY: The things that you remember are interesting.

TF: Yeah.

SY: Yeah, but that stands out in your mind.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

SY: I really want to hear, because you had mentioned to me that you'd written a piece about camp.

TF: Oh, yes, I'll read that. It was when I was... it was my oldest sister and myself, and I snuck out of camp one day. And the railroad tracks were going by, and then the song that was always so popular was, "Gonna take a sentimental journey, gonna set my heart at ease." And I could just hear that in my mind. And my sister is braiding my hair and fixing it, and I'm saying, "Itai, Neesan" -- meaning "eldest sister" -- "please don't pull my hair so tight when you're braiding it. It hurts. Don't be mad at me, Neesan. I told you about my exciting adventure today because I wanted you to know about it. Oh, please, don't tell Mom and Dad. I mean, he'll only yell at her. He'll say she's not being responsible in looking after me. I don't want him to be mad at her for something I did wrong. I didn't know you'd get so upset, I mean, I'm sorry I worried you. I promise I won't ever do it again, honest. It was my first time. Hontou. You know I always try to do what you tell me. I wasn't thinking. It was such a beautiful day. I was down near the train track and a train went by and I waved at the man in the caboose. I wanted to be on that train and see what they see. I wanted to see something besides these tarpaper barracks. Well, I was very careful. I didn't see anyone so I crawled under the barbed wire and crossed the railroad tracks and walked on the road for a while. Gosh, Neesan, there was nothing much to see, I mean, nothing pretty. No lawns, no flowers, no trees. Oh, just this long, dusty road. The sun was so bright. Oh, it was so hot. When I looked way off in the distance, the road seemed to shimmer and looked like a lake. I got so thirsty and hot and tired, but I kept walking 'cause I was hoping for something beautiful to see. Then I saw this dusty path and I followed it because I saw a small shack with a tree and some grass near it, and a dog. It was so nice to see this dog. It was wagging its tail when it saw me, oh, really friendly. He came over to me and let me pat him. I miss my dogs from home, Neesan.

This shack was really small, a small country grocery store. I don't know who shops there. I didn't see any other houses around. You know, it didn't seem that much larger than our old outhouse back home in Hardwick. Neesan, this store was worse than the barracks we live in. The floor was just dirt. Once I went inside the store, you could even see the hot sunlight show between the cracks in the wall. It was dark, no light bulb. The owner and his wife and two children, a boy and girl younger than me, they stared and stared at me and I was scared. I don't think they ever saw anyone who looks like me, an Oriental. Well, I stared, too. I don't think I ever saw kurombo before. I heard about kurombo, Negro people, but I never saw one or talked to one before. Funny. We just looked and looked at each other, and when they smiled at me, I smiled back. I felt bad because I had no money to spend, and I really wanted to buy something here. I thought the food and drink would taste better than here, than in the mess hall. Neesan, they were so nice. They gave me a penny candy and some soda. It was so delicious. Of course I thanked them. We didn't talk to each other, just stared and smiled. I didn't stay long. I said goodbye and hopped and skipped, walked, and then ran back towards camp. I wasn't paying attention, so I didn't see the jeep on the road when I was trying to sneak back in. When I finally saw the jeep, I couldn't find any place to hide by the side of the road. There wasn't a ditch or a shrub to hide behind. And even though the soldier had a gun and looked scary, he was nice and helpful. He even helped me crawl back through the barbed wire. I didn't want to get caught by those scary guards on the towers with their machine guns pointed at us. See, Neesan? It's okay. I'm safe and I had a really good time today walking outside of the barbed wire."

SY: That's great. So tell me when you wrote that. It's such a vivid piece.

TF: Well, there was a time when my husband was -- I've been married twice, and my first husband, not then, it was the second husband and he had pneumonia, so I was sitting for days just at the hospital. And then that's when I thought, just sitting there, I never tried writing anything. I don't really enjoy writing anything, and then I was writing some of my thoughts. I'm glad I did it, but it's not something I...

SY: It's wonderful. And it's... I mean, is it purely from memory?

TF: Uh-huh.

SY: So it actually happened, and you remember sneaking out.

TF: Uh-huh, and then sneaking back in.

SY: Wow. You were very unusual to...

TF: Probably I was braver than I thought, or stupid. [Laughs]

SY: Precocious, I think, is the word.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

SY: You definitely took, well, it's the same with being on stage and all of that. You were different from other...

TF: Yeah, and it's funny because I, we were always surrounded by a lot of Hispanic people, but not really by black people. And they were always referred to by the Japanese as kurombo at the time. Then when we went to Chicago there were a lot more. And that was a strange feeling, to go out of camp and then to see all the different races and really, no one quite mixing with each other either. And when I got out of camp, a lot of Japanese Americans all really kind of stuck together, the Caucasians stuck together, the black people. But slowly I made friends with one or two in each group. But it's not like you could all mix easily in together.

SY: I can imagine, especially after camp, right after camp. Because going to Chicago... well, were there a lot of people, I mean, did people you know go to Chicago at the time that you went?

TF: I think... I think I just made all new friends there. The only time I can remember really... maybe this is what helped me to be able to make friends and then go on. Because in camp, there was one girl from Hawaii, and I always remember her name, Yasuko, but I don't remember her last name so I can't look her up. But I remember when she left, or I left, one of us left. I don't remember a lot of our playing together, but I must have had great affection for her because I remember kind of bawling. Not just little tears, it was just, I really felt sad to leave her. But then I found that was life. You're always meeting people and then... but doesn't mean it has to be the end, but at that time, it felt like something so broken, and why didn't we think to write? We didn't do that. But just like I do a lot of, I did a lot of regional plays, and when you're working in regional plays you bond very strongly like a family. You kind of, it's a very intense feeling. You may never see them again, you may see them years later, I just kind of got used to it, I know what the feeling is like, I know, and to enjoy that moment. And once in a while I'll come across someone and I just think, "I don't want to lose them. I want them in my life." Then I put out an extra effort and I try to hang on to them. And I don't know when that happens. It's like, I suppose, chemistry. Chemistry, you always wonder, how is the chemistry, how do two couples get together? It's not 'cause they... you know, if you're trying to match it by what they are, what they study or what... chemistry is such a funny thing.

SY: Absolutely.

TF: But I think in order to have a friend, you have to be a friend. You have to lend yourself to it. Every now and then, it's so interesting, I'll meet someone and I think... and it has nothing to do with sex. It's just, I want that person in my life. And I remember taking an acting class with a young girl, and I just was so taken with her. I thought, "What is it about her?" I have children of my own. But there was something... and today I feel like she's like family to me, like one of my children. But children are children, this is a friend. And periodically it just happens. It's like magic, isn't it? Chemistry, and it has to do... and it doesn't just happen overnight. Friendship takes time.

SY: Do you think, though, it has something to, you mentioned that in your life you've moved around a lot it seems. I mean, certainly into camp and out of camp.

TF: Yeah, and then I went from, you know, I graduated high school in Chicago, and then I wanted to go off to college. I wanted to go to a small college. I went to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Now, when I left camp, all those years in Chicago I thought there was a lot of prejudice yet, just people staring at me, people saying mean things. And even the people who you would expect to be supportive of you are not, they're always so critical. I mean, I felt probably there was a lot of criticism because I am more outgoing. I want to do things, and it's like the little nail that's sticking up, but don't mean to. It's just 'cause I want to do something that gives me pleasure. I don't see it as anything bad, or maybe when all the Japanese people are trying to stick within the community I would step out of the community. What happened is the sister who is a nurse wrote a paper, and it always made an impression on me. "The only way you're going to get rid of prejudice is if you really step out into all the, get more and more people to be part of your community so they know who you are in a way." Or marrying out of the race, you're mixing. Something about that paper stuck with me, and I've always tried to take a person as an individual, not 'cause they're Japanese or black or whatever.

SY: It's unusual, though, it's an unusual way of thinking for a Nisei, don't you think? Did you have friends who... I mean, did you identify yourself as just a little different back then?

TF: I don't know that I thought of myself as different, but I think people were not always so approving of my stepping out.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

SY: Your family, how did they see you, do you think?

TF: You know, what's hard is because we were all so separated during the war. My oldest sister went out to work here, my other sister went to St. Louis, another one was in Chicago and then my father was somewhere else. And then we all come together, and from the time I was twelve, I always worked, and I always contributed to the household. When I couldn't, when I was really twelve and couldn't really go out and work at a job so much, but I think I did. My sister forged a paper to say I was thirteen, and I worked in an office filing. And my eyes are so bad, I was always nauseated from looking so closely, but I did that. I went to work in some factories where you put rhinestones in jewelry, and then another friend of mine, her mother had a business going at home where she had Santa Claus things, you put a little cotton. So if you do a thousand you make so much money. And she had cheap socks, and you get cheap paper and you wrap it around and so you do a whole bunch. I always worked at something and we always all contributed to the family. When I was going to high school, I worked in a dry cleaners. And then before I went to school in the morning, I worked in a hotel as a waitress. I remember I got a whole dollar once for breakfast. That was a lot of money in those days.

SY: So this was something that you did because you wanted to help, you wanted to make money?

TF: It just seemed like everybody was working, and so it just seemed natural. And of course when I think about it now, I wouldn't allow my child, I don't think, at an early age to go wandering and doing all... but maybe because they kind of lost control, but I wasn't doing anything really bad. But I did get to love music. I loved the sounds of Billy Eckstine, Dinah Washington, and I would sometimes -- I was much too young -- but I know I was going to the clubs to go listen to the black artists. How did my father allow that?

SY: By yourself?

TF: No, I had...

SY: Friends?

TF: It was a man who was with the Nisei Taxi Company who would take me. And he was, his name was -- I don't know his last name -- so his mother must have fooled around, his name was Pancho. He had a sister, they both looked mixed. Maybe the mother was married to him, I don't know. But he was with the Nisei Taxi Company, and every day when I would go to school, and then sometimes I'd get nauseated in those days from riding the streetcar, I'd call the Nisei Taxi Company, they would bring me home. Well, I got to be friends with a man from the Nisei Taxi Company. And so they got used to my phone calls, and pretty soon I didn't have to pay 'em, they'd just drive me home. But I remember he took me to a couple of nightclubs he knew, and then he died early. In fact, he taught me also how to drive. And I think we got into some little accident which was really my fault, but he took the blame for it. I really would like to have said to him now, "I remember that," and thank him for his kindness, because he never took advantage of me. He was really a gentleman, and sweet and nice.

SY: And you were probably what? By then, fourteen, fifteen?

TF: Thirteen, fourteen, too young. Too young to go, but that was something I...

SY: Enjoyed.

TF: ...enjoyed, I loved the black sounds, the black sound, and the musicians, and we lived on the south side. There were a lot of clubs and something. So probably I wasn't out real late, so I could get away with it.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

SY: Well, all this has been sort of training, too, for what was to follow, right?

TF: Yeah, and then when I was very young, I think I was fifteen or so, I went to some, one of those local dances and I won a contest. I was Miss Teen Queen. And then I went to another dance, and I was like Nisei Queen. But they just, I happened to be at the dance and then they chose me, and I remember I had a black/red eye, because I threw a baton up in the air, a lady walked in front of me, it was going to hit her, and I tried to move her, and it bounced on her shoulder and then it went into my eye. And so I was surprised when it happened. But it got me a scholarship at a modeling company. And so then I did modeling after that. I took the course, I got a number of jobs modeling, I worked some of the trade fairs.

SY: That must have been unusual for an Asian.

TF: Probably. I remember some, I remember some man from one of those Middle East countries who wanted me to be part of his harem. [Laughs] No thank you. I remember meeting the owner of the Ajinomoto company from Japan. And I brought him home to meet my mother and father. He wanted to have me live with his family in Japan as one of his children. Didn't do that. So modeling got me a lot of interesting little jobs and I met a lot of very interesting people. I met, at that time, when some of the first sumo wrestlers came over I got to meet them.

SY: So all of this is probably, is your head getting bigger and bigger as all of this is happening?

TF: No, not really. Oh, I remember when I won the Nisei contest, they had a photographer take pictures, and we did some with a bathing suit that had holes on the side and another one that was like a make believe bikini. I got such hate mail. It was in the newspaper, and terrible letters, terrible. That I was an absolute disgrace to the Japanese community and I should be so ashamed of myself...

SY: And this is from other Japanese.

TF: This is from other Japanese. I got a lot of hate mail.

SY: Really? Wow.

TF: But it gave me an appreciation of -- during that time I also worked in a beautiful jewelry, wholesale jewelry store, so I got to learn all about jewelry. Well, they hardly ever had to pay me 'cause I always wanted something, I was putting money down on it. I went to work in a pint-sized store where they sold clothing for short people. So when I'd see something, it gave me an appreciation of nice things, I must say.

SY: When you started buying things.

TF: And then knowing that I didn't want to just buy anything now, just wanted one thing rather than ten things.

SY: I see. And all this time your mother and father are fine with it, or being a little careful?

TF: No, I was still contributing to the household. I'm still coming home at a pretty reasonable hour. I don't think I gave them any cause for alarm, but I think I was probably, you know, if they were, had control to know what I was doing, they would say, well, they don't want me going to some of these places. But on the whole, most of the time I wasn't, it's just I loved to go listen to the music. I didn't see anything wrong with it because I was very naive about sex. I wasn't having sex, I was just doing things I enjoyed doing.

SY: But it sounds like you attracted a lot of attention, so that must have been, how did that feel when people gravitated to you?

TF: I didn't think of it as anything different, or didn't seem like a whole lot of attention to me. It didn't happen all at once or wasn't...

SY: I see, spread over, yeah. And your mother, at the same time, were you still thinking of the interest that you had in Japanese theater?

TF: I still sometimes was taking Japanese dance and doing all of those... I was very active. Even when I went to high school I was very active. I was a majorette, I was a cheerleader, I always -- and then I was still working early in the morning before I went to school, after school, I'd work. I remember when I worked at the cleaner's there was a lawyer who came from Seattle, he wanted to talk to my mother and father about my, he had seen my picture in the paper when I won something and he wanted to marry me.

SY: He wanted to marry you?

TF: You know, like an arranged marriage. And I said no, I'm an American, I really want to have, fall in love with someone and marry them.

SY: Yeah, that's amazing.

TF: And then also turned out my sister met him and she liked him, so I didn't want to certainly go with someone... and he was older. And I never dated like a traditional dating like people. In those days, the Japanese didn't date like that, or I didn't. I think that kiss scared me off. So I would go a lot of places, I would do a lot of things, but very safe and very friendly, but not any more than that.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

SY: So all of this sort of being in the spotlight, or doing all these things, all the activities you did, this was really from inside. You wanted to...

TF: Yeah, but it never felt like a spotlight to me, it felt like, these are things that I enjoyed doing, that I wanted to do.

SY: And was that something -- so when you decided to go to college, and was that the field that you wanted to pursue?

TF: I wanted to pursue acting.

SY: Acting, since acting is specific --

TF: Yes. Before... one of the jobs I had, also, I went to work for a catalog company, S. Buchsbaum and Company. And then I became the secretary to the sales manager, because in high school I learned Pitman shorthand, how to be a... you learn something so you could make a living at it. I think I worked for a year before I went off to college. But when I went off to college, I knew I wanted to go to a small school. And then there was a man who came from that college to our high school, and I thought this is where I would like to go.

SY: A small school.

TF: And then when, you know, in the old days, the Japanese had, what do they call it where there's groups of people who put money together? There was a word for it. And then my father took the money out when he wanted it, and helped to put the down payment. And my older sister said, "He can't afford this, Dad did this. We can't, we don't have this kind of money." So then I got a job at the school, I worked for the Dean of Women and I got a scholarship and I went there for...

SY: That was something you helped them, or you would not have been able to do it?

TF: No. And it was like going from one area where there was so much prejudice to heaven. It was wonderful.

SY: So smart move, huh?

TF: Yes.

[Interruption]

SY: -- took from Chicago to Florida, the big, big change.

TF: That was, a representative from Rollins College came to speak at our high school and made an impression on me. And it was far away and it was a small college, and it looked so glamorous and wonderful.

SY: Did it have a strong theater department?

TF: It had a nice theater department. But the year that I took off I worked for S. Buchsbaum and Company as a secretary to the sales manager, and also, in the old days, when you wanted to do -- I wanted to get into American theater, American plays. But in those old days, you had to pay money to be an intern or to work at a theater and I couldn't afford that. So what I did was I worked all week and then on Friday, after I finished work, I would go out to this small theater company in Chicago, outside of Chicago. I don't remember the town, but I got to sometimes be in crowd scenes, or I got to build sets, I just got to be around theater people.

SY: And this was in the totally non-JA.

TF: Not at all, no Japanese Americans. And I had to, it was a long trek out there. I must have really had a passion to want to do this, and how did I ever find this company I don't know, but I did.

SY: And they didn't, you didn't feel out of place, they didn't treat you differently?

TF: No. You know, theater community is very warm and loving. You could be really strange and they'll still embrace you, I think. It's one good place for you to be. And I felt comfortable there. I mean, I was different, but I wanted to learn. And I made a very good friend there, his name was, at the time, George Schweinfurth. It's a long way for me to take the subway back, you finish at twelve o'clock, midnight, you're breaking the set, it's really the wee hours of the morning. And so sometimes George would just -- he lived closer by -- he would invite me to his home and I would be a guest in his home. And he always had another friend or so with him, but he always made me feel welcome, and he was a nice friend. And then I didn't see him again for years. And years later, I was on Broadway in The World of Suzie Wong, and I have company. And they said, "George Furth is here to see you," and I think, "I don't know George Furth." He had changed his name from George Schweinfurth to George Furth. And George Furth was who wrote the Sondheim Merrily We Roll Along, Company, he became very successful. At that time, he still wasn't, but we connected and he was one of my oldest and dearest friends. And so when... then we lost touch again after I left Broadway for years, and then I came to California and we caught up again, and it's like we picked up right where we left off. And every Thanksgiving, he would come over, he would go to several parties, but he would always come to my place first and then go on to other very fancy parties like at Warren Beatty's home or something like that. But he'd always come, eat at my place, and then go off to all these fancy parties.

So George Furth was one of the dear friends I met when I did Summerstock, and then, you know, I had some... mostly I hung out with Nisei people. And when I was working at this Buchsbaum and Company was during this year, one of my girlfriends' relatives rode a motorcycle, and so I used to love to go motorcycle riding. I had this leather jacket and leather belt and hat and the whole thing. Oh, so scary and frightening, now I wouldn't want any of my children or grandchildren to do it. But one of his friends -- 'cause he had a lot of his motorcycle friends -- I guess must have been a messenger. And the bigwigs at S. Buchsbaum and Company, 'cause I was working for the owner's son-in-law, called me in one day 'cause the motorcycle rider being very friendly to me and everything. And he got very concerned that this was my friend, and he just felt, "This is not the direction for you to go in. You really need to go to school, you need to try to have a good life." He didn't really talk 'em down, but I knew that he was not happy with who I was hanging out with. Also, I didn't want to be his girlfriend, but I didn't know how to break it off in a way, just 'cause he's my girlfriend's relative, and I'm riding with him. So I think that was also -- I wanted to go far away. [Laughs] I went to college in Florida.

SY: [Laughs] That was the reason.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

TF: And when I got to Florida, it was as if night and day for me from Chicago and the way people treated me. 'Cause on my senior prom, when this young boy had invited me and then his parents made him uninvite me, I just felt like there was always, you were so aware of race at the time. And then I got down there, and people were so warm and friendly, my classmates. This girl who became the queen of the college, and from the time I first met her, she's blond, blue-eyed, and she had a convertible. My mother just bought some fabric at some store, made me a few dresses so I'd have a few outfits, but they're all homemade. My roommate would fly -- they'd go to Paris and New York and she had all these fancy De Pinna dresses or shoes that had names that I never heard of, but they were all the brand, big brand names. My roommate was wonderful. She was a southern girl, and everything was "sugar, honey, darling, sweetheart," and hugging and kissing your mother. Well, I had never... I told you about the hugging and kissing, I hadn't had any of that, and I never saw my mother and father touch, or they never held me. And her mother would be over all the time, and it'd be nothing but endearments and all this hugging. And I went home after the first year -- I couldn't go home during the holidays sometimes because it's too expensive -- but when I went home, I worked in the summer at the same company, they hired me back. And I thought, "When I leave to go back to college," I girded my loins, and as they took me to the, did I take the train the second time? I think I did. I decided I'm going to give 'em a hug. It nearly killed all of us. You know how people get really stiff when you're trying? So it was that, and very uncomfortable, but I did it. And from then on, whenever I would see them or leave them. I didn't do it when I got home, but I thought about it all summer long. And I thought, I'm gonna give 'em a hug when I leave them. So she taught me how to physically and verbally show affection. I had never really seen it, and I am affectionate. I think I got a lot of that from watching her, and I liked it.

And another girl -- that was my friend Ginger who was my roommate -- the other one, Doane, who just never seemed to notice that I was different. She would just take me places, and it was just like having a friend, and I never really had a friend like that. So they taught me more about friendship. And then this other girl who I had no idea that she was so wealthy, they were all so wealthy. And here I am with dresses that my mother had sewed, and just little inexpensive... they never seemed to notice, and it didn't seem to make any difference to them. And the fact that I was Japanese, it's like they didn't notice or comment, or I didn't feel it. You can feel it even if it's nothing else. I didn't feel that. And when she was going home for the summer and I knew I had to work, but she insisted, "You must come, I'm going to make my debut." Well, whoever heard of a debut? I didn't know anybody who was making a debut, but she was, it's in Washington, D.C. So I was her guest for a week. She said -- because I don't have pretty dresses -- she said, "Don't worry." She had a closet full of gowns. Every night we'd go in and I just, we were about the same size, I could pick out any gown I wanted. And she had a maid that in the old days would be called like a black Mamie, just nice and big and warm and heavyset. And we'd be eating breakfast at two or three in the afternoon, and then the whole night was set for, it was a whole different kind of life that I'd never experienced or knew about. And she just made it seem like, oh, that's something, and she just wanted to share it with me. And so you're going out with the West Point cadets or whatever, and every night it's a party because it was her whole week of coming out. They introduced me to a whole wonderful kind of life, but what I remember most of all is the fact that I didn't feel different. I felt like we were just friends or pals.

And so years later, 'cause you don't always stay in touch, I wrote to two of the girls to tell them the memories that I had of them. And maybe I didn't know it at the time, but how much I appreciated it, you know, looking back. And I wished I could have found the address to them, but, you know, I think she was married and divorced, married and divorced. And so girls change their name, and I wasn't able to be in touch with her. But I think about her often and I hope she was happy. Some of the girls have now died. But that was like a magical time in my life.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

SY: So if that had not happened to you, say you had stayed in Chicago, do you think that would have changed the way you felt about yourself or would it have affected?

TF: Oh, yeah, because I think every new experience has impact on your life. I don't know, I mean, if there had been no war I would have been married to some farmer, I'm sure, from that area unless I went off to college.

SY: But it had its, it left a very strong impression.

TF: Yeah, but then it wasn't... also when I was there, the second year I was there, I started going with a fellow from New England. That was a disastrous marriage that I had. But I think it was the first time where I felt chemistry, and it was not, it was just then all of a sudden it's the sexual chemistry. And he was blond, blue-eyed, and his parents, his mother was from the Mayflower ancestors, and it's like so American. But if I had been more a whole person, I would never have married him, because I would have known it's a disaster. I was just too swept up by the... and I'm sure it all had to do with trying to fit in, trying to be accepted. His father had, was a well-known architect, he had done the beautiful cathedral at Rollins. He was the architect doing all the renderings for all the fixing of the cathedral, St. John the Divine. And when we were engaged, I should have known then. They said -- and he told me -- "Just 'cause you're engaged doesn't mean you're gonna marry her."

SY: This is his father who told you.

TF: It was the father or the mother, I don't know which one said it. And then just within the past year, my son, who's in his fifties, late fifties, said to me, "Gee, if I weren't the grandson, my grandmother would never care for me." 'Cause he's half Japanese. And my youngest one, when she told me years ago, she was crying, she said her grandmother always used to say to her, "You're the lucky one. You're the lucky one, 'cause you can pass. But your poor sister, she looks so Oriental." And so how... and so I often used to think, I think he probably was crazy about me in some way, but he was getting back at his parents in another way. 'Cause he felt superior, and he felt -- because in those days, it wasn't legal in some states to marry an Oriental, and he would remind me. And he would feel, if he said something, I should do, but I was trying so hard to be engaged. I was trying to be like my mother, whatever my husband said, not to have the thought. And I learned, I learned then, too late, you'd better have a mind of your own. But I was trying so hard, being brought up with all this being a geisha, playing these roles and trying to play another role, you can't play a role. You got to be, you've got to know who you are, and you've got to be able to stand up for who you are. But that takes growing up, and I was still... it takes time to grow up, that's all.

So that was not the best. And so I remember the concern probably my parents had at the time, and then so when my mother saw my second happy marriage... 'cause when, I thought I never wanted to be married again. I never, I couldn't even go to a wedding, I was so disillusioned about marriage. I didn't have the children. When we were divorced, the children went off to camp, and he was fooling around. He always told me who he was fooling around with, and oftentimes it's always people that I knew. One of 'em was a girl who helped me, actually, after, when I was having a very difficult time. But the children were gonna go to camp, we were gonna get divorced, everything was all set. So I went off, and then the minute I went off to New York, then he charged me with abandoning the children, and so we were in court for years. And then every time I tried to get a lawyer, his father was very wealthy, and the lawyers would say, "Don't even tell me what the problem is, it doesn't matter."

So I had a hard time, and then I -- for someone who likes to eat like I do, when I was in camp, I ate to survive. And now, today, I think I eat for the enjoyment, for the pleasure. I was down to about eighty-something pounds, 'cause if I just heard his voice, I would just get so nauseated, I would just, because he made me feel like nothing, and taunting me that I'm not going to get the children. And, "you know what people think of you," and just saying terrible things. I remember the Boston Strangler, the man who gave him a lie detector test gave me a lie detector test to see if what I'm saying... it was just an ordeal. And in the end, I didn't get the children, and I was like a visiting father. So just... and if I tried to get the children to take them to see my parents, it would be, "No." We'd have to go to court 'cause he'd say, "This is too hard. The children, it's a whole different culture, they're Japanese," and so there was a lot of prejudice attached to it. And so the children have a lot, I think, of difficulties. Fortunately my youngest one has a very wonderful relationship, but it leaves scars. And for me, the holidays were never... I just knew I couldn't be with them. So it's not like my life is always so wonderful. I've gone through difficult times.

SY: Yeah, in some ways it's character building, no?

TF: Yeah, but I didn't want to build my character. [Laughs] Enough of that.

SY: Yeah, strong, strong.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

SY: So when you left for New York...

TF: Then when I went to New York, I went to... oh, when I was married to him, there was a time, I still did Summerstock, and fine. As long as I was around them, I mean, and they belonged to a fancy club, as long as I was there, and then I'd be active with the very social things, everything was fine. Then I heard that Rodgers & Hammerstein were auditioning for Flower Drum Song, so I told my mother-in-law that, she lived right across the street. They built this charming little home for us, he was an architect, built this beautiful little cottage, and it was lovely. My mother-in-law was thrilled. She heard Rodgers & Hammerstein, she'd heard of Rodgers & Hammerstein, oh, well, so she paid for my bus fare to New York City, and she insisted, "You have to get all dressed up," and she just had a brand new fur jacket and, "You must wear this fur jacket," and she was very excited. I'm going to audition for -- well, again, I went and auditioned, but I also, at the same time, I didn't tell them I auditioned for the role of a prostitute in The World of Suzie Wong. And then I was very fortunate. I was told that... they offered me the role of the understudy for Pat Suzuki and Miyoshi Umeki, and they would also send me for very special voice lessons. But then, The World of Suzie Wong, which was Joshua Logan and David Merritt, the producer, said, "We'll give you the role of Gwennie, the prostitute with no sex appeal." And then my husband said, "Well, it's not enough money. If they'll give you" -- and he mentioned an amount -- and The World of Suzie Wong gave me that.

So I took that job and I had to then go tell my mother-in-law thinking, well, I was always in the doghouse. I mean, how could I be playing a prostitute on Broadway? I should have taken the other role, whatever. But Joshua Logan, he was such a kind, wonderful man, and you know, people know all the gossip anyway. So when we went out of town to Boston for the tryout, and he knew the night that my in-laws were going to be in the house, he said, "You know, in that scene with all that hugging and kissing with the sailor, you could tone it down." [Laughs] And then after, he, my husband, would be calling me every night and making me cry, and then on the weekends I'd have to come, I'd take the bus back and I'd be with my children and my in-laws not really being nice to me. But I would come back and then I just thought, I can't, they forbid me to take any more calls 'cause he was, my husband was making my life miserable. And I thought, "I've got to go home, I'm married, I've got to try to make it work." But it never really worked after that.

SY: So this was after the run of the show?

TF: No, it wasn't even, I left before the run. I opened on Broadway and then I left the show. But I originated the role of Gwennie, and then I...

SY: That must have been hard.

TF: It was hard, but I'm glad I did it. I wonder if it had been different if I'd taken the role with less money of the understudy. Then I would have learned the proper way to sing, and I would have... I love to sing, but, you know, shigin style, nagauta style is completely different than American-style singing. It didn't work, and so it was... after I was divorced, I thought, "I never want to be married again." They had, the family, the mother and father said, you know, if I'm divorced, they wanted to have a contract with me that I would never work, and that I would only live within a thirty mile radius. I said, "But that's like being a prisoner. I can't do that. I want to be able to have my children..." so anyway, it was just, I went to work and live in New York, I went to work for an investment backing house, and I was like a visiting father who would come in on the weekends. But so many times he would take me to court if I wanted to take them to Chicago or take them to be with my parents, because then it was always, well, the culture is different, and they're Buddhist, and it's just difficult.

SY: So this was a long...

TF: This was a long, this was a long, drawn-out affair. Then I met my present husband, and I never, I never wanted to be married. I just thought it's nice just being a sweetheart. But he can't, he doesn't have... I'm working for my own money and paying for my own things. If I want to go out with him, fine. And then after about -- and I never, I just liked him, but I never said anything about loving him. And then one day after about five years, it just came out of my mouth and I wanted to shove it back in. And then I didn't want him to know it. And he acted like he didn't hear me, but years later, he said, "Do you remember when you said that?" He said, "I heard you but I didn't think you wanted me to hear it," which I thought was very sensitive. We never talked about marriage or never talked about... you know, I felt he was committed to me, I felt committed to him. I kept my own place for years, and then finally I gave it up. But I was very happy. And then my father came to visit me, and then he went back, and then my mother came to visit.

But anyway, what happened is that my father died. And then one day as we were... my husband got a very important job, and we were gonna be going off the next day to the big company gathering and everything. And as we were driving out -- he's a terrible driver -- making a left-hand turn, I wish he'd pay attention. And we were leaving a restaurant called Love. He's just saying something about marrying me. I said, "What?" He said, "Well, when we celebrated ten years together, I said to some of my friends I thought I'd arrange a wedding." But then they all said to him, "You better not do that, surprise her." So he said, "I didn't, but your father came to visit," and he said, "I couldn't converse with your father. I just felt that maybe your father didn't understand that I'm committed to you. And your mother's in her eighties and not always in good health. And so before she dies, will you marry me so she'll know?" So I call my mother and she burst into tears and she said, "Daddy just worried so when he got back," that what's going to happen to me? That I'm just living with this guy. And so we got married, and my mother sang a Japanese song, shigin. No one understood a word, but it was so dramatic. I looked, and everyone is crying, all these Caucasian people, because it was so dramatic. So my mother was an important part of the wedding.

SY: Wow, that's terrific.

TF: Yeah. That's why, you know, when I did that piece about my mother, and she was saying all the time because he was so kind to me, and then he would come home late from work and she would want me to get out of bed or do whatever and stand by the door just to greet him and bow to him. She was always bowing to him when he left and bowing when he went out. She'd try to get me out from the bathroom or whatever, "Sy-san leaving, Sy-san come, come, got to say hello, got to say goodbye." So she treated him like he was very special.

SY: She loved him, that's terrific, wow.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

SY: So in all this time that you, well, left New York -- well, no. Are you still in New York living with your...

TF: No, no. I live now right on Wilshire Boulevard. And unfortunately, my husband has got dementia or Alzheimer's had it for a number of years, and he's been having fainting spells and breaking his bones. And so in June he broke his left shoulder and has a rod down his left shoulder, and about five weeks ago he fell, fainted in the bathroom, and he's got a rod down his left leg, and he's just... you know, he's not in great shape and right now he's in a rehab hospital, and so I've been spending most of my time with him there when I'm not doing something. And I just got a call today, he's going to be discharged next week, but I don't know quite where he's, if he's going to come home or if he's going to be accepted in another place or what. So everything is in turmoil at the moment. And it's the last part of the journey, I guess, and it's never easy. But it's hard because the other person is going by inches and no longer the person you know.

SY: But you have some pretty wonderful memories.

TF: I have wonderful, I have wonderful memories, yes I do.

SY: You really do.

TF: We've done a lot of interesting travel, and I always credit him for making me be strong and independent, 'cause I think I am now. He was always so busy with his own work, and so I was never one to... up to the time I was with him, I was always working myself, but I know what he does and I know it's not a nine to five job. And being creative, I saw how he worked. So he always had the freedom to do whatever he wanted and when, but he always tried to make it a rule we wouldn't be apart more than every couple of weeks at a time. But in the meantime, I developed my own life of doing things I liked to do when I want to do it. And then, because my first husband was so fussy about food, I didn't even let him know I cooked at first. So if I'd cook anything, he'd be grateful. [Laughs] 'Cause the other one, whatever I made, was always so critical. So I thought, okay, that's not gonna be what's important.

SY: And in the meantime, your career really has maintained.

TF: Well, you know, when I got back here, once I got together with him, I had time now to do what I wanted to do, and I thought, I love acting and so I've gone back to that.

SY: So there was a period where you weren't acting at all.

TF: No, it's just I was too busy trying to survive and make a living. I guess I always did some things on the side. Now, I always joke that they retired me, they didn't tell me. But I'm still doing, you know, I get involved with a lot of young people and ultra low budget films. I played Brad Pitt's secretary in Moneyball, so I don't know if you've seen that. I had a good time being a pirate lord in the third Pirates of the Caribbean. But now, this particular year, I'm in one, a movie written by Lily Mariye, who is a Sansei or Yonsei, and it's based on a true story which is really interesting. It's about a Japanese American man married to a Caucasian woman, and they have two Amerasian children. And the mother gets involved in drugs, and she doesn't go buy the drugs herself, she sends her kids out. And, of course, one of the children, they get involved with the people who are selling it, and one gets killed. And I play a grandmother who'd been in camp and who tries to stay in touch with them. Chris Tashima is in it, too.

SY: It's wonderful, though, you get these roles that probably there aren't that many people who can play them.

TF: Well, that one, anytime it has to do with camp or from that era, I really want to be a part of it if I can. I mean, I understand the woman a little more, I think, than someone who's never lived through that period. And then the other part, I just finished it, is called Hotel Arthritis, and it's a slasher film. And again, it's an ultra low budget written by some twenty year olds, and I get to play an angry Chinese woman. And I've been ostracized by the rest of the community because they say I cheated in mah jong, but they need help in helping to solve the murder when all these people are being killed.

SY: So it's a comedy.

TF: It's a comedy; it's a very funny comedy. And so I, also when you're with all these young, creative people, the good thing about the acting community, you don't notice the age. You're all actors. You have one common love. So I don't know -- I just want to be with someone who has a passion for what they're doing and who is serious about what they're doing and can laugh, and I want to have a good time. And the interesting thing I find about getting older is -- and I wished I'd known it years ago, because I'd always say to my mother, she was fifty or sixty, "It's your birthday. What can I get for you?" And she'd say, "Oh, no, I'm too old. I don't need anything. I don't need anything." And I'd think, god, my daughter brings me a little nail polish, it's the shatter, and it's glamorous and fun, and I think, oh, this is so exciting, I love it. And then she'll just, the youngest one is very thoughtful about little things. Or this week, this charming young twenty-four year old boy who was in the Chronicles of Narnia, handsome, charming, serious about his craft, and we have gotten so we love to go to the movies together or go to the theater. And what I like is often our reactions are the very same. I took him to the cast party, and it was Moneyball, and he knew what this cinematographer had done and what this director had done, he knew all about their work 'cause his father is the same. So I find that I enjoy his company. And he's leaving for England on Friday morning, and then so he sent me an email, and on Thursday he wants to pick me up and take me to see a young friend of his, a big star from the Ukraine, take me to dinner and see it. And I think, aren't I a lucky woman? Really. The other nice thing is, I think, what a gentleman. He took me to his private club, and I thought, you know, his friends, what are they gonna think? He's got a little old Japanese lady with him. And he knows that I like to listen to speakers connected with the film, it was to see Robert Evans, they were showing his film, and it's so elegant and, my gosh, very posh. You would sit, it's like a couch, and a cashmere blanket, and you could have water or whatever you want to drink, listen to the speaker. And then I get to this place, it's an elegant, it's the Soho Club, so posh, beautiful young people. And here's this little old me coming in, right? So I go to the bathroom thinking, "I'll just stay out of the way." But then he sees me, and then he doesn't say, "This is my tai chi teacher," or he doesn't go into any... he just says, "Oh, come and meet my friends." And I thought, that's classy, isn't it? I think if I were a young person, I probably would be making an explanation if I were with some old person or old man. And I thought, "This is a very special person."

SY: That's great.

TF: And I find when you're in a business like show business, it's a little different from some other things. The age difference, if you have a passion for something, doesn't really matter. And then if you can think of being friends.

SY: Yeah, it's true. So you picked the right profession, really, when all is said and done, but it just came naturally to you.

TF: It came naturally and it came from camp days. If I hadn't had my mother to introduce me to all of that.

SY: But there's a, yeah, there's a certain degree of talent involved, too. I'm sure that you probably...

TF: Yeah, but how would I have even known that? If I had stayed on in that little town, would I have seen... I remember the first time I went to Broadway to see a play, and the feeling that I got when I saw West Side Story. I used to sometimes take a bus in from Massachusetts, get there in time so that I could see a matinee and an evening. I think I'd get there in time so I could see a Tuesday night show, see a Wednesday matinee, Wednesday night show, catch the all night bus and be back the next morning. And when I saw West Side Story -- and I never bought my tickets ahead of time, I'd always go at the last minute -- I sat in the last row and that character got shot, I jumped up in my seat, I thought I'd been shot myself. I was in pain and I thought, I would love to go to see something today and have that same kind of passion. Now, I've seen so much, but I still want to have that same openness. So I try to go with people who don't have an opinion ahead of time and are so jaded they think, oh, you're gonna go see that. I want an openness, and so I like to go with someone who has an openness. And I find if I go to see a play with William, he's got that same openness. I don't want the negative feelings coming in. It's easy to be critical. So if I have just even a second or two of something that touches me, I'm happy.

SY: There's one thing, though, going to see plays and really getting that connection, but there's also a total different thing in actually doing a play, actually putting...

TF: Oh, I love doing a play. I did Velina Hasu Houston's Tea. That is one of my favorite plays. I saw it the very first time when they were doing it in San Francisco, and I've become very good friends with a couple of the girls who were in that original production. I kind of had lost the desire to do plays for a while, and then when I saw that I thought, "I want to get back to doing plays." And every night, I just felt like it was a chance to tell that story all over again. And it's never one hundred percent perfect, but the next night, you've got to let it go. Whatever mistakes or things that happened, you have to just let it go and keep going, 'cause otherwise you're gonna forget where you are or you're gonna make more mistakes. But I love that challenge, and then I love that feeling of being connected. There was one scene in which I don't talk at all, but I felt like there was a golden thread connecting us. And that I was important in that scene with whatever the connection. It's such a great feeling. And another one I did called GR Point, it's where soldiers are collecting dead people, and I'm this old woman who's just cleaning up after them. I think some of the best reviews I ever got -- and it's not a role where I had a lot to say, but I love the way the director went around. You feel connected to the whole piece. He made me feel, and I felt like whether I said anything or not, I was so important to the whole story. And you don't make any money doing plays. You're doing it for the love of it, you know, the passion that you have for it. So I go to see some of my friends, and I just admire them so. I'm such fans of theirs. And you know when our friend Marilyn performs, it's just...

SY: Marilyn Tokuda.

TF: Yes. I really love watching her and seeing her talent and seeing what she brings. I'm so glad that I can be friends... I don't feel like I'm ever competing with my friends. At first it seems so strange to come here, and you all go out for the very same part. But you know, we are all so different. We bring different life experiences. So we say the same words, but I think it comes out differently. So I tell myself I'm not competing with them, I'm trying to get the part the way I feel. If I feel at least I did a job where I don't feel ashamed of, I don't get it, I don't get it. Because I think they're all talented. I think we can all do the part, but one of us is gonna have something that they want.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

SY: And it's interesting because you talk about life experience and how that helps you in every role, but when you think about how difficult your life experience has been, really, being in camp had an amazing effect on you, I'm sure, do you think that that has really helped you? Or because when you think about it, how many Nisei who were in camp have gone into acting or into the theater?

TF: They haven't, but you know...

SY: What is it that makes you different? What is it that... what do you think it is?

TF: Well, when you say I'm different, what do you mean?

SY: Well, that you have made this career choice, that you have felt this connection to the theater, to acting, to film.

TF: I just think that I am so fortunate that I have a passion for something. I find that a lot of tough things happen in life. I've had a lot of difficult things, I've had a lot of times I've felt so low. But no one, there is no miracle that comes down and makes everything better for you. I've discovered it has to come from within. You have got to, you have got to decide. I'm going to try to make it better. I'm going to try to find some enjoyment, I'm going to... you can't just wallow in your misery. I think attitude is so important. And there are days, there have been times when I feel like I just want to be miserable. And then you know what? I find, okay, if I'm so tired and I want to be miserable and I want to be left alone, I would say to my husband, in those days especially when I was getting the cramps and my period, it's just those low days. I'd say, "You know, it has nothing to do with you. Just kind of leave me alone today, I need time to be by myself."

And I may want to -- but now, since I've passed that period a long time ago, I find... especially with what I'm going through with my husband and seeing someone that you loved is dying by inches in a different way. He's no longer the person I knew, but he's still a very good person. The shell is still there. And at first I remember people saying to me, "Well, you have to take care of yourself because caregivers die first." And I didn't really understand it, and then after I while I thought, "Oh, now I get it." The reason they die first is 'cause they want to. [Laughs] That's a little Japanese humor, my own humor. So I have got to make, I have got to decide, okay, I can't give up everything just to do that. I'm going to hang on to the things that make me happy. I may not go out, I don't need another dress, I don't need another shoe, I don't need a piece of jewelry. Once in a while I succumb and I want something, so then I go ahead and get it and I think, okay, fine. But I don't give up my theater tickets, I'm going to go to the movies, and if I want to have a good meal, like New Year's Eve, I took myself and I thought, you know, I could feel miserable 'cause I don't have anyone to go with, I don't have a party, and then I thought, "Do I really want to drive to some party where someone's saying, 'Come with us so you're not alone'?" I thought, "No, I'm gonna have a good time by myself. I love to eat, and I took myself to this little Japanese restaurant, I had the top of the line omakase, and I sat in the corner and I think the owner was worried 'cause I kept overeating, overeating, and kept asking periodically, "Are you okay, are you okay?" And then I think they gave me more than they ordinarily would give. But it was a state of mind. I decided, okay, I'm going to enjoy it, I 'mmed by myself, and it's better to 'mm with a friend. Ordinarily I don't like to eat alone, but I knew that this was -- and I thought, it's the end of the year, it's been a hard year, I'm going to look forward to a better life, better year. It hasn't been a better year, it's been a worse year. But, you know, you can't give up all that. And I was fine until I got into the car, and then I found I couldn't sit up. I'd eaten so much, I was trying to get the bend, you know, so that I could come up and sit up. I had to drive all the way home, and I was laughing to myself. But I know that that had to do with a state of mind that I said, okay, I'm going to have a good time by myself.

SY: That's wonderful, Takayo.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 22>

SY: You're a role model. I'm just thinking, what is it that -- because we're probably going to be closing soon, but would you wish your life for your children or would you, what is it that you would want for them?

TF: I would like them just to be happy. And it's not... what is happiness? It's not, as some people think, "Oh, if I have money," or, "If I have fame." I think if you could just kind of be satisfied with yourself and be not disappointed in yourself. So you know some of the lessons I learned like from my sister, that early thing about, "Don't try to buy and get away with the fact you're getting a cheaper ticket and cheating the company out of a few dollars." I want to make sure that I'm not disappointed with myself. Maybe I pursue the pleasure part of life too much in some of the things I want to do. I try to do what I feel I should do. I mean, I try to see my husband every day, to spend, maybe if I'm going to be busy all day, go early in the morning, go late at night or come somewhere in between. But also to treat myself the way I would tell a friend. And so maybe I try to talk to myself like I would talk to a friend. "You have to, I want you to be happy. I want you to do something for you. I think you would make my mother happy, if I'm happy." 'Cause when my daughter does something where she's going somewhere or my son is nice to her, I find, oh, my god, I'm so happy. If she would just tell me the happy parts of her life. It's not all happy; there's always discord in a family, and there's discord in my family at the moment. You know, I just, I can't dwell on that. I can only, you got to take one step at a time and you can't do everything. After someone's an adult, you've got to let them live their life the way they want.

SY: You know what I find that's so wonderful about you is that you're willing to share your life in its totality. You don't just talk about the good things, you're willing to talk about the difficult things as well.

TF: Well, the difficult thing, one of the things I told you, when the children, you see an unhappy relationship, and I think my children are paying for that. So when my son keeps getting married and divorced, and whatever a woman wants, he's trying so hard to fit in, and I said, "You've got to find out who you are. Learn to spend time with yourself." He didn't want to live alone, he always wanted to be with someone. I said, "But if you could just find out who you are..." and my youngest one was always getting into disastrous relationships, and she was not herself, she couldn't... when she couldn't talk, she didn't have a voice, I knew that wasn't the right person. And this man she's with now, he's made her blossom. I mean, she never cooked because the older one was always a good cook and just never made her feel she could be a cook, too. And so now she's cooking all these things and I think, "Oh, my goodness." 'Cause my husband would always criticize every single thing I cooked, my first husband, and that's why I didn't want to cook for a long time. Now I see she's blossoming, and when she's happy, I find that gives me such a happiness. And then when she's unhappy, she doesn't... now, I never told my parents when I was having problems. I don't think most Niseis went to their parents and said, "This is happening, that's happening." Because you saw your parents had so many problems on their own, they can't do anything. And yet my older one kept trying to, you know, sometimes tell me things or negative things and I said, "Please, you are in your fifties. You have to solve it with your sister or yourself, I don't want to hear negative things, I don't want to take sides, 'cause then I may take a side, so don't tell me. Just solve it without me. I have enough things on my own." So nothing is all wonderful, it doesn't all come together, and hopefully in time it will, but you can't rush it and you can't...

SY: And do you think that they have learned from you? Do you think that your life has been...

TF: I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so because I don't think... my children are my children, and I don't know that they see me in the same way. What I appreciate is that the younger one doesn't want me to... she really tries to know that I'm happy, and I see that. And she shields me if she's got some problems. It's what I would have done for my parents, I suppose. All of the happy, when they're happy, I'm happy. So I think parents on the whole take great pleasure from that. If I could get a job and help take care of some of the big burdens that we have now as a job, first of all I love working, so that would be wonderful.

SY: Yeah, but that's a very generous spirit thing, too, because coming, you know, having gone through the life that you've gone through and coming to this place you are now, it's really...

TF: Well, I'm glad I'm here, 'cause otherwise, if you don't adjust your thinking, you could be miserable. And I've said to my children, "When it comes, if you see that I don't know what I'm saying or doing," I don't want their lives to be, I don't want them to have guilt, "But please, when I'm in my sane, right mind, I want you to know it's okay. Put me somewhere that I will be taken care of, but I don't want you to feel you have to physically come and look after me and disrupt your life, because that's not going to make me happy." I may not be able to verbalize it at the time, but I know that it's disruptive.

SY: That's great. Well, I mean, it's great that you have made all the adjustments that you've made in your life and come to a place where... I feel as if you're at a place of peace.

TF: In many, in some ways, yes, pretty much.

SY: I mean, your life now, you feel pretty comfortable.

TF: Pretty comfortable if I knew I didn't have to rob Peter to pay Paul all the time, you know?

SY: [Laughs] Yeah, really. But still, it's a wonderful life, and I really appreciate your sharing it with all of us. It's a terrific life.

TF: Well, thank you.

SY: So thanks very much. I think we're gonna close now.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.