<Begin Segment 8>

SY: So he was, so how would you describe our mom? What was she like? Was she a hard worker, was she, what would you say? Was she patient? Was she --

PM: She was very patient. I mean, to have so many children, she, we didn't have much money so she'd open up cans of peaches or whatever and dole it out one by one so it was all even. When she went shopping she made sure we all had one pair of socks. She was very careful about that, but she didn't much money, so always she was very thrifty, conservative, and she did her best.

SY: Right. So she, you, do you remember living through the Depression? Those years were --

PM: Not too much, but I was born about '29.

SY: That's when you were born. So, but she, I remember her always talking about living through the Depression and that's how she became so thrifty.

PM: Right, right.

SY: But our father liked to spend money, right?

PM: Yes, he liked to spend money because he was in sales. That's how you gain friends a lot of times, by treating them and by being nice to them. And so Mom always had to try to save wherever she could, so she had a difficult time.

SY: Yeah. That must've been hard. But she stayed at home through all those prewar years? She never started working.

PM: Not that I remember, 'cause there were too many children there. She started working after camp.

SY: After camp. So let's, I guess, talk a little bit about what you remember about when -- well actually, let me ask you this, when you were growing up in that Boyle Heights area do you remember any kind of overt prejudice against Japanese?

PM: No.

SY: Never?

PM: I didn't feel it. Prejudice came into the picture after camp.

SY: Really?

PM: Yes. And I really felt it, and to this day I feel a little bit not as good as some Americans, or the Caucasians 'cause of the prejudice that I had encountered after we came out of camp.

SY: I see.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.