<Begin Segment 5>

TI: Tell me first where your mother and father came from.

SK: Well, actually, my mother was born in Hawaii, in Hilo, but as an infant she was taken to Japan so in her birth certificate, Koseki Tohon, the Japanese registry, she's listed as born in Japan in Hiroshima, you see. My father was born in Hiroshima (...), and as a young man of nineteen he came to Hawaii under the sponsorship of his father, (...) my grandfather.

TI: Explain that again. Your grandfather sponsored your father.

SK: Yeah, that's right. My father -- no, my grandfather was here already. I don't know what year he came. He was here already and because the plantation wanted more workers, my grandfather called my father over.

TI: Okay. So your grandmother was still in Japan raising your father, and your grandfather was here working.

SK: That's right, that's right.

TI: Now, was that a pretty common thing?

SK: Common thing, common thing. And even in my family it's the same thing. So my father worked for a few years in Hilo on the plantation, went back to marry my mother. So my mother came from this family to my father's family, and they got married and soon after, he came back to Hawaii, leaving my mother over there.

TI: In Hiroshima?

SK: Yeah, in Hiroshima. And at that time, already my older brother -- he is ten years my senior -- was conceived (and my father returned to Hilo). So (Mother) gave birth to my older brother in Japan, and she stayed there for a few years, and she came to Hawaii alone leaving my older brother in Japan under the care of my father's sister.

TI: So your family was all over the place. [Laughs]

SK: Yes, that's right.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.