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TI: Okay, so we're gonna start. Today's Tuesday, April 24, 2012, and we are in Seattle in the Densho studio, and this afternoon we have Kiwamu Tsuchida to be interviewed. On camera is Dana Hoshide, and I'm the interviewer, Tom Ikeda. And so, should I call you Kiyo or Kiwamu?

KT: Yeah, Kiyo. Kiyo's fine.

TI: Okay, Kiyo. So Kiyo, let me start by asking, so can you just tell me where you were born and when?

KT: Auburn, Washington.

TI: And what was the --

KT: February 2, 1923.

TI: So that makes you eighty-nine?

KT: Nine. [Laughs]

TI: Eighty-nine years old. Wow. Congratulations. You look, great shape. So, and when you were born, February 2, 1923, what was the name given to you at birth?

KT: Kiwamu.

TI: And was there any significance to that name, Kiwamu?

KT: No. Well, not necessarily. It was my aunt, my mother's older sister, she was a, what do you call, a principal of some girls school, so she was well educated, the third female to graduate college in the Shiga prefecture, something like that. So she's the one my mother wrote and wanted her to pick the name, and she gave me that name, Kiwamu.

TI: And do you know why she selected that name?

KT: No, I don't. I don't. But through the years, I've never run across another Kiwamu. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, this is the first time I've come across it too, so that's, I was curious.

KT: Yeah.

TI: So it's your aunt, so your mother's sister gave it to you. Okay. So since we talked a little bit about your mother, can you tell me your mother's name?

KT: Mother was Tetsu, T-E-T-S-U, Matsumiya.

TI: And where was she from?

KT: She's Shiga prefecture. The village was Taga.

TI: Tell me about her family. What kind of work did her family do?

KT: They had a oil store. They called it Aburaya Oil, and they sold all kinds of oil. And they, then they gradually got into what they call zaka. It's a variety of things like you find in a ten cent store, all kinds of things. But the old days, I guess, was oil for cooking, like sesame seed oil and all that, plus kerosene for lamps. That's pretty much it, I guess. It was that way until electricity came in, I guess, but they were still selling oil for cooking and lamps and things like that.

TI: Did your mother have any interesting stories, what it was like running an oil store? This is another story I've never heard, like an oil store.

KT: That's about it, is Aburaya. And so I guess in the Japanese sense they were kind of well off, so everyone went to school. So my aunt was the third female to graduate college in Shiga prefecture, and then the other sister, she was a sewing teacher. I don't know what you call it, but the Japanese type kimonos and stuff, she was doing that. And one of 'em married a Buddhist priest. My mother, I don't know why she married my dad and came here. [Laughs] They were farming.

TI: Well, tell me about your mother's education. What kind of education --

KT: She was a high school graduate in Japan.

TI: And did she further her studies and did she specialize in anything?

KT: No, she didn't. But I remember several people used to come and have her write letters for them, especially when the Niseis became a certain age, because of the dual citizenship they were subject to draft in Japan. They would come to my mother and have her write letters to the, I don't know where they wrote back. I think the wrote the letter to their home, where they're from.

TI: So the Japanese government or some kind of government agency.

KT: Yeah, for, what do you call, deferment from the draft.

TI: Was it deferment or were they actually renouncing their Japanese citizenship? Or was it just trying to, just saying that they couldn't do the draft because they were in a different place?

KT: I think it was, at the time I think it was just a deferment.

TI: Interesting. Okay.

KT: I'm not sure, but I think that's what it was. Later on, then they start renouncing their citizenship, Japanese citizenship.

TI: Yeah, I'm jumping about a little bit, but then, in your family did the Niseis have dual citizenship, like your older brothers and things like that?

KT: I'm pretty sure they did. I think it was after the, after the war ended, they said, "Hey, somebody came over and said, 'Hey, you better get rid of your Japanese citizenship'." So they all got rid of it.

TI: Now, how would you know? I mean, did you know that you had dual citizenship, like Japanese and American?

KT: No, I didn't know. I heard about it when they were saying they were renouncing their Japanese citizenship. I was in the army in Japan, and they, I said, "Don't do anything. Not with mine." [Laughs] And later on, after I came back here, I had a, some sort of a deal where I was gonna be in one of these super snoop organizations, and I asked the officer, I said, "Should I renounce my American citizenship?" He says, "No, no. There's no reason to ever get your --"

TI: To renounce your Japanese citizenship?

KT: Yeah. "There's no reason to ever get your Japanese citizenship..." So I didn't.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.