<Begin Segment 1>

BN: Okay, so it's... I should know the date, it's October 5th, and we're in Torrance, and we're interviewing Kanji Sahara. So, I wondered if you could just give your full name and date of birth.

KS: Okay. My name is Kanji Sahara, and I was born April 4, 1934, in Hiroshima-ken, Japan. So in Hiroshima, they have small islands to the west of the city, and there was an island called Nomijima, and that's where I was born in 1934.

[Interruption]

BN: Now, your parents were Issei, so it's sort of happenstance that you happened to be born in Japan.

KS: Right.

BN: Talk a little bit about it, maybe how your parents, a little bit about your parents' background and how they came to the U.S.

KS: Okay, so then my father was from Hiroshima also, and he was born on, lived on the mainland in a place called Kaichi, and then my mother was from the island. And then they were married around 1920 or '21 or something like that. So then they lived in California, and then they had three daughters. And around 1933 or so, my mother's grandfather got sick, so then she decided to go visit him, so she brought the three girls with her. And then when she went to Japan she had a doctor sign this statement that said that she was so many months pregnant. So would you let the child come in about that age? And the reason she had to get that form was that we had the 1924 exclusion act, so there were no more people that's coming from Japan. So while they were there, my mother and the three girls were there, then I was born. And meanwhile, my father was still staying in California. And then in August of 1934, the three girls and I and then my mother and another lady came back to the U.S.

BN: So you were born in April, so you were five, six months old.

KS: That's true.

BN: Did your mom know that she was pregnant when she went back?

KS: Yes, so she had to have this form signed that said that she was pregnant, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to come into the U.S.

BN: Right, because you were not born yet. Whereas her and your sisters could come back, they were already established in the U.S. To go back to your parents, were they married in the U.S. or Japan?

KS: I think they were married in Japan. My father, he came to the U.S. sometime around 1910 or so. But it goes back to my grandfather on my father's side. Now, he was in the U.S. around 1900, but he lived most of the time in Japan, and then whenever he thought that a son should go to the U.S., he would use the Gentlemen's Agreement form that said that anybody that once lived in the U.S. would go from Japan to the U.S., so he could get a visa. So when the son was ready to go to the U.S., he would come first because of that form, and then once he was in the U.S., he would use the second provision of the Gentlemen's Agreement that said you could have immediate family come to the U.S., so then he'll call his son over from Japan. And that's called yobiyose, so he used that for the oldest son, and then he went back to Japan. And then when it was time for my father to come, my grandfather came to the U.S. first and did the same thing. So my grandfather did that four times for the four sons that he wanted to come to the U.S.

BN: And your father was the second?

KS: My father was the second, yeah.

BN: What was your grandfather's business?

KS: Oh, I'm not exactly sure, but I think they had land, so they were farming. So I think he was like an entrepreneurial or go-getter or whatever, so he lived on Hiroshima on the mainland, and then meanwhile, on my mother's side, she lived on the island of Nomijima. And her father died when she was an infant, so in Japan the custom in that case was that if a father dies, then the grandparents get the child instead of the mother. So my mother's mother didn't have a child, but my mother's grandfather now raised her. And then I think my mother's grandfather and my mother's father, I think they knew each other for a long time, so it looked like they had a lot of negotiations and stuff like that in the past. So when my father's father thought it was time for my father to get married, then he'll just think, who's an appropriate girl, and oh, yeah, I know that guy over there on Nomijima, let me go talk to him. And I think that's how they arranged the marriage, that the families, they knew each other.

BN: And that was pretty standard for Issei.

KS: Right.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.