Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Takashi Matsui Interview I
Narrator: Takashi Matsui
Interviewer: Elmer Good
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: October 29, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-mtakashi-01-0024

<Begin Segment 24>

EG: What did your father think of you after... this was years...

TM: I was wondering about that. I was wondering, you know, what he was...

EG: When was the last time you saw him before now? When you left as a boy?

TM: Well, in 1934.

EG: When you left Japan.

TM: When I left Japan.

EG: All these years...

TM: And this was 1934 to 1940...

EG: '45 or so.

TM: '46. So about twelve years.

EG: And this was the first time you met your brother and your sister?

TM: No, I had met them before.

EG: You had.

TM: But certainly...

EG: Oh yes, they were born before you left Japan, weren't they?

TM: Yes, they were born here in Seattle.

EG: Your brother and sisters?

TM: Uh-huh.

EG: I thought they were stepbrothers.

TM: Yes, stepbrothers and (stepsisters) born here in Seattle.

EG: Oh, so your stepmother came to live in Seattle.

TM: Yes.

EG: Oh, I thought, okay. And then the whole family moved back to Japan. Okay, I didn't get that right.

TM: Yeah, I was wondering how they would react to me. But they were very happy that I was alive, they were very happy that I went down to visit them. Which... and then I was very happy that they felt that way. [Laughs]

EG: Here you were in American army uniform.

TM: I was in uniform, yeah. No, they said they were very happy that I was doing all right. Because my immediate brother, younger brother, served in the Japanese army and never came back. So my mother told me at that time, my stepmother told me that the brother never came back. But I came back, so she was very happy.

EG: So you just had two sisters, then, in Japan anymore.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.