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VY: Okay. Today is Thursday, February 7, 2019, and we're here in Los Angeles, California, with Nancy Oda. Dana Hoshide is on the camera, and my name is Virginia Yamada. So, Nancy, thank you for joining us today for this interview.

NO: It's an honor, thank you.

VY: Thank you. Let's begin by having you tell us when you were born and what name you were given at birth.

NO: I was born in May 20, 1945, and my father named me Kyoko, which means "cooperation." And it's written with three chikara, the "strength" kanji. And his idea was that I would be born in a time of chaos, the future was unknown, but I would bring harmony to the family and to the world. So I'd like to be called Kyoko, but I'm known as Nancy Oda.

VY: That's beautiful. What were your parents' names?

NO: My mother's name was Lily Yuriko Inouye. My father was Tatsuo Ryusei Inouye.

VY: And what about your siblings, can you name them?

NO: Sure. My oldest sister is Sayuri Frances, and she married Takeda. And my second sister is Ernie Jane Masako Nishii, and she was married to Mr. Nishii.

VY: And how about their birth order? How old are they compared to you?

NO: Sayuri is ten years older than me, Masako, who was Ernie Jane Masako, is seven years older than me, and myself.

VY: Okay, and where were you born?

NO: I was born in the Tule Lake segregation center.

VY: So your life begins at about the time when your family is getting ready to leave camp, is that correct?

NO: That is correct.

VY: Okay, so let's pause there, and before we move forward, let's step back a little bit and let's talk about what you know about your family and their life and their history before you were born. So let's start off with your mother. Where was she born and what do you know about her life? What do you know, what her life was like before she met your father?

NO: My mother was born on Halloween, and so she's full of life and joy, and she was born on October 31st, I believe it was 1914, and it was in Montebello, California. The family moved to Lancaster where she grew up, went to Antelope Valley High School, and she and her siblings, there were seven all together, had a great time during the era of Judy Garland, who lived nearby. So they worked on an alfalfa farm, she had three brothers who were the worker bees, and her four sisters, including herself, were the singer, dancer, artist people in the family, so it was a very amazing time. No TV, but they really enjoyed life.

VY: How about your father, where was he from?

NO: My father, okay, my father is from Kumamoto, Japan, but he was born here on Halloween as well, in 1910, and he was born according to the passport, in Laguna, California, as opposed to what I thought it was, I did some research. And he and his two older brothers were born here in the United States, and the family went back to Japan, so he's Kibei. The father, my grandfather, farmed in an area near Montebello, and we have a photo of the family with my father as an infant. And there are horses, and it's a panorama picture that we treasure because it talks about our beginning. They returned to Japan with these three boys, three, five and seven, and my grandfather arranges for a parade to show his three sons. But the rumor, or the tale is that my father cried and the parade was stopped, but he said it's really his middle brother that cried. So there's a wonderful plaque at the temple that my grandfather donated in memory of that day that he brought three sons back home to Kumamoto, Japan.

VY: So both of your parents were actually born in the United States?

NO: That is correct.

VY: How about any other family members? Do you have any knowledge of experiences that they had in the early days, in the '30s, '20s or '30s?

NO: Okay. Fortunately we have the yearbook from my mother's family. We will be donating it to the Antelope Valley Rural Museum. My Auntie June was in the California Rose Parade in 1936 in a themed float called "The Melting Pot," and she was wearing a kimono. And in terms of the rest of the family, they would welcome me as a child every summer to spend my time there, and I never knew that it was so famous for poppy fields, because we would only go at Thanksgiving or Christmastime, but it was a big thrill to ride your bike as a city girl as fast as you ever wanted to go, and jump into the reservoir, whereas in L.A., you have to be a little more cautious. That's my mother's side of the family. We've had Thanksgiving there, and when you think about the marvelous food that they made, the turkeys and the pies, I ponder, how did they even get the materials? Because they did not have even one stoplight even when I was born.

VY: So that was your mother's farm or her property, that was in Lancaster?

NO: Lancaster, yes.

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