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VY: Well, okay, let's talk about your brothers. What was their experience like, the two that stayed in Japan?

BT: I don't remember any of them in Alameda or when we were in San Mateo from 1934, except that we went to Japan together, and then they left. The only thing I remember was that my mother would make packages to send to them every month, so we were envious of them getting these nice packages of whatever was in there every month, whereas we didn't get any packages and we had to help out, had to help our mother, and we'd pull a wagon every Saturday, go shopping, and go grocery shopping and so on, so I used to do that, because my brother, younger brother would take this wagon and pull it along and help my mother do the shopping. So that was our chore, and so I remember being envious of my two brothers in Japan getting all these packages every month. That was our life.

VY: Do you know anything about any experiences that they had while they were in Japan before the war?

BT: Japan was at war with China at that time, so the Japanese government dictator was Tojo, which was like, just as bad as Hitler was in Europe, Germany. But he wanted any young people to join the Japanese army, so I found out later that my brothers and all those who were American citizens that were in Japan learning Japanese, they were harassed, or forced to join the Japanese army. But my brothers fought hard, as many of the Japanese Americans did, in refusing to join the Japanese army because they were American citizens. And fortunately, the Japanese government accepted this and didn't put them in jail. Because that's a pretty bad thing to do with the Japanese government, is to refuse to join the Japanese army, when supposedly you're supposed to, since you're there, you're supposed to be patriotic to Japan, but no, they didn't. And I do remember, know of one family whose father had succumbed to this kind of pressure and did join the Japanese army. And he was fortunate to come back alive, because when he was, finally joined, the war ended soon thereafter, so he didn't have to go to war. But I know my second oldest brother, when he came back in 1939, came back to the United States and San Mateo, I remember he was talking about the Japanese navy quite a bit. And later on I found out that my oldest brother really had to talk my second oldest brother from joining the Japanese army or navy at that time, because that was the kamikaze pilots and so on, the navy, Japanese navy. So thank goodness my brother talked him out of it, but he was, I remember him talking about the Japanese navy quite often, it was after he got back, so thank goodness my brother talked him out of it and brought him back to the United States. But my second oldest brother... my oldest brother remembered his English from, because he was old enough, but my second oldest brother, he forgot all his English. So when he got back, then he only spoke Japanese and forgot all his English, so he had to go to my younger brother's grammar school class, and then later on he came into my class and so on to relearn English. So for a long time, he spent time with learning English as his way of making a living, trying to get back that English ability.

Eventually, this goes into World War II and so on, but he studied most of the time in the camps that we were in, and in Tule Lake, when the war ended and we went back to San Mateo in 1945 after the war ended, he stayed behind in camp, in Tule Lake, and graduated from the high school that he was in. And then he graduated from there and came out after December of 1945, after he graduated, and then he went on to Park College in Kansas City, went to college there and then to UCLA, and also ended up in Michigan University to get his master's and doctor's degree and so on. Eventually, he became a sociology professor at Michigan University and spent his time there, and retired from the University of Michigan. So he became a very scholastic person in our family.

VY: That's so interesting, because he was really interested, as you said, in the Japanese army, and it sounds like when he first came.

BT: Navy.

VY: Navy, excuse me, navy. But then when he finally came back and learned English and became more... I don't know, it seems like he kind of changed a little bit?

BT: Yes, he did. His name was Yuzuru, and my mother, she had the oldest brother and then the one that passed away, so two brothers. And then my second oldest brother was the third one, the third male, so in order to change it to get girls in the family, he named him Yuzuru, and Yuzuru, means "to yield" in English, means to yield to another sex. And by golly, it worked, because then we had the two sisters, older sisters, and then myself and our younger brother. And then my younger sister, and then my younger brother. So our family ended up being paired, two older brothers, two older sisters, my brother and I, and then the last ones were the younger sister and younger brother, so it was paired together, and that's the way we lived when we were growing up. My younger brother and I, we used to go everywhere together. In fact, before he passed away, he did thank me for taking him all over. So that was... it was kind of a fun kind of childhood, I would say, no problems or anything.

VY: So how long did you live in San Mateo?

BT: Well, we lived in San Mateo until the war started and then Executive Order 9066 was passed on February the 19th. And on May the 19th, we had to leave our home and go to Tanforan in San Bruno, California, to start our experience in these camps, so to speak. So, actually, after the war ended, we went back to San Mateo and then I grew up going to San Mateo College and also, from there, we moved to Berkeley and went to UC Berkeley that way. And then when I came to Berkeley, then I started to live in the East Bay, went to Oakland and then now in Richmond. So until 1956 or something like that, I was living in San Mateo.

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