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LT: Let's talk about your mother. What was her name and where was she born?

GI: My mother's name was Grace Yoshie Ota, and she was born in Seattle, Washington. And she was, her birthday was July 7, 1917, so she was a few months older than her to-be husband.

LT: How many siblings did she have?

GI: I think their family was about seven in total, brothers and sisters.

LT: And what kind of a job did she have?

GI: Well, she was a Kibei also, so she grew up here, and I'm not sure what her younger life was or how things were when she went back to Japan. But I know that when she did go to Japan, she picked up this love of Japanese history, and she could rattle off all the emperors and all of the shoguns and tell you the main characteristics of each one, just like that. And I kind of inherited a lot of that from her. But when she came back, she became a housekeeper for this wealthy Trainer family in Tacoma, Washington. And through the years, after we moved to Orange County, she would often speak very fondly of Mrs. Trainer and her son, and just having a very good time with those folks. And actually, they would exchange postcards and I believe she went to visit Mrs. Trainer a couple of times.

LT: So she was twenty-four years old when World War II began. What happened to your mother after Pearl Harbor?

GI: Well, after a couple months, Executive Order 9066 was issued, and everyone here in the L.A. area were being carried off to Santa Anita racetrack to live in horse stalls. But my mother's eldest brother, Shigemi, his wife was a classical dance instructor, very refined. And she would have none of it. When she found that out, she would say, "No way, I'm not going to any horse stall." So she forced all of the Otas to get all of their vehicles together and load them up and strap mattresses to the roofs and all this stuff, if you can picture this, and they just drove off east into Arizona, having no idea where they were going, they were just following the road. And the way the story goes, they ended up at some farm, and the kind farmer said, "Well, you folks can stay in my barn." And I remember my aunt telling how there were rats running around, and it was very scary. And they couldn't stand it after a few weeks, so most of them voluntarily admitted themselves into the Gila, Arizona, camp. But my aunt, the dancer, didn't want to have anything to do with that, so she forced her husband to stay out, and I think she had a couple members of her dance troupe with her. And so throughout World War II, she would make arrangements with the different camp administrators for her troupe to be admitted into the camp, set up a stage, and then they would do their dance show, and then they would tear it down and go to the next thing, so a very unique kind of person. She actually would end up leading one of the big ondo dance troupes here in Little Tokyo into the Nisei Week parade. And I think one of the rooms at the JACC is named after her daughter, my cousin, because she was a virtuoso biwa player and dancer. And my aunt received, directly from the emperor, some sort of award for helping to spread the culture of Japan outside of Japan.

LT: So where did your mother go after the war?

GI: Well, I believe, after her husband was court-martialed, she was sent from Gila to Tule Lake where all the dissenters were sent. And then after the war, I think they all ended up in East L.A. So as far as how my parents first met before the war and that sort of thing, I really had no good idea.

LT: Well, your parents had four sons, and where did you fit within them?

GI: I was third, I was the third son.

LT: And what do you remember about your upbringing from your parents? What was your relationship with your mother?

GI: Well, I think of the four sons, I was kind of the pet to my, both my parents. And I have to admit that maybe there's a little resentment going on there, but it was a very fun and loving and joyful experience for us kids. I mean, every time Christmas or birthdays came around, we always got whatever we had wished for. And looking back, I don't know how that could possibly have happened, but it happened, and the eldest, Lloyd, was sent into judo training, very demanding. And then the second, Steve, learned how to play piano, or clarinet, very well. And then myself and the youngest, Phil, learned piano, and we often would play duets at the elementary school programs for holidays.

LT: What do you think your mother's goals were for you as a young boy?

GI: It was never stated. My father asked me about that sort of thing, and I told him I wanted to be a test pilot like Chuck Yeager. And so he told me that, "Oh, well, you have to become an engineer and you'll have to learn mathematics," and that sort of thing. But as for my mother, she just seems like she just wanted to love me, and that was all that I needed. [Laughs]

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.