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BN: So how was it that your Issei father, wholesale produce marketer, meets this -- and your mom is quite a bit younger.

RO: Yeah, maybe ten hours... ten years.

BN: How did that come about that, that they met and married?

RO: I don't know. I wasn't privy to information like that. [Laughs]

BN: Obviously you're not born. I wonder if it's an arranged...

RO: In those days, yeah, in those days a lot of them were arranged. And there weren't many women compared to the number of men, so she could get her pick of the men. And I can't remember, she picked him because he was nicer or something, he wasn't the typical Japanese person coming over.

BN: And for an Issei, he was actually kind of a younger Issei because many were born much earlier. So do you know what year they got married? Let's see, your oldest brother was born in, like, '32.

RO: Yeah, so 1920-something, I'm not sure.

BN: Yeah, so she was very young, she would have been really young. At that time, right, was it not the case that, as a Nisei marrying an Issei, she would lose her citizenship? Or had that been changed by then?

RO: Yeah, no, it changed about the time they got married, it was in the early '30s.

BN: So she was able, she never lost her citizenship.

RO: Yeah, she never even knew that there was this law.

BN: She was fortunate. So after the Cable Act, probably. Now, you have an older brother and sister, right? And you're number...

RO: Three.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.