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TI: Okay, so I'm going to take you now back to when you were a kid. Because at one point you mentioned your sister Yaeko living in Japan. Do you know when she left to go to Japan, how old she was?

TH: I think she was nine.

TI: But you said, okay, let me get these, kind of the dates right. You said you went to Japan when you were six? And you said that Yaeko was already there?

TH: Uh-huh, and she's three years older.

TI: Okay, so she had just turned, so she had just gotten there.

TH: Probably. But she didn't want to come back, according to my mother. She said that she wanted to bring her back. But she did come back just before the war started.

TI: And so you said she was there for about ten years.

TH: Uh-huh.

TI: And how close were the two of you before she went to Japan? You were six, she was about nine? How close were the two of you?

TH: Well, she had her friends and I had my friend. I only had one friend but we didn't really play together or go shopping. Nobody went shopping in those days.

TI: Do you remember, and I know you were really young, but do you remember why she went to Japan and how she felt about that?

TH: She never mentioned it. Apparently my parents thought that they will have earned enough money that we would all go back. I think that was their thought. But after a short while, my mother wanted to bring her back. But I really don't know the real reason.

TI: So your thinking, though, is your parents might have thought they would go back to Japan, so sending her to Japan earlier, she would be better able to live in Japan?

TH: I guess. Because so many families did that in those days.

TI: Do you recall how your sister felt about going to Japan? Was she excited? Did she want to go?

TH: I don't remember that at all. I just thought she was going on a trip.

TI: So I'm going to jump around a little bit. So you said ten years later she comes back to America, to Beaverton. How had she changed? I mean, did she seem different than the sister you knew before?

TH: Well, she knew a lot of Japanese. [Laughs] But she was very, very, very intelligent, I mean, a lot smarter than me. And she picked up the, got back, because she did know a little English before, and so she was fluent in both languages. And in some way, when the war started, the government knew -- I don't know how -- but they called her and wanted her to come to San Francisco to be an interpreter. And I don't know how that all happened, but my dad wouldn't let her go.

TI: I'm sorry, would not let her go?

TH: Uh-huh.

TI: And why?

TH: Well, she was still pretty young. See, she came back just before the war started. Or someone, one of my parents' friends was going to go over to get their son and bring him back. And at the same time, my mother asked her to bring my sister back. And then December 7th, so I don't remember what date or anything that she came back, but it was just before.

TI: And when you said the government knew about her and wanted her to work in San Francisco, do you know if that was with, like, the Presidio?

TH: I think Presidio where they had the language school.

TI: Interesting.

TH: Yeah, it would have been interesting for her, but she didn't want to go either, but my dad said no.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.