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Title: Mary Kato - Frances Kajita Nishi Interview
Narrators: Mary Kato, Frances Kajita Nishi
Interviewers: Barbara Yasui (primary), Tom Ikeda (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 17, 2022
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-494-4

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BY: All right, we're going to move to talk about your, well, your brother. So, what are the names of your siblings, oldest to youngest with the age difference?

MK: Two siblings. My brother is four years younger than me and Frances, who is ten years younger than me.

BY: And Frances, what's your brother's name?

FN: Haruo Gus Kajita.

BY: Okay. And can you tell the story about how he got his name? You've told us about a doctor wanting to... anyway, the story of his name.

FN: Oh, how he got his name?

BY: Yeah.

FN: Well, the people that they were, he was working for at the Corps of Engineers couldn't pronounce Haruo or Habo, so they called him Gus. So that stuck as his name.

BY: So this was later.

FN: This was later.

BY: So there was a story that one of you told about how a doctor had wanted to name him Robert? Do you remember that story?

MK: My brother, he only had one name, Haruo, and the doctor, they asked the doctor about names and the doctor suggested some names and one of them was Robert. And Japanese have an accent, you know, and Mother said, "Rabbit? I don't want him to be named that, Rabbit." [Laughs] So he only had one name, Haruo.

BY: Thank you.

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