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Title: Susumu Nakanishi Interview
Narrator: Susumu Nakanishi
Interviewers: Barbara Yasui (primary), Tom Ikeda (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 24, 2022
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-496-1

<Begin Segment 1>

BY: All right. So we are here today with Susumu Nakanishi. It's March 24, 2022, and we're doing this interview at the Lakeshore Retirement Community in Seattle, Washington. I'm Barbara Yasui, and also today with me is Tom Ikeda of Densho, and Dana Hoshide also is our videographer, also from Densho. So thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. We're going to start with just some background information about you. So can you tell me when and where you were born?

SN: I was born in Japan, September 10, 1926.

BY: Where in Japan?

SN: Hyogo, Japan, actually country, real country.

BY: Okay. And where is Hyogo in Japan? Where is that?

SN: Hyogo Prefecture includes the city of Kobe. So there's a big mountain before the city of Kobe, I'm the other side of the mountain, real country, where I was born.

BY: And what was the name that was given to you when you were born?

SN: Aino (village in Hyogo Prefecture).

BY: What was your name? What was the name that your parents gave to you when you were born? So what's your name?

SN: Susumu.

BY: Okay, Susumu Nakanishi.

SN: There's no middle name in Japan.

BY: Okay. Do you have a nickname? Do you have a nickname?

SN: My nickname is Professor. [Laughs]

BY: Can you tell us how you got that nickname?

SN: Well, when I went to college, professor ask question, nobody can answer, only me. So they named me as a professor. [Laughs]

TI: So your classmates gave you that nickname.

SN: Yes. Then they wanted me to put in the faculty.

BY: That's quite an honor. Well, we will get to more information about your schooling because it's an interesting story.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.