<Begin Segment 2>

BT: So, actually, I want to go back a little bit. What was your mom and dad's name?

FS: My dad's name is Tadanao Sata, because he had James Tadanao Sata in this country, and I'm not sure whether he picked up the name after he came here or before when he was on the boat. He came to study art, so he didn't come in a typical way. He was raised in a very proper situation, I don't know that much about his early life in that matter because I only learned later that he came after his mother died, who was a single parent. It turned out that my father's side parents, well, the whole journey, there's so much more about my father that I only learned five years ago. My mother...

BT: What was her name?

FS: I lost track of what I was thinking there. [Laughs]

BT: What was your mother's name?

FS: Oh, her name was Yoshie Seki, S-E-K-I. So she only had that name, Yoshie Seki.

BT: All right. So my question is, after you were born in Los Angeles, what are some of your earliest recollections as a child? What do you remember, and if you can place yourself, where you were?

FS: Well, I had to discover, actually, some of this through hearsay or perhaps through friends and family. It appears that when I was a baby, an infant, that my mother might have decided to leave. And so I heard that I might have been at an orphanage at Maryknoll. I have no record of it, and I haven't bothered to check. So my recollection is that I kind of went from Maryknoll to several places. My father being also a photographer, I have a pretty good record of my journey. But there was a little split early on after I was a toddler, that there aren't photographs of myself. So it seems to substantiate that situation, that she went away for about half a year or whatever. Being she was younger, and so I didn't think she came expecting to be married to an artist, and that could have been part of the big issue, and you're sent across to marry somebody and that person comes from a high family, ranking family, and she just, I don't think, could deal with that, initially. And I was told that she came back because (I) didn't recognize (her).

[Interruption]

BT: So you mentioned that your mom had returned to Japan for a period of time. And you must have been just a very young baby at that time, is that right?

FS: (No.) She returned before she got married.

BT: Oh, I see.

FS: (Yoshie) returned (to Japan) when she was about, my guess is maybe twelve or so, or ten, I know she had a hard time because I think her parents left her when she went to Japan, and so there was a lot of insecurity in her life.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.