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VY: So when you would go on, like, a family outing or something...

MM: The family outing had to be within the short (difference). I got very bad poison ivy, and so I would get blisters that were maybe a half-inch, and they would be on my arms. And my mother said, "Time to go to the beach," so if you went to the New Jersey shore, all the sand was in the little waves that came over and you didn't feel them baking, and you were sitting out in the sun, and you hadn't felt anything. By the time you went home, all your blisters had gone away. Because the salt had shriveled them up and healed them, and it was now you were healthy. It was the best medicine for whenever I got a bad case. It was time to go to the shore, and with a Western mother, they didn't see any need to ask questions about the kids.

VY: I was going to ask that. If people, when you were alone with your mom as opposed to when you're alone with your dad, if people interacted with you differently?

MM: Absolutely, absolutely. Most of the time they were very fearful to talk to us at all because of my dad, he was the enemy, they'd walk across the street. They just didn't have any experience with any Asians, there were so few on the East Coast. And with Mother, when she delivered, I remember one time she would get on a bus, she'd clean the chickens. In other words, in that evening, my father developed a way how to kill the chickens (in) a humane way (...). So they hang the chickens upside down, all the blood would drop down, and my father made a knife that was curved. And you open the chicken's mouth, which was very easy to do, and just put it in and cut the spinal cord. So it couldn't feel anything, and all the blood would drip out. So that's like kosher killing of a chicken. And then my mother, that night, that evening, would sit with Dad and the children and we'd all together pull the feathers off the chicken. So you have to put (chickens) in boiling hot water that loosens up the feathers and then you pull them off. Then you give them to Mother and she takes these naked chickens away and she divides them up. And so she takes out all the insides and makes them, just breasts or just legs or the whole chicken if they want to have a roasted chicken or whatever it was. And then she would put them, wrap them up and put them in a suitcase, and we'd get on the bus, two children, and then we'd go to these different places, she'd deliver these chickens and these eggs. And when a woman said, "I don't have the cash, can I write a check?" my mother said, "Sure." "Who shall I write the check to?" So my mother said, "Anna Mikuriya." "What kind of name is that?" "Japanese." "Get out of my house." She was so enraged, she turned purple. She says, "I have nephews someplace," and blah, blah, blah. But she scared us. She was like this nice lady who was buying chicken before, and then she became a rageful woman that we didn't even recognize. And these incidents would come out, you just couldn't believe. It was, my mother was amazing how she took each knock down, she always said, "Are we not lucky we're pioneers, or we can do this or that, and we have enough food?" She gave us an attitude of appreciation, thankfulness. And was always encouraging us to be kind to others. The most important thing is kindness to others, and thoughtfulness, and so that went well.

VY: So do you remember her talking to you about, like, for instance, an incident like that where... I mean, how would she explain that to you, or would she? Or would she just kind of brush it off, or would she talk to you about how to deal with it?

MM: [Laughs] They say there's a Japanese saying, but nobody knows it. "If you fight with a flea, you know better than one." So whenever I was beat up, she would say, "You fight with a flea, you're no better than one." And then when this incident happened, "If you fight with a flea, you're no better than one." I don't know what it means, but it's supposed to make you feel better. But does it? I guess so. Your mind is not being on the hurt, it's being on, what does this mean? But it's a kind of thing for a pacifist parent to look at as a symbol of "forget it," or, "you can't do anything about it." But you have to be kind, can't hurt their feelings. And the Quakers were the only ones that were kind to us. Their children played with us, and so my brother, sister and I all went to this Quaker school nearby, for social action, and we were able to have that as a lifelong activity, is always volunteering.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.