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BY: Okay, let's talk a little bit about your parents. So what was your father's name?

SM: Milton Maeda.

BY: And when and where was he born?

SM: He was born in Portland, gosh, I can't remember the exact date, 1914 or something like that, maybe. [Narr. note: June 19, 1914.]

BY: And where did he grow up?

SM: In Portland, yes.

BY: In Portland, okay. And can you tell me a little bit about his educational background and his occupation?

SM: Well, he went to high school in Portland, and then he went to Oregon State College and graduated in electrical engineering. And now there's a stereotype about Asian engineers, but he was like the first in Oregon at that time. 1939 was a really early time for electrical engineers.

BY: And was he able to get a job as an electrical engineer out of college?

SM: No. He ended up working at the grocery store in his neighborhood that he had worked at when he was still in high school, and it took a while before he ever got an engineering job.

BY: And when was that? Do you know when he got his first engineering job?

SM: Well, he eventually started in the early '50s, I believe, he started working for the Bonneville Power Administration, and it was a quasi-engineering job. And then in '55, when he was offered a job at Boeing and we moved to Seattle, that's when he really became a design engineer.

BY: Okay. And where was he when Pearl Harbor happened?

SM: In Portland.

BY: Okay. And so was he incarcerated?

SM: Yes.

BY: And where?

SM: Minidoka. The Portland livestock building is the assembly center and then to Minidoka, Idaho.

BY: Okay. And did he stay in Minidoka for the whole war or did he leave early? And if so, where did he go?

SM: No. They had a program where if an employer inland, away from the West Coast, would verify that they needed you for a job, you could get out of camp. So I don't remember exactly how long they were in camp, but he wrote to his college classmates, and one of them had a father who owned a little company in Milwaukee, and sent for him.

BY: And that's where you were born?

SM: And that's where I was born, yes.

BY: Okay. So after the war, then he lived in Milwaukee, you all lived in Milwaukee for a while and then what happened after that?

SM: Well, I was still a baby, but when it was safe to return to the West Coast, my parents and I moved to Portland.

BY: Back to Portland?

SM: Uh-huh.

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