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TI: So joining the military, you mentioned earlier, was a way of getting away from the family. But it sounds like, going through basic training, it actually kind of settled you down, or calmed you down, but maybe you think a little differently about who you were and what was important?

RK: Well, I have no idea what the Ota family was about, who they were. I only knew one family, so I got to stay this way. It's me going back to a family that I don't know anything about.

TI: Earlier in the interview you mentioned, when you were talking about the Ota family, you said you knew nothing about that. But then you said when you were in the military, though, you learned that there were like six or seven kids.

RK: Right.

TI: So how did you find that out? Who told you...

RK: My mom did.

TI: Okay, so was it during kind of this adoption process, she gave you more information?

RK: Well, see, that was because she told me that was the reason why the Ota family put me up, to have somebody else care for me.

TI: Why did she tell you then and not ten years earlier, or eight years earlier when you first found out? She knew that already, she never, she waited all this time. Why do you think... what were you thinking?

RK: I have no idea. I didn't know anything about them. She could have just not say anything, and I would have just kept going and living as a Kenmotsu. But legally I'm still...

TI: Do you think she ever worried that maybe if you knew more about the Ota family that you would want to go to them and leave the Kenmotsu family?

RK: I never thought about it, leaving. But my personal feeling was, you gave me up. I don't know if I wanted to go find out what this family's all about. I only know one family, so I just decided to leave it that way.

TI: But in your heart, when you found out, oh, they had so many kids, and it probably then made more sense to why, and then your parents didn't have any children at the time, so you were given to this other family. When you heard all that, how did you feel about that? Did that change anything?

RK: I didn't feel any different. It was like, "I don't know you, I never knew you," I only know this one side. So that's way I left it.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.