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VY: So this obviously affected your mom's health for a long period of time. Do you remember, in addition to it affecting her ability to have children moving forward, if there were any other health consequences for her as time went on?

MM: Yeah. You mean after camp?

VY: Yeah.

MM: There was a lot. I mean, physically there was that, but mentally it was really awful for her. Because we lived in a Japanese enclave kind of, of people that all had the same experience. We were all from the same prefecture, Ehime-ken, and they have this -- I don't know if it's true in all of Japan or just where they were from, but my mom was the youngest of all the women there, there are things that happened that if anything bad happened, she was always blamed for it. It was her responsibility to go around apologizing to everybody for things that happened. So I remembered this one incident. Shall I tell the one about Shoji? Okay, my brother, the one that was born in camp, okay, he was always a risk-taker from when he was really little. Oh, he was one of the first ones. I didn't say this... I'm backtracking a little bit and it has nothing to do with the story I'm going to tell you, but he was the first one to ever be in a hospital, because he had to have, what do you call it? I don't know if it was tonsils or something he had to have taken out and he couldn't speak well. And he also, getting out of camp, he had eczema so badly that my mom had to tie up his hands and on the crib, so he wouldn't be all bloody when he woke up. I just felt so bad, I remember that, seeing his hands all bloody from scratching himself. So he had a really rough life, my brother, Shoji. Anyway, what was I talking about?

CC: We were at...

MM: The main topic.

CC: Her getting blamed for...

MM: Yeah. So anyway, so I think he must have been about five years old, something like that, and he had this idea of going to visit my mom and dad at work at the laundry, and that's in pioneer square, but he knew the way. So he and a neighbor boy, Toshi, who was like a year younger, he was one of the Moriguchi boys who owns Uwajimaya, and they were part of the Japanese enclave there. And he and Toshi, he talked Toshi into going down to go visit Mom and Dad. So they started -- he knew where he was going, but Toshi of course didn't know. I mean, he was scared, he was a year younger, but anyway, they started and they started and they started going down Yesler Hill, that big overpass that goes down to First Avenue, down Second Avenue there. And they got that far, and Toshi started crying. So the police stopped them and Shoji swore to his dying last days that he could have made it had Toshi not started crying. But the police stopped and got them, and by that time, the whole neighborhood knew that they were missing. Okay, so anyway, they ended up at the police station, and so we all found out, I mean, they called the police and said, "Yeah, these two boys are missing." And they were at the police station having ice cream and apples and candy or whatever, and we were all listening and thinking, "Wow, we would like to be there." But anyway, so my mom got in trouble for this. My aunt was the one who was supposed to be watching them, everybody, but it was my mom who got in trouble because he instigated this. He was five or maybe... he was only five, good grief. And so she had to go and apologize to every single person, adult in our little enclave there, and that's just one incident.

And every time there was a problem, she was the one who had to apologize to everybody. Because we lived, my cousins lived downstairs, we lived upstairs at this duplex, and my uncle sometimes lived with us and they would get... this is the part that maybe should be left out until everybody has died. But my aunt, who was supposed to be taking care of us, anyway, they would get really mad because they could hear us walking. And my uncle was very big. I mean, he was fairly big for a Japanese man. Okay, and so they blamed him and blamed my mother for not telling him to be more quiet when he walked. And I remember she was really stressed out because I remember her crying out on the porch. I mean, I remember sitting next to her not knowing why she was crying. So anyway, I just remember that as being... anyway. I used to wet my bed, and I didn't realize until I moved, until we moved out of there that it was, that situation was so stressful. Because I stopped wetting my bed once we moved, and my mother was fine. So I think that the whole thing affected her mentally, I mean, she was so... she told my dad she was going to move no matter what. She said she would take me and he could have my two brothers because she would be able to find a place to live if it was just me, probably. But anyway, so she decided for her mental health, she needed to move out, she was getting really stressed out. So she told my dad she wanted to get out, and she said to my dad that he could come or not. Thank god he was going to go, because I was really worried that he wasn't going to come with us. I just remember feeling really terrible that we wouldn't be a family. So that was the worst thing. But anyway, after that, I was fine once we moved.

VY: Do you have any sense of why your mom was in that position? Like why she was blamed for everything?

MM: Yeah, because she was the youngest. I think that was the only reason, is that she could be blamed because she was the youngest. I mean, I can't imagine any other reason. I would wrack my brain, why would they blame her? She was working hard, she was at work all the time. And it was up to her to apologize all the time. It's not fair, because the person that should have been watching, like my brother, didn't get blamed at all. I mean, they didn't understand that this is what little kids do, and I'm sure my aunt, she had a lot of kids to watch, so I don't blame her totally a hundred percent. I mean, she was under stress, too, and I think the problem with this incarceration of all the Japanese, it was hard on everybody. And so, I mean, later, they got along fine, my aunt and my mom and everybody, they got along. But it was so stressful for everybody just living under those conditions, and who knows what they experienced on the outside, I only knew what I experienced.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.