<Begin Segment 2>

LH: So what kind of work was he doing up there?

MN: They were shingling. Apparently they go way up and my cousin later told me they go way up in the hills, and they do this terribly hard work of taking bark off a tree or something. They carried this thing all the way down, too. Apparently it was back breaking work and that's what this crew of Japanese men were doing, young men were doing, when they got there. Apparently they didn't last long... so, and then my father smuggled into the United States where he always wanted to be. Well, his father already was here.

LH: Oh. And so is that why he ended up in Seattle?

MN: Yeah. His father, see, was a youshi so by the time he ran the family business into the ground, he came to United States to make enough money to come back big, and then they lost track of him. So they couldn't send the oldest son. He was part of the carry-on-the-family-name. So they were just supposed to send my father, but my father was such a flake. They sent the third son over 'cause he was the more reliable one, and then he started a business and was getting established here so they kind of sent my father down to help him out and look for my grandfather, and they finally found him, apparently. And then... so he came down and met his brother and his father. My mom was actually born in Hawaii.

LH: So does that make, that makes you a Sansei?

MN: No, because I don't know if there is any records of her being born in Hawaii. There was a volcano or something and all the records were -- essentially though by culturally and everything else, she is Issei because when she was four, she went back to Japan so she has hardly any recollection. She does remember mangos and papayas. She remembers chewing a sugar cane and she remembers beaches with nobody on them, Waikiki. She remembers running around Waikiki Beach, but the family... there was a family... right on Waikiki, apparently, my grandfather had this dairy farm and hoof and mouth kind of got, I think wiped out the herd so Grandpa comes to mainland and sends his wife and the two kids back to Japan, and Mom stays there the whole time until she graduates high school. I don't know if it was high school or middle school she graduates then they finally bring her over. So culturally she is completely Japanese. So she's Issei in every other way except that she happened to be born in Hawaii.

LH: Does that mean that you grew up in a Japanese speaking household?

MN: Oh, yeah. Definitely. She spoke no English, but what's amazing is that Grandma was brought over to America before Mom was, so Mom was left in Japan to be kind of mistreated by relatives. Sounds like she had a kind of tough childhood, but meanwhile my grandpa and grandma have another child, my Uncle Shig.

LH: Over here in the United States?

MN: Yeah. Now, my uncle Shig is completely Nisei. In fact, when Grandpa died, he didn't even know how to oshouko. You know, what do I do with this? He's looking around. He does not know how to oshouko.

LH: Oshouko being the... can you explain that?

MN: The Buddhist offering of the incense and everyone's doing this, and he didn't know what to do with this little oshouko. He was 442. He was paraplegic. He was shot up in Italy, but so he's completely Nisei. So I guess it's kind of unusual in Japanese families to have two siblings, one completely Issei and one completely Nisei.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.