<Begin Segment 5>

DG: Let's talk specifically then about your father and the situation that he was in that induced him to come to the United States.

GF: Well I tell you, my father was a, he was, as far as I know of, he's a person that loved to sing and dance. That was his... and my grandfather did not like that too much. And my mother didn't like it either; and that's... so he says, "I'm gonna get, go to America." And I heard that they had a certain, they have to have a certain amount of background money, that he can come to America. 'Cause they don't want you go to America and go there broke. They had to send 'em back, I guess. But, anyway, he came to America; and then my father, my grandfather --

DG: And so you think he came about, when?

GF: 1915, 1916.

DG: Something occurs to me. New immigrants could not come after 1907, so he had to have come once before that.

GF: Oh, before that, yeah, that's right. But I just took the age.

DG: That's right.

GF: See, so that's the reason why. No, he must have came a long time ago.

DG: I think he did.

GF: Yeah, he did. And after he came here, my grandfather wanted him to come back to Japan to take over his business, but my dad had no desire of that. So some way other, I don't know how he met my mother, or what happened. So long time ago -- just marriage by picture or something like that, shashin kekkon they used to call it. And so Grandfather says, "Well, you're coming into our family." And so my mother went to the family. And when after, she waited for many years for him to call her, because he has to call her to come and --

DG: Not literally call, telephone, but write.

GF: Write, right. And so he couldn't, he wouldn't do anything. He had no desire getting married, probably. And finally my mother says, "Oh, I'm gonna go back to my" -- 'cause she was never touched by her husband. So she says, "I'm going to go back to home," because other people want to get married to her. And he says, "No, I don't want you to do that. Unless... if you don't go to America, go to America and meet my son, he will never come back to Japan." Because my mother was pretty strict and she had desire to come back to Japan, which maybe my father had no desire. He was pretty talented. He used to play the shamisen and all these things and he used to teach -- I know when I was there, he used to teach these girls around our neighborhood. Japanese girls around the neighborhood come to the home and he'd teach 'em how to do Japanese dance, and I thought, "My dad is crazy," I said, "doing all this stuff," but that's what Mother said, "That's how he is." He must have learned quite a bit of this in Japan before he came here to the United States.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.