<Begin Segment 53>

DG: What about assimilating or... well, you know. What is your feeling?

GF: Getting into Japanese like that, you mean.

DG: Right. Intermarrying.

GF: Intermarrying? Well, it's going to happen. I don't care what you say. Look at Hawaii. While I was working in Hawaii, a lady comes in -- I mean, somebody, "My name is Mrs. Inouye." Sure. Fine. I figure a Japanese comes. Here comes a blonde. This kind of thing happens in Hawaii and the Chinese and Hawaiian because even in United States, it's happening. How many Nisei kids or Sansei kids married hakujin? You find this. There's no getting away with it, but myself I, like to see them marry a Japanese myself because we're Japanese. But I wouldn't say that's the best marriage because some Japanese people are not as good as even hakujin people, but I think it's good that you can get along together. That's the main thing.

DG: But that doesn't have to prevent us from maintaining a certain amount --

GF: That's right, Japanese culture because even a lot of these hakujin people that are married to Japanese -- just for instance, they use chopsticks. [Laughs] Besides that, I mean other things that... some of these hakujin people, they like Japanese things. [Interruption] Now, my kid in Washington, D.C., he might get married to hakujin. I don't know, but I would have no resentment against it. If they can get along, what's wrong? [Interruption] But myself, I'm a little bit more open-minded. I tell her, I says, "What the heck. If two people can get together and get along, it's your life." And if you can't get along... that's the reason why I hate to see all these divorces. They go to church and say for better or worse, you get married until you die. That doesn't happen. If they have a little fight, they says, "Well, heck with you." [Laughs] It's awful. I mean, it happens to a lot of people. Just like my son, same way, to a Japanese, but can't get along. Divorce is a dirty, dirty thing. I tell you, it's too much complication in that. I hate to see it happen, but never can tell.

DG: Do you think that maintaining part of our Japanese heritage prevents some of these kinds of things?

GF: I think it would be. They call it giri, something like that. I don't know what it is, but I think it would because you never hear of a Issei person divorced. There is, probably, but I know one and so forth, but you don't hear it. Nowadays, it's just a dime a dozen. I feel sorry for the kids. They got, they have a mother, but no father, and the kid has no mother. It's awful. What's going to happen to these kids?

DG: They're losing their family structure.

GF: Family structure, that's right. That's important, to have family structure. That's what Japan's built herself on -- family structure. It's important. If a family falls apart, the whole nation falls apart.

<End Segment 53> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.