<Begin Segment 13>

TL: Could you tell me more about your decisions to repatriate, and what happened after that?

YN: My husband wanted to go back to Japan solely for the purpose of finding his widowed mother. He did not know where she was. Although he was... angry at his mother, he still felt it was his duty to go back and take care of her. And that's the reason why we decided to go back. First, of course, he renounced his citizenship here, was a "no-no," then he signed up for repatriation. Then after I got married to him, I put my name in there. After Kenichi was born, his name was also put in.

When war ended and Japan was defeated, I talked to my husband and I said, "If you still want to go back to Japan, I'll go with you," but I said, "Please consider Kenichi. He's only one years old." I said, "First thing, you don't know where your mother is. You're not the chonan" -- the oldest son -- "so you don't have any land to go back to." I says, "Japan is defeated. There is not enough food. I don't think any of your relatives will welcome you back. And we do need a doctor for him." I says, "Please consider all that." And it took him several days and he finally said, "Yaeko, you're right." He says, "We will not go back to Japan." And so we applied to rescind our application, and we were granted permission to stay here. (Narr. note: In Japan it was taken for granted that the chonan, the eldest son, would live with and take care of his parents. He, in turn, inherits the business, money, land, etc. and carries on the family name and tradition.)

On the other hand, my sister and her husband, and their daughter, they went back. My husband's sister and her family went back. Both of 'em were just really quite upset with me. They called me a traitor, they called me every kind of name you can imagine; and they called George the same thing. But we decided to stay here. And I think you're kind of happy that we did. [Looks at sons] In most cases the decisions that he made at crucial times -- other times, my husband was quite stubborn, and what he said went. But on the crucial times like this, after I talked to him, he did change his mind. And the crucial times were about not going back to Japan, when we were in Nebraska, to come back to --

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.