<Begin Segment 30>

LH: So you chose a teaching career, went to college to study up for that. And then when did you get married?

MS: I got married as soon as I... a year after I graduated. No, excuse me. I graduated and taught another year, and then I started my family. So therefore I only taught a year after graduating from college. But my parents were satisfied because now I had gotten my degree, I was a teacher, and that's what they wanted. I met and married my current husband because he was in the other -- there's two organizations on campus. One was for the Asian Americans and the other one for the Asian American men and Asian American women. We were out at both and we used to have get-togethers, and that's where I met him. We married and I taught only a year after that and then we started our family. And I had four kids. I had three girls and a boy.

LH: You mentioned earlier about making sure that they all had American names.

MS: That's right.

LH: And at this point, so you've gone through a college education. You've become more sophisticated in your thoughts about the world. But still you chose to name them American names rather than Japanese names?

MS: And that shows how really deep-seated that feeling was about my identity as a Japanese American rather than an American only. And I didn't realize how much I was resisting that Japanese part of me until after, much after. I just knew that I didn't want Japanese names for them. I didn't think it was necessary. I never used my Japanese name.

LH: You said an interesting thing, that it would hurt them. How would it hurt them?

MS: Well, I felt it hurt being a Japanese myself because as we grow up I remembered the taunts and especially after the war those were related to being Japanese. I had some Chinese friends who wore buttons that said, "I am Chinese" because they wanted to make sure that they were not mistaken for Japanese. Now of course, then I thought being Japanese was something really bad 'cause I had friends who also decided that they wanted to make sure that they weren't mistaken. And when I was... I did remember hearing offhand comments from adults in the greater society and I could hear the word "Japs" being said. So I knew that that was... there was something wrong with being Japanese.

LH: So it was a conscious emphasis to be American.

MS: That's right.

LH: American as possible.

MS: That's right.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.