<Begin Segment 5>

LH: So for yourself, then you felt that you were more obedient as a child?

MS: Yeah, I think it was because I was so young that you kind of stayed with younger kids who were a little, at least the friends, neighbors, even if your own parents, there was like they watched for you. And then you were young enough so they can tell you what to do and then you kind of obeyed them.

LH: Is that part of the culture?

MS: Yeah, I remember always having other older women, obachan, not 'obaachan' but (obasan), just older women that could tell us what to do and we would snap to it because you just did it. [Laughs] I found that it's funny because even when I was adult and married and had my own kids, when I ran into them I felt like a little kid again because they reminded me of the times when they were... if my mother wasn't there, they could tell me what to do and I would have to do it, which was fine. You know, it was like, kind of like what Hillary Clinton is talking about now. "It takes a village to raise a child," and that's so true. If we had more of the caring adults all over that kids would respond to, and then I think that would help. So I think that helped us.

LH: It was the situation that existed at the time and maybe doesn't exist currently?

MS: Uh-uh, uh-uh.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.