<Begin Segment 3>

FK: So your parents sent you, the three older kids to Japan, then?

ZS: Uh-huh. We went there about a year and a half or two years and came back just before the war started.

FK: So who did you live with in Japan?

ZS: I guess it was a... we stayed in this, kind of a group school. Like that... there was a large group actually from all over Seattle and Auburn and it was quite a large group, anyway. And we stayed at... later on, after that school broke up, we moved to my father's brother's place in Aichi-ken, and we stayed there until we came back just before the war started.

FK: So, did your, did your parents go back and forth to Japan quite a bit?

ZS: Not too much. I think he went there once, maybe. As far as I know, he didn't go back and forth very much.

FK: So, when you got to Japan, did you already know how to speak Japanese pretty well? So was it simple...

ZS: No, not really. Of course, I went to Japanese school when I was in Seattle, for a short while. I had to learn how to write, read and write, in Japan.

FK: What were your feelings about being in a foreign place where you probably looked the same, but things were a little bit different. What was it like?

ZS: Oh, I don't know. I seemed to have gotten along somehow. It's, everything's new to me at that time.

FK: So, what year did you come back into the United States?

ZS: It was '41, I guess, just before the war started. I think we came back on the last ship. They must have knew, known that something's happened so they sent me back just before war started. That was, I think it was around October, came back, of '41.

FK: That was just, really before Pearl Harbor.

ZS: Uh-huh.

FK: Was there any difficulties as far as getting back into the country?

ZS: Not really. I was, I remember I went to Bainbridge High School. I was, I think a... I don't think I was a senior yet at that time. And, I don't know, I don't recall any problem.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.