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HM: Okay. What we want to know now is what changes were there with the Filipino community and the Japanese community, the interaction during the war and then what happened after the Japanese came back?

DA: Oh that, I don't know anything about. I don't know anything about, because as I told you, Tom was, you know, he just kept us back. It's coming out now with this one, you know. She's bringing up everything, waking up everything, her and the other girls. But I don't know anything about what you're asking me now.

HM: Okay, so your family was more or less set apart or set yourselves apart from many of the other Filipino families, and you didn't do the same route.

DA: The only time we get together is if we have something here. It's the only time I come. Yeah.

Off camera: What about, how did life change for your family during the war? From the time, from 1942 until when the Japanese Americans came back.

DA: During the war?

HM: Did, did your, did your own life change during the war? Right after you got married, did that change after the war?

DA: Well, I don't know. You see, the, when I came down here, the only thing I got out of my grandmother was what she told me, and she just talked about your people. We talked about the Filipinos, but not very much. So I know nothing before, I know a little after. That's all. I had one brother, one brother that came down here when I had my two little children, this one and the other one, and he fell in love with them. Well, when Tom went in the army, my brother went home. He tried to get in the army there and they said, "No, we can't take you. You got a heart murmur." So he came down here. He volunteered for the American army, he passed, they took him in. It was six months later, he was sent overseas to Europe. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and he was killed. So they kept him in a cemetery in Holland and few years later, they brought him back, with an escort, all the way back to the Indian reserve. But they don't... and then I had one brother that went in the war that used to come down here... in the Canadian army. That's the only thing I know about the war, was they took one brother and brought the other one home. And Tom, Tom, they brought him home.

HM: Okay. Your children changed... right now you just mentioned something about your, your girls talking about things have happened that you were not aware of. Could you share some of that with us?

DA: That I wasn't aware of?

HM: Uh-huh. Your children are talking about it now.

DA: No, I don't think so. I know I've lost family. All my family... I'm the matriarch of both sides of the family now. I'm the oldest. I have... I have lost three brothers, they left children. One of my brothers had fifteen children. He was... and that one that lived with me. I have one sister, she's widowed now. But I go back to that reserve, I don't know anyone, they're all gone. All those children I told you I played with and stuff, they're all gone. I don't even recognize a lot of my brother's and sister's children. And their grandchildren, I don't know them. I'm just a total stranger now. But when I go up there, these little ones come and say hello to me. I don't know who they are, because we didn't spend much time with them. I have one unmarried daughter, the one that I live with. She's not, she has never been married. But my gosh, she has a lot.

HM: I think that covered quite a bit, thank you.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.