<Begin Segment 1>

MN: May 5, 2012, we are at the residence of the Kageyama family in Lomita, California. We're going to be interviewing Akira Frank Kageyama, we have Tani Ikeda on video, we have sitting in Dr. Glenn Kageyama and Akira's wife, Mrs. Keiko Kageyama. Okay. Frank, or Akira I guess, I don't know which you prefer, but Akira...

AK: It doesn't matter.

MN: Let's start with your father's name.

AK: Tomitaro.

MN: What is his last name? It wasn't Kageyama, right?

AK: No, that was my mother's last... Moritoki. That was his name, Moritoki.

MN: Which prefecture did your father come from?

AK: Okayama, I think.

MN: And let me ask you about your mother's name. What is, what was her name?

AK: Machi, Machi... hey, what was her family name?

GK: Kageyama.

AK: Family name Kageyama, that's why she kept...

MN: And which prefecture did your mother come from?

KK: Chiba.

AK: Chiba, I think. Near Tokyo.

MN: Do you know how your parents met?

AK: I guess they met over here. That was a long time ago.

MN: Were they working, let's see, they were both working in Little Tokyo?

AK: Uh-huh. My mother was a barber, and my father had a hotel, and he lost all of it to some (swindler) that, a lot of Japanese lost a lot of things.

MN: So your father was doing very well. Do you know how many hotels he had owned?

AK: No, three is the one, is all I know. I was just a kid so I never asked anything.

MN: How did he lose his money?

AK: [Looks off camera] Gee, you don't remember? He owned a lot of, like two or three hotels, and somebody needed money and they talked him into investing it in some kind of oil, and he lost all of it. That's it.

MN: Now, I want to ask about the children in the family. Your parents, how many children did they have in total?

AK: I never asked.

MN: No, the children your parents, your mother and your father, how many children did they have? They had you.

AK: There were five of us.

KK: It was you, Fumi --

AK: My mother, let's see, and my father, my side...

MN: You, and then Fumi...

KK: Mae.

AK: Mae...

MN: Then Mary, right?

AK: And Mary.

MN: And then Tilly?

AK: Tilly, yeah.

KK: Tilly, and Susumu.

AK: Hmm?

KK: Susumu, Bill.

AK: Yeah. Bill, yeah. Susumu. That makes six?

MN: Five. Or six, yes, six with Susumu. And then where are you? Are you the oldest?

AK: I'm the oldest.

MN: And what year were you born?

AK: I think it was 1916. [To wife] You remember?

KK: 1916.

AK: '16.

MN: And where were you born?

AK: In Los Angeles.

MN: And when you were born, what was your birth name?

AK: You mean the last name?

MN: Your first name, last name. You were not Frank, right?

AK: No, it was Akira, Akira, I think Akira Moritoki, my father.

MN: And why did you change to your mother's last name, Kageyama?

AK: Well, my father died when I was about fourteen or fifteen and she remarried Mr. Fukawa, and I didn't want to change my name from Moritoki to Fukawa, so I just took my mother's family name. That's why, that's how I stuck to it. Too much explaining why. [Laughs]

[Interruption]

AK: Let's see, I think was born a Watanabe. My mother married a Watanabe.

MN: No, she married Fukawa.

AK: Later.

MN: Yeah.

AK: Later she married, the first one was Moritoki. She met him over here.

MN: Yeah, and then you took on the name Frank later on. When did you get the name Frank?

AK: When I started to go to school, I had, and they always asked me what my first name is and I keep, "Akira, Akira." And a lot of these Caucasians, they can't remember. [Laughs] So I said, "Well, I might as well call myself Frank." That's how.

MN: Where did you pick that name from?

AK: Somebody on the TV, I think. I can't remember. [Laughs]

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.