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SY: Okay, today is November 29, 2011. We're at the Centenary United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, and we're talking today to Nancy Gohata. My name is Sharon Yamato, and Ann Kaneko is the videographer. So Nancy, let's start first with, if you could tell us your full name?

NG: Nancy Yaeko Gohata.

SY: Yaeko is your middle name.

NG: Yes.

SY: And your maiden name?

NG: Nakata. Nancy Nakata.

SY: Nakata is your, is your maiden name.

NG: Right.

SY: And, and where exactly were you born, and when?

NG: October 16, 1940, in Compton, California.

SY: California. Okay. I usually like going back to start with, so can we go way back and can you tell us what you know about your ancestors, going back as far as you know?

NG: Okay, well, I pretty much grew up with my grandparents, so I know them very, very well. And they were born in Japan and they -- in Yamaguchi prefecture is what I understand -- and my, I don't know, technically my mom, my grandmother probably is not Japanese. I mean, she, they had that period where Japanese workers, they had their contract laborers and they went to the sugar cane fields in Hawaii, so they were ready, her parents were ready to come back, my great-grandparents, but just before they were gonna come back she was born so she was really born in Hawaii. But anyway, so she, they went back, so she was raised in Japan, and then at the age of twenty she came to the United States to marry my grandfather. They were cousins, first cousins.

SY: Really?

NG: Yeah, that's why, my daughter says, that's why we're so dysfunctional. [Laughs]

SY: So now, if your, so your grandfather and grandmother -- oh, can you tell me what their full names were?

NG: So Matsutaro was my grandfather, and Kofu was my grandmother. And my grandfather had already immigrated to the United States, I think when he was like eighteen or sixteen or, so he was already here.

SY: He was here, but when did, how did they meet?

NG: So they, they were cousins so they knew each other. I mean, the families knew each other, so when they -- you know how, it's not, sort of like a "picture bride", not quite 'cause they really did, they were family -- so when she turned twenty, then they knew, he was ready to have a family so then she went to meet him.

SY: She went back to Japan.

NG: No, she was in Japan, right?

SY: Oh, okay. So they, I'm sorry, so they got married in Japan?

NG: No, no, no. 'Cause he's here in the United States, so then when she turned twenty then she went to the United States to marry him.

SY: To marry him, okay.

NG: Yeah.

SY: So sight unseen kind of, though. They're cousins.

NG: Right, but they knew each other, so it's not like they were, it's not like the, here's a picture, you know? They were family.

SY: I see. And they, do you know what their families did in Japan?

NG: Yeah, they're all, all I, they were farmers. They were, they worked the land. And all I know is my, when I asked my grandmother once how, how could she come to a land that she doesn't even know the language, doesn't have work, and she said they were just so poor that it was not an issue.

SY: Really?

NG: Yeah.

SY: That's interesting, because you don't often hear what people, their real reasons. They generally don't say it that, that clearly. [Laughs] So your grandfather, you assume he was probably in the same situation when he came.

NG: Yeah, when he came, probably. Right, yeah.

SY: 'Cause you never really asked him.

NG: No.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.