<Begin Segment 1>

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.

<Begin Segment 2>

SY: And they, these grandparents were on your mother's --

NG: My mom's side, yeah. Because my dad, first I thought that he, his mother died in childbirth, but it was when he was two years old his mom died and then at ten, that's when his dad died, so he just did not have family. I mean, he had, I think, like, I don't know if they were like first... in the story they call him Uncle, but I don't know if it was really his uncle that he stayed with when, after his dad died.

SY: When he was a baby.

NG: Yeah. Well, when his mom died he would, his dad would go to work and then they had, like, these hotels or something where he would leave them there, Japanese run places, and they would babysit, take care of him I guess. And then when he got old enough, then the father took him to work with him.

SY: I see, and this was in Los Angeles?

NG: Yeah, I think he said Lodi. I'm not quite sure.

SY: So you're really closest to your Mom's, Mom's family.

NG: Yeah.

SY: So I guess we should stick with them for a while, and maybe you can tell me a little bit more about what, do you... can you go over again, now, your grandfather came directly to Los Angeles from Japan?

NG: Yes.

SY: And what was he doing when he came here? Do you know?

NG: Yeah, I think they're all like truck farmers.

SY: Truck farmers. So he came, you think, by himself?

NG: Well no, my, I'll refer to my daughter's story. They had, like, partnerships. There was another family name here that kind of, they couldn't own land, but they could lease it. 'Course, they, during the years they lose that, but at the beginning they're able to lease land, and together with another farmer they grew crops and made a good living, I guess.

SY: And this was where when he first came?

NG: Yeah, so they, it looks to me like they were in... [Looks at notes]

SY: This is, I'm going to mention that this a paper that your daughter did when she was in college.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And her professor was Yuji Ichioka.

NG: Right, right.

SY: And so she did a family, it's basically a paper about your family background.

NG: Yes. Well, they say here Moneto? No, Moneta. Do you know Moneta? California?

SY: It's a town in California?

NG: Yeah.

SY: Sounds like it might be in the valley, one of the farm valleys maybe. I'm not sure.

NG: Yeah, they were truck farmers growing vegetables it says.

SY: Okay. So he, was she able to interview your grandfather to get this information?

NG: No. He was gone.

SY: He was gone.

NG: Yeah.

SY: But she managed to find out more about what they did. And when your grandmother came, then I assume she just...

NG: Worked with him.

SY: And do you know if they had siblings, how many siblings they had in Japan?

NG: I don't know about my grandfather, but my grandmother did. She's the only one that came to the United States. I know she has sisters; I don't know about brothers. But she definitely, she had one sister in Brazil, because I remember -- and they were very poor. My grandmother used to send money to that sister. And I remember seeing, maybe it was, her daughter maybe that got married, so here's this picture, she's in a white dress and they're out, like, in the farm. I mean, outside on a farm, country, this wedding picture. And then she had a sister, I know, in Japan. So she, they, she did make trips back to see them.

SY: Do you remember the date -- you said she was twenty when she came to the United States, do you remember --

NG: Yeah, nineteen, was that, 1912.

SY: 1912. That's really, and then your, so, and your grandfather must've come...

NG: Yeah, early, came earlier. I don't have the date here. Oh, 1907. Yeah, 1907, 'cause he first began working for the railroad, it says. He had been recruited -- I guess he was in Hawaii still.

SY: So he stopped over in Hawaii before he came to this, to the coast.

NG: Yeah, he must've been of -- well, she, they had those contract laborers, so he was probably there for that.

SY: And then she came to Hawaii before that.

NG: She was just born in Hawaii.

SY: Right. That's right, so their parents were there before that.

NG: Yeah.

SY: But then they went back to Japan.

NG: Right.

SY: I see. So she doesn't have any recollection of Hawaii.

NG: No. No.

SY: She was a baby when they went back to Japan.

NG: Right.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

SY: And so your grandfather, then, came and worked as a truck farmer.

NG: Well it said, I think she also kind of, she was, I could picture this, where they would have these farms and laborers, and she worked as a cook. She said they're both contract farmers, but at the one point I thought they said she worked as a cook.

SY: Was she, that was, was she a talented cook, as you remember?

NG: I don't remember.

SY: But I think most of the women probably, probably helped out in some way like that.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And they, did they settle there for a period of time, do you know?

NG: Yeah, it said that she, they were still there when their first son was born, so they must've been... yeah, it said they leased their own land. And he did not, he didn't, it was, he did not participate in a partnership with that other Issei farmer, but maybe he was his sponsor. No, they don't name... oh no, no, that's right, 'cause her daughter was born first. Yeah, she worked as a cook.

SY: Her daughter was the, the...

NG: The first child was a daughter, and she was born in 1913.

SY: And how many children did they have altogether?

NG: So altogether they had seven.

SY: Seven. And so --

NG: One died when he was ten.

SY: So there were only six left.

NG: Yes.

SY: And can you tell me who, can you go over all, each one of those people?

NG: Right. So the eldest one was a daughter, Hatsuno, and then came my, the eldest son was Shigeo, and the one that died... I'll have to find that later.

SY: That's okay.

NG: [Laughs] And then my mom, Tomiko.

SY: Tomiko.

NG: And then Seiji, but they called him Bo, my uncle Bo. And then my uncle Joe, he's the only one with an English name because, Joseph, because he was born in Saint Joseph's Hospital. And then my youngest, the youngest auntie is Yoshiko.

SY: Very interesting. And they, and all of their last name -- I don't know if you told us your grandparents' last --

NG: Hamamoto.

SY: Hamamoto, so they all had the name Hamamoto 'til they got married, even the women.

NG: Right, right.

SY: And your --

NG: And my grandfather was Hamamoto, they were both Hamamotos 'cause they're cousins.

SY: Right. [Laughs] So they both --

NG: On that side.

SY: Right.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

SY: Now, do you know where your mom was born? Was she born...

NG: No, I don't know where she was born. Here, I don't know. Definitely in the U.S., but I don't know where. They all were born in the U.S.

SY: Right.

NG: She didn't write that about my mom.

SY: She didn't find out when, where all the children were born. When your grandparents, at some point they had to move, right?

NG: Yeah, Masaichi was the one who died at fourteen.

SY: Do you know anything about how, how he died?

NG: No, they don't. They don't really know. Maybe he had leukemia. That was one, one... undiagnosed leukemia, that was one conjecture, but they don't really know.

SY: That must have been hard on your grandmother. Did she talk about that?

NG: Yes. In fact, she wrote about that. She went back to Japan. Evidently she had, like, a nervous breakdown. She took -- it was not a very long, I mean, she, with help she recovered, but she took my mom and Joe and Yoshiko to Japan right after her son died, and then she, I guess, had a nervous breakdown and then went to stay at a, had got treatment and then she came back. I don't know how long a period that was. [Looks at notes] Oh, a month of treatment.

SY: Yeah, it must've been hard. And your father, then, stayed here with the rest of the kids? I mean, grandfather.

NG: Yeah. Right.

SY: Your grandfather stayed here with the rest of the kids.

NG: Yeah, and it's funny because my, the eldest son, Shigeo, always had this tense relationship with his parents. I guess it happened later on, but it probably was from the beginning, but my mom always felt that he maybe felt abandoned because she only took my mom and the other two kids.

SY: The younger ones, probably.

NG: Yeah, and didn't take him. Well, then there was Hatsuno too. She didn't go, but some... who knows where it started.

SY: Right. So he was, if the one who died was fourteen he was probably still in his elder...

NG: He was like sixteen, probably, 'cause they're a couple years apart, all of them.

SY: But she wasn't away too long, and I imagine she went back to live with her parents, huh? When she went back to Japan?

NG: Yes. Yes. In fact, she was going to leave them -- or no, she did leave them, I think. I think she left them there -- and to come back, because it was hard. She thought that, but then they didn't stay. The grandmother, or her mother, called her back. Her mother said they cannot stay here. It, they were so poor that they'll be better off, so they came back real quickly.

SY: Wow.

NG: Yeah, but I guess she wanted, a lot of families did that, where they kept their kids, sent them back to Japan. I guess maybe that was her intention too, but...

SY: Is your, and one of them was your mom. She was...

NG: Right. But it must've been a very short time 'cause she doesn't...

SY: She doesn't remember that.

NG: No.

SY: She didn't talk about that.

NG: No.

SY: So when they, at some point, ended up leaving Moneta...

NG: Yeah, in California. I don't know how long they were there.

SY: You're not quite sure.

NG: No. They went to, okay, in the '30s they went to, moved to El Segundo.

SY: Okay, so that's when they came, basically, to southern California.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And you were born.

NG: Well actually, the only reason I was born in Compton was -- my mom and dad, after they got married they moved up north to Bouldin Island. Remember I was talking about, he was, he was on his own for so long and he knew that area up in northern California? But then when the war broke out and they started to, with the internment, then my aunt and my mom moved back to southern California to be near my, to be near my grandparents so that if they were going to be put into camp they would all go together.

SY: I see.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

SY: So let's back up just a little because your mom, then, probably went to school in southern California?

NG: El Segundo probably, yeah, in that area.

SY: So they moved at a time where she had already been, obviously was probably born in that farm area --

NG: Yes.

SY: -- and then came down here. And then do you know where she went to school?

NG: Well, they have reunions. They, it's like Hawthorne, so it must be that kind, isn't it kind of close, El Segundo, Hawthorne?

SY: South Bay, kind of.

NG: So when they have reunions, yeah, it seems like it's Hawthorne is what I hear.

SY: And so she, and then how did she meet your dad?

NG: Okay, so I find out from the paper that my dad came out here when he was eighteen and met my grandfather, and my grandfather helped him find work so he knew him way before. My mom was only eleven years old when they first met, so it wasn't like, you know. And so my grandfather knew him, and that's probably why he liked, he wanted him for his son-in-law, because then years later, when my dad was back down here, they -- you know how they have those in between, those go-between people? So went to my dad and said -- he was like twenty-seven, I guess, twenty-six, twenty-six, twenty-seven -- "You know, it's time you got married. Are you ready to get married?" And he said yes, so then he, this person took him to my grandfather, and then they got married, like, very shortly. I think they got engaged that week and got married in a few months. [Laughs]

SY: Wow. So almost an arranged marriage.

NG: Yeah.

SY: Because he knew your grandfather more than...

NG: Right, yeah. And I told you my grandfather, my mom was going to marry this man who had a farm and he, but he was eldest son and the story goes that my grandfather knew what a hard life my mom would have being the wife of the eldest son, having to take care of the parents, so he really liked my dad being an orphan. [Laughs]

SY: Well, I know, that is so fascinating, 'cause your dad really had to raise himself, pretty much.

NG: He did, yeah.

SY: And he, when he was, and his mom dying so young made it, must've made it very hard on him.

NG: So his, my mom's family are really the only mother and father he...

SY: He became close to your mom's family as a result.

NG: Right.

SY: And did he talk about his own parents?

NG: He didn't.

SY: Or the experiences he had when he was --

NG: No. I wish we had more of those kind of conversations, but we just never did.

SY: So he stayed with an uncle, you think?

NG: Yeah, they said it was an uncle, and then went...

SY: This is after his dad died?

NG: Right, after his dad died. So he goes to live with this family --

SY: And he's the only child?

NG: Right. I think there was, like see, my, his father had another, had... his mom was from Hawaii, but he had another wife in Japan. So he --

SY: His father had...

NG: Two wives.

SY: I see.

NG: Illegally, right? [Laughs]

SY: Oh, so they were simultaneous. [Laughs]

NG: Yeah. So when, so he does have, I think he, I mean, he did have a half-sister that's in Japan from that...

SY: The first wife.

NG: That first wife.

SY: I see. And then, so you never really knew much about his family.

NG: Well, we did because that, like that, I told you his cousin, so that, they knew his family, right, 'cause, his in Japan.

SY: That was his, you met the cousin on your father's side.

NG: Right, right.

SY: I thought he was on your mother's side.

NG: No.

SY: So at one point you met the cousin on your father's side.

NG: Right. So there is some, he did have family.

SY: A little bit of the, a little bit of the, did you find out any of your father's family history from this cousin in Japan?

NG: No. And you know, he was never really there, so he just is not someone who knows either.

SY: But he left a wife in Japan.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And then he came to Hawaii and married -- oh no, and then, no, how did...

NG: I don't know about the father, but I know... yeah, I don't know about the father.

SY: So, and where was it you thought that they lived again, your grandparents on your father's side?

NG: They must, they were definitely from Yamaguchi also.

SY: Right, but then when they came here, and where his mother died, that was...

NG: I think it was Hawaii, but I'm not sure.

SY: Okay.

NG: She didn't say in this other paper.

SY: And his father passed away, they were, you think they were still in Hawaii when this happened?

NG: No, no, they were here. They were here. Okay, 'cause they were, my, his father was, what, Toyozo? Toyozo. His mother was Miyo, and they were in San Benito?

SY: California.

NG: County? It's in northern California. I never heard of it.

SY: No, I haven't either.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

NG: So that's where he, my dad was born, 'cause that's where they were living.

SY: So they lived there for a while. I assume it's, do you know what his father did?

NG: I think, well, he was like a migrant too, 'cause see, they, he says they worked in Morgan Hill and Salinas and Hollister and Watsonville, so he must've followed the crops, the father.

SY: And you don't know how he died, how either of them died?

NG: No. Everything is, like, sudden.

SY: They were both very young.

NG: He was six. No, at six he was traveling all over. That's right.

SY: Your father, this is?

NG: This is what she kept saying, they, since they kept, they kept moving, that he kept repeating the second grade for many years. [Laughs]

SY: Your father. So he never got a real good, well, he might've gotten a better education. [Laughs] Was he, did he, was he an educated, did he go through high school, do you know?

NG: I don't know if he finished. He went to automotive school. That's where he got his mechanic's training, but he never had reunions. Maybe he never finished high school. Could be.

SY: Right. They traveled, especially if they traveled around a lot.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And especially if his dad died when he was...

NG: He was ten.

SY: Ten.

NG: So I don't know, he may not have. Yeah, 'cause it doesn't say.

SY: And so when he, by the time he met your grandfather on your mother's side --

NG: Yeah, it said he did go to primary school but ended in eighth grade.

SY: Ended in eighth grade. So assuming that he moved to Southern California at some time -- to meet your grandfather on your mother's side, right?

NG: Yes.

SY: Then he, by then he was eighteen, you said?

NG: Yeah. First time my grandfather met him he was eighteen.

SY: Eighteen. So he was working? Do you know if he was working?

NG: I, well, I think he was looking for work and I think my grandfather found him a job, and that's, maybe that's where they started, they established their relationship.

SY: And your grandfather was probably working still as a farmer, in the farming?

NG: Yes, all of them, always. And my dad too, at that time.

SY: So they, so then he met your mother and they were married --

NG: Well, many years later, 'cause at twenty-six or twenty-seven he comes back.

SY: He came back.

NG: Or he didn't, he didn't, the person found him -- I mean the go-between -- and then hooked them up together.

SY: Right.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

SY: So did your mom talk about meeting your dad at all?

NG: Yeah, she just, that's... when I -- this is old-fashioned kind of marriage, right? -- when I was dating my husband, Yas, and we would be, as I would tell her, we were just discussing things, but she heard it as arguing and she would say, "You know, this is not gonna last," because she said she never opened her mouth for the first five years, right? [Laughs] She was this dutiful wife. You would, well, we would never know it 'cause by the time we were aware of things, to me, she ruled, she ruled the household. [Laughs]

SY: But she was good for the first five years.

NG: Yeah, she didn't, he made all the decisions and I guess he did. But it wasn't that way once we came along. She did everything.

SY: Yeah, because for your dad not to really have a family of his own, he was probably grateful to be married. And how many children did they have, your mom and dad?

NG: There's three of us. I'm the eldest, and two brothers. Yeah. And then my mom, well, at that time they just, they and my grandparents too, wanted someone who was, who would be a good wage earner, and my dad always, always was.

SY: And your dad only had this eighth grade education, but then he, how did he get from being a farmer? Do you know, remember when that happened?

NG: I don't know, because he must've gone, I'm wondering if it was before they got married. He went into... 'cause he, it says here he was like a driver to the markets. It must've been afterwards that he went to work as a mechanic. Yeah, he was already married. They moved to Compton and he was, he worked as a wholesale market mechanic, so no, it must've been before they got married he went, got some training.

SY: He, you think he went to some sort of...

NG: Yeah, like a vocational school or something.

SY: School to learn how to be a mechanic. And that was what he did his whole life?

NG: Yeah, right.

SY: So when they, when your father married your mother, do you know when that was and how that, what that wedding was like?

NG: Yeah, they got married in Nishi Hongwanji, and she, I know that she --

SY: That Nishi Hongwanji downtown?

NG: Uh-huh, downtown.

SY: Downtown Los Angeles.

NG: And I know that she rented her gown. Let's see now, and what year was that? 1938, they got married.

SY: And they were, where were they living at the time?

NG: They, after they got married they moved to northern California.

SY: Okay, so when they were, but when they were here, you mentioned they lived in a trailer. Was that something?

NG: No, that was my grandparents later on, I told you.

SY: Yeah, okay. I have it confused, then. Your father, so this was when, when he moved here they, they were married... when your father and mother were married then they immediately went to northern --

NG: I think so. I think that's when they went, yeah, they went, moved to -- it doesn't say, she doesn't say when, but I think, I assume that right after they got married they went to Bouldin Island up north where he knew that area, so I think they started making their living there.

SY: And he worked always as a mechanic there too?

NG: I think whatever they could find there, whatever, whatever job that was, maybe driving a truck, or if they needed a mechanic -- his mechanic career, as I know it, was after the war, at the island that I had talked to you earlier.

SY: So if they were married in '38 then they must've only stayed there --

NG: Right, because --

SY: -- very shortly. And they were there when the war broke out?

NG: So they, I guess with all the talk with impending, with the war coming on, that's when they moved back to, and that's where I, why I was born in Compton.

SY: That's, yeah, to be with your family. And so they had some inkling, obviously, before they moved back that this was gonna happen.

NG: Yeah. Well, they just wanted to be close, I think, to my grandparents.

SY: And do you remember what year that was that they moved back?

NG: Well, I was born in '40, so...

SY: Right before that.

NG: Yeah, and I was born in late '40, so probably, maybe earlier that year.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

SY: So you, so your, you and your two siblings, were you all born before the war?

NG: No. So my brother, my second brother after me was born in Manzanar, and the other one was born in Tule Lake.

SY: I see, so they had two children in camp as well. So now, you were way too young to know much about when the war broke out, right, but did you talk to your parents about that?

NG: Yeah, I just, I was telling you, I do remember -- now that I'm reading this too, I can see -- I guess the whole family went altogether and they were, like, as I'm reading here, that they were in three barracks. And I guess, 'cause I remember the sheet, or bedspread, between rooms. I didn't know they were between two family rooms. I thought it was a room. And that took place in Manzanar. I thought it took place in Tule Lake, but my mom said no, that was in Manzanar. So I do remember that. But otherwise, all my recollection is Tule Lake.

SY: And the, when you say the whole family, it was all of your mother's uncles and, I mean sisters and brothers, and grandparents on your mother's side, and then just your father, your father by himself, basically, on your father's side, right?

NG: Right.

SY: And did they, they must have lived in the same area when they moved back to --

NG: They must, well yes, we were, the Hamamoto family?

SY: Uh-huh.

NG: Yeah, they were all living pretty close, so they all went together. They were all...

SY: And do you know if they, did they tell you if they went to assembly, an assembly center first?

NG: I don't think we did.

SY: Went directly to Manzanar.

NG: Yeah, maybe, we were the earlier ones maybe.

SY: But, yeah, you're really not sure 'cause...

NG: No, they never talked about an assembly center, so I don't know. And she never wrote about it in here either, so I think we went straight to camp, or to Manzanar.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

SY: And so you obviously have little recollection of Manzanar other than the sheet. Did your parents talk about going to Manzanar at all?

NG: No, they did not. They're a classic case of not talking about it. Yeah.

SY: So never really heard what --

NG: No, and I remember when we left Tule Lake the first place my mom took me to was a toy store. We didn't have the money to buy anything, but she wanted to show me this toy store and that one day we will buy something. And then when we moved up to Stockton she would say to me, "Don't tell anyone, especially a policeman if there's a policeman around, that you were in Tule Lake." You know, I'm five years old. I'm going, what is, what happened? Why does she not want me to say anything? And then I remember we had this big old trunk and I found her, their ID. It looks like a prisoner ID, right? So I thought, I said, they were in jail? [Laughs] 'Cause they didn't, they didn't say anything.

SY: Wow. So what you do know is that when they left Manzanar they all left together?

NG: Right, because of the "no-no." Okay, so my grandparents signed "no-no" and then my dad did. My aunt -- not the one that was not married -- did "no-yes." My uncle who was not married signed "no-yes." My other uncle --

SY: So "no-yes" would mean that they would serve, they would serve...

NG: They would not serve, but then they would, their allegiance would be to the United States.

SY: I see. So they, okay, so they didn't want to serve. And then, and yeah, I'm sorry, so go ahead.

NG: No, and my, the eldest daughter, who now already had seven kids...

SY: The eldest daughter already had seven kids.

NG: Had seven kids in Manzanar, so they said --

SY: That would be your mom's eldest sister.

NG: Right. So they said no, they're not, they did not want the idea of having to go to Japan, so they answered "yes-yes." So they're the only ones who remained in Manzanar. They stayed the whole time. And my other uncle had left, they had a, he went to Chicago for some kind of work. I guess they had that, where people could leave. So he was in Chicago, and then he couldn't get back to camp. That's why he joined, he did join the 442nd. Remember I didn't know? He did, so he did, yeah, he did volunteer. He went to Shelby, and so he was in the 442nd.

SY: But he, was he sent overseas?

NG: Yeah, and he was in Europe.

SY: He, and he was in the, in a battalion, he actually fought?

NG: Yeah, I don't know if he fought, 'cause he was one of those uncles that, he was one of those uncles that just, he's your favorite 'cause he just knew how to talk and was always good to the kids, but he was, like, not the... I mean, he got into a lot of trouble, but he had this gift of being very personable. So my mom said when he was going overseas this guy said, this friend said to him, "Nothing's gonna happen to him. Don't worry." [Laughs] So he, I mean, he did some naughty things.

SY: He did?

NG: Yeah, and he got in, he was in, they tell me he was in prison for a while. He would, those kind of con, he was a con person and he would con people in their own community.

SY: I see. So somehow --

NG: But he was our favorite. He would just... [Laughs]

SY: He was personable.

NG: Very. That's why his, he had a very, very good friend and he said, "I'll do anything for you. Don't ever ask me for money." But he would, he just, he would even ask his little nephews for money. He was not a proud man. [Laughs]

SY: And your grandparents, did you talk to them about why answered "no-no"?

NG: No, that's the whole thing. They didn't get together. They didn't...

SY: They didn't decide --

NG: They're not political. They're just...

SY: They all, each family decided separately that they were going to answer "no-no."

NG: Yes. They did.

SY: So not, so there was no discussion about going back to Japan? Or was there?

NG: I think that was always a fear, that they may happen. But I think it was more, I think it was an emotional decision, that this is... life was hard for them. There was a lot of discrimination, and I think they just felt like, no, Japan is still my country. In fact, my mom and dad renounced their citizenship.

SY: They did?

NG: Yeah, they did. And that was a worry, but then it was ruled out that it was, like, not, I don't know, unconstitutional. Or that wasn't...

SY: Right. But they still had to get their citizenship back.

NG: Yeah, but evidently it was an easy process.

SY: The paperwork. They were able to file that, no problems.

NG: Right.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

SY: So when, when you got to Tule Lake, then the threat of going back to Japan... but only, your mother and father were the only ones who renounced?

NG: Uh-huh.

SY: They all, the rest of your family stayed and just...

NG: Right. And then, but I mean, I remember being scared and I remember my mom crying as, seemed like it was in the middle of the night, as people left for Japan. They didn't want, I mean, I guess they did sign the papers and so, but when the time came they certainly didn't want to go. But so that was kind of scary, I think, for my mom. It just never happened. Their names never got called.

SY: Do you have any recollection of that whole situation at Tule Lake, where you, the kids had to stand and wake up early in the morning?

NG: We always ate in our barrack. We never ate in our, we never, they went to go get the food and we ate in our barrack.

SY: Your whole family.

NG: Yeah, so I don't remember going to the mess hall, except for they would have parties. Those shibais, is that they call, those little variety shows? But I don't remember eating there.

SY: Ever eating there.

NG: No.

SY: Was it because you were very young? Or that's, for sure your family never ate --

NG: I think they wanted to not, they wanted to be, they did not want to be eating in the mess hall. I think they wanted to be eating as a family.

SY: So different, that was true in Manzanar as well, you think?

NG: I don't know.

SY: But you remember that in Tule Lake.

NG: No, I don't know Manzanar.

SY: So you do know that there, you sort of remember the difference between Manzanar and Tule Lake?

NG: I don't remember Manzanar at all, so all I, what I do know is all the things that come back to me are, I know it's all Tule Lake. My dad, he drove a truck, and I do, and he had this roving eye, one of his eyes, so there was a doctor there in Tule and said, "You know, I could fix that." And I remember him, oh my gosh, laying, for days it seemed like -- I mean, I didn't know that that's what it was at that time, but he was sick, to me sick, 'cause he never, he was just laying in bed for days. But he did a great job under those very primitive conditions.

SY: Really? So it was fixed.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And the doctor, was he a Japanese doctor?

NG: Yeah.

SY: Japanese American doctor? [NG nods] Wow. That's a nice --

NG: And they had, my mom remembers, 'cause there were a lot of nationals, Kibeis, very, and they were activists and very pro-Japan, so she remembers them as they were marching with their hachimaki and, "Wassho, wassho." She was really scared all the time, she said.

SY: So she, but clearly they didn't participate in any of that.

NG: No. And then my dad played baseball, so I remember going to the games, and things would happen there too because there were pro-Japan factions and whatever.

SY: And they clearly never got involved in all of this.

NG: No, they didn't.

SY: They just, but they somehow decided they were going to go back, renounce their citizenship, even though --

NG: Well, they had done that, but I mean, I guess they were, they did it for emotional reasons, I think, and...

SY: Right.

NG: And luckily they didn't have to go.

SY: Because your father, I mean, they really weren't connected to Japan.

NG: No, not at all.

SY: I mean, except for their, through their parents.

NG: Yeah, I think at that time my dad was, 'cause he is like that. He just, he got angry, I'm sure. So I'm sure that was, he was motivated by that.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

SY: So do you remember your younger brothers being born in camp?

NG: I remember, I'm always, I've always felt like I was the special child, and then one day my mom's telling this story -- I do remember it too -- that my dad, riding on his bicycle, coming 'cause my mom had my brother, but this is years later so my mom said that he was just so excited that, that he got this boy because my dad never was like that. In fact, my mom, when the doctor told her she was gonna have another girl she said to my dad, "We're gonna have another girl." So he goes, "Eh, what's wrong with that?" So I never, so that story when he was excited about my brother burst my bubble 'cause he's never, never seemed to care about boys or girls. [Laughs]

SY: Really? So that was, you were pretty young, though, when -- well, but you don't remember it.

NG: Two and a half years.

SY: This is what your mother told you.

NG: No, I remember when my brother came home. Maybe it might've been my youngest brother, not that one. It might've been...

SY: There was no similar story for your youngest brother. By then he was over it. [Laughs]

NG: No. [Laughs]

SY: So your youngest brother in Tule Lake, your mother was pregnant, then, for much of the time that she was in camp.

NG: Yeah, she was.

SY: She was either pregnant or delivering. So the facilities there must, she...

NG: Yeah, I've never talked to her about that. I should. When I get back I'm gonna see how, what her birthing experience was. [Laughs]

SY: Yeah, I know. So anyway, so you guys were in Tule and eventually the war ended. Is that why they were not sent back to Japan?

NG: Yeah. Right, right. And we were all together. My grandmother was just a couple of barracks down, so very close to my grandparents and they totally, I think I told you how they totally spoiled me. And my mom, I think I told you how I have visions of my mom as I'm hiding under the bed or wherever and she's, my grandmother's protecting me from my mother. [Laughs] She would do that.

SY: Were you the only, there were other, did your aunts and uncles have kids?

NG: Yeah. My uncle had three boys. Well, two boys in camp, and one was just a year younger than me, so he was born before. Yeah, he was born before the war -- before camp I mean -- and the other one was born in Manzanar just like my other brother. But they were younger. I don't know, they, I don't know what their... I was, I just seemed like, I felt like I was the closest to them. They might have had the same relationship. And they probably did 'cause later on they did move. My grandparents stayed with my eldest, the eldest son, my uncle.

SY: So they lived with their, them and their kids for a while.

NG: Yeah.

SY: What's interesting about your family is that you all stayed very close, geographically anyway. I mean, you never, when you were in camp you were all together, except for the eldest daughter.

NG: Right, yeah.

SY: And then the son that went into the service, right?

NG: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

SY: And then after camp you all, did you all stay together?

NG: No, so we, when we came out we were like the last ones. Everyone already had gone, come out of camp, and they were already in the trailer courts and so they're pretty settled, and we're like the last ones to come out. And we were not there very long when... my dad did not want to raise us there in that ghetto setting, with the, all the kids --

SY: And this was in...

NG: Olinda. No, Winona. Burbank, I think is the trailer court where they settled, resettled families.

SY: So who was it that was there, besides you and --

NG: So my, so my, all my, all I remember is my auntie with the eight kids. They were already, 'cause they, they must've been there much earlier 'cause they came straight from Manzanar, so I'm sure they were there a while before we got there.

SY: I see. Amazing. And they lived in one trailer?

NG: They had two trailers.

SY: They had two trailers.

NG: And then my mom, my grandparents were there in a trailer, I guess. I don't remember their trailer at all. And then my aunt was, and her husband, they must've been there too. Or maybe not, I don't know. But then we were not there very long when we, he took us back to Bouldin Island where he was, where he used to work, and then eventually we went, got to Mandeville Island.

SY: So yeah, I'm, so I love your description of this, living in, well, Bouldin Island, first Bouldin Island.

NG: Right.

SY: Do you have memories of that?

NG: I don't.

SY: No memories of it.

NG: I don't, all I know is I got the measles or, the measles or the mumps. Maybe it was the mumps. And my aunt -- and that was Bouldin Island. I know that was not Mandeville Island. And my aunt came to help my mom. I don't know why my mom, she, I don't know why she had to come. Anyway, but she got the mumps too. [Laughs] But that's all I remember about Bouldin Island.

SY: Bouldin Island. But it was a place, obviously, your father liked.

NG: He knew, a place he knew. A place where he could get work.

SY: So he knew the people that were there doing the hiring.

NG: Right. I think he, yeah, he must've, they must've been, there must've been a lot of other Japanese. And then I don't really know and she didn't delve into how we got to Mandeville Island, because there were, like I said, there were a lot of families there.

SY: Japanese American.

NG: Japanese American families.

SY: Do you know how far they are from each other?

NG: Yeah, they're, each camp was at least three, four miles away from each other.

SY: But the --

NG: I can't...

SY: But Bouldin Island and --

NG: Oh, Bouldin Island, I would say half an hour, an hour away from each other. There're a lot of those, there was Bacon Island, there was Henning Track, all these little farming communities around the San Joaquin River and the deltas.

SY: So that was the --

NG: Tributaries.

SY: Yeah, that was, the area was really the San Joaquin Valley?

NG: Uh-huh.

SY: And in the San Joaquin Valley were these little islands.

NG: Right. I mean, Stockton was the city, was the town.

SY: That was the closest to that city?

NG: Closest town. Lodi, you know, Stockton, Lodi. And then out in the farm area, out in the delta area there were all these islands, farm islands.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

SY: So they were large enough that how many families could live on one island?

NG: Okay, so like Mandeville Island -- I don't know about the others -- Mandeville Island, go on this bumpy, bumpy, terrible road -- maybe you could go five miles an hour -- it would take you an hour to go around.

SY: The whole island.

NG: Uh-huh. So it's big. And the, so there was, like, Camp 1 and there must've been I don't know how many bunk, bunkhouses there, and little individual little shack kind of houses, all had outhouses at the beginning. So there were several families there, and lots of bachelors. And then the next one I can't remember the number, but it had a -- that camp had a mess hall where somebody was the cook and then the next island was, the mess hall was a boat -- or no, a barge -- and they had, I don't know what kind of... anyway, a barge, and that's where the mess hall was. And they had bunkhouses, and they had Japanese baths. Someone, they built it. Mostly bachelors. There were just Japanese Americans and, well Isseis also, and illegals that came, that worked there.

SY: Illegal...

NG: Mexicans.

SY: Mexicans.

NG: And then -- who lived there in those bunkhouses -- and then our camp, well, our first camp was 13, way on the other side of the island, and there were only two families, three families there. But then there was another camp, one family right where the, the shop -- they called it the shop -- where all the trucks... so the island was owned by Roscoe Zuckerman, Jewish man, who had a farm before the war and it flooded. They were susceptible to floods up there. And the Japanese people stayed and helped him reclaim the land, so after the war when we couldn't find, Japanese people couldn't find work, he was more than happy to hire them, so that's why there were so many Japanese people there.

SY: I see.

NG: And so Camp 21, that was a big one, big bunkhouse, and another, also a mess hall with the women cooking there. And then 13 was so far that we moved a little closer, and there was only two families, us and a Mexican American family that was next door. And he, so the, Zuckerman bought everything, he used army surplus, so like I had said, the foremen all drove around in a jeep, we went to school in an ambulance, army ambulance, and we went to a schoolroom, two room, two house, one was a Quonset hut and the daughter taught kinder, I don't remember kinder, first through fourth. And then the regular, regular nice schoolhouse, the mother taught from fifth through eighth.

SY: So this is the daughter of the man who...

NG: No, no, no. No. They were just, they were teachers that came and, they lived in Stockton and they drove in every day to teach. But it was the --

SY: I see. They happened to be mother and daughter.

NG: Mother and daughter, yeah.

SY: I see. So this, this little island you didn't really go off of, except later on when you went to high school.

NG: Right. Well, when we first got there the only way to get to this island was you had to cross two ferries, so you, I think it was called Henningtrack. We went from, came from Stockton and then you, as a kid you just, how could this ferry carry cars? It's gonna sink, you know? And on weekends when we're, everybody's going to Stockton, there'll be like six cars. I mean, they would just be right at the end of the ferry. I was always scared. So you had to cross that ferry and then you had to cross the ferry from Bacon Island to our island. And it was private; they always had someone to run the ferry, of course. Then the kids that went to high school, when we first moved there they went in on like a tug boat to Stockton to school. Then later when they built the barge, even the one for, not the one, I don't remember that other barge, but the one from Bacon to Mandeville always had a guard. They always, he just didn't come over. He had to...

SY: So do you think that this man, Zuckerman, that he owned all the property? Owned...

NG: I don't think, I wonder if he owned, I don't think he owned the land. I'm not sure.

SY: But it, clearly it was for farming.

NG: It was called Mandeville Island. It was not called, all his products were Zuckerman potatoes and everything, but I don't know if he owned the island. Not quite, I don't know.

SY: And it was very, it sounds like it was similar in feel to camp.

NG: Yeah.

SY: Because you lived in --

NG: Right.

SY: -- communal barracks, kind of like?

NG: Well no, the families, every family had their own home. Our first home -- well, I don't remember Camp 13, but when we moved closer -- they're shacks. I mean, if you drove and looked at it you would say, oh my gosh, do people live like this? With the outhouse and everything. And it had, so anyway, that house burned. I can't remember that house. Sort of, I can sort of remember the bathroom, but I really can't remember. But anyway, that house burned down 'cause next door this family was careless with their kerosene or their, the stove, and it caught fire and we wake up in this blaze.

SY: You were there? You remember this fire?

NG: Oh yeah. Yeah, 'cause I'm already, what, I'm already, we're already in school. And middle of the night and we're -- you know, that's, I should tell you the other story too. This is before the, that's right, they were not the first family. There was a Japanese American family living next door first, and he was an alcoholic. He also worked with my dad as a mechanic, and he was an alcoholic. And his, they had a son, two sons and a daughter in the middle, and the son was a bully. Used to... he was a bully, anyway, but the daughter was just about a year older than me and she was, my mother loved her because she was just this wonderful girl. And so she was like, my mother used her to get me on the straight and narrow 'cause Mary was just such a sweet girl. [Laughs] But so I guess the mother had, like, mental issues, or maybe it was because of the father drinking, so one middle of the night there's banging at the door and it's the husband, and she had committed suicide. She had cut her wrist and she was floating in the river, so my mother, my father swam, went to get her, but she was already dead.

SY: Wow.

NG: But it was interesting because -- so the police came and everything -- the first thing the father did was bring all his liquor and I remember my dad pouring it down the toilet, or the drain, before the police came. But with, after she died this, I'm wondering who they were, but it was a Japanese man, the relative -- I don't, still don't know -- and with a hakujin, beautiful hakujin woman was his wife. And I think it was a, that was, like, the beginning of my seeing how we saw ourselves. I felt like my mom was definitely in deference to her, like she was special because she was white. She didn't say that, but just the way she, it was, like, a big deal that this woman was in our home, you know?

SY: Interesting.

NG: Yeah, I just...

SY: Remember that clearly.

NG: Yeah, I remember that clearly, and so it had a lot of effect on me later on, thinking about, yeah, we really, when I went through my trying to see who I was, I think I saw that we, those subtle things just... how you really saw yourself.

SY: Right.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

SY: Were you, I would imagine that, having been born very close to camp, you were very young, that you were really surrounded mainly by Japanese Americans as you were growing up, in your very young, formative years.

NG: Right.

SY: So the Caucasians, do you, were there very many? Did you notice the difference other than this woman?

NG: You know, we just did not, except -- and the boss, he was, he was Caucasian, right?

SY: And what was the relationship --

NG: Of course, he was in a different class. I was scared of him.

SY: You were scared of him?

NG: Yeah, he was not warm and fuzzy.

SY: Did he have family that lived there?

NG: He did. His, we never saw his wife. She, when he, the story is that when he said he's gonna buy this -- maybe it was his place -- when he was gonna farm there she said, "I'll never step foot on that." She was against it. So we never saw her. She never, never came. Her son, his sons worked there, his two sons. One of 'em was really nice and the other one was just like him, cold. But my mom liked him a lot. He was...

SY: Yeah, it's such an interesting living environment. So what happened with the oldest, the older daughter that, of the woman who committed suicide?

NG: Okay, so they moved to Los Angeles.

SY: After, you said...

NG: Okay, you mean my neighbor, the neighbors?

SY: Right.

NG: Okay, so after the mother dies they move to Los Angeles.

SY: And you never saw them again.

NG: And I never saw them, but I did, I did talk to her. When we moved out here many, many years later, I called her -- I don't know how I got the numbers, got the number -- and she, even her voice sounded so worldly, I mean, streetwise. 'Cause she had now, she had married a, she had married an African American who was... you know, that period of time there was a lot of gangs, and he was, he was part of a gang. She was, I mean, I think they were fine and everything, but she, as we were talking, it was to her, that life on that was so remote to her now, 'cause...

SY: Interesting.

[Interruption]

SY: So I'm, we're very curious about Mandeville Island, so I'm just, and I know you told me, how long was your family there?

NG: Ten years. That was not the plan. The plan was to raise enough, earn enough money so my dad could come back to the valley and start, open up a garage.

SY: But there was enough work for him there...

NG: Yeah, he was the head of mechanics. I mean, they, he didn't start off as the head mechanic, but eventually they did. I think he was making, what, sixty-five cents an hour. They worked ten hours, he work ten hours a week, ten hours a day.

SY: But mainly he worked on the equipment, then.

NG: Right. He did, he fixed all the tractors and trucks.

SY: There were no cars to speak of there.

NG: No, we had a car. Couple of people, not too many people had cars. Later on they did. But I think we were one of the few that had a car.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

SY: And can you sort of give us an idea of how, percentage wise, like how many were Japanese American and how...

NG: Okay, so all the laborers, 'cause they, at the beginning there was, like, sugar beets, but at the peak, when I think about it, it's, the main crops were potatoes, asparagus. Those were the two main. And also too, whenever we finished work we all -- the kids used to work, after you got to be a certain age -- we would go to the other islands to do some other work, but mostly potatoes and asparagus, and then we planted celery. I used to like that. You sit on this little tractor thing and this thing would come rotate, and you just put the little seedlings in there and it would plant. That was kind of neat. But so there were Mexican, there were illegals, 'cause every once in a while there'll be a raid and they would come and they'd be hiding in the ditches and everything.

SY: Really? Wow.

NG: And then they would have, they would, they would have women come for the men every so often, to, for these...

SY: Bachelors.

NG: For the men.

SY: So they never, but they never had families that you know of?

NG: No, no families. And the only, there was one Mexican mother and daughter who was a classmate. Never, I don't know who her father was. Probably -- but she worked, we knew her. She was our friend. And then there was one Mexican American man who was sort of like a foreman, and he was our next closest neighbor. He was maybe a mile or two miles away. And he had a Caucasian wife, really pretty, and we thought, we liked her 'cause she was different. But other than that there was, that's it. And then because it was seasonal, like asparagus season, they would cut, if the price was not good then they would not be cutting. If the price, market price was high it would be, it's a twenty-four hour job, and my mom, working in the warehouse, would just come home for a couple hours and go back. I mean, it was, they just needed to get out. And that wasn't, there weren't enough workers, so they would get women from the city somewhere. They did this kind of work. All the cutters were Filipino men that did the asparagus, and they would come and they didn't live there. They just came in during that season. So of course, as a kid you see all of this goings on, sexual goings on with all these workers... [laughs] 'cause it's all seasonal, it's just gonna be, just for that time they all had families, I'm sure.

SY: They, and there were women that came in as well as men who came in during the seasonal?

NG: Yeah. I guess they, yeah, I guess that was their life.

SY: So the ones that you remember, the Mexican American, Mexican, well, they were the illegal ones, were they living there year round?

NG: Yeah, they were living in the bunkhouses and the big camps.

SY: Year round, but then they'd bring in seasonal workers from time to time.

NG: Right. They definitely brought in for the asparagus. And they were not, they were, to me, more skilled. I mean, they knew what they were doing.

SY: So what kind of interaction was there between the Mexican American laborers and then these Japanese American families? I assume, how many Japanese American families were there, do you think?

NG: Gee, I don't know. At the beginning there seemed to be a lot. Like, I don't... in fact, 'cause yeah, maybe each camp would have like ten families. Like ours was just us.

SY: There were bigger camps. You were --

NG: Yeah, but the camps, I would, three main camps, I would say those three camps at the outset maybe had like ten families. But I know at the end most, many moved out very quickly.

SY: So you were one of the ones that stayed there longest, longer than the others.

NG: Right.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

SY: And did they have, they had children in these, these other Japanese? 'Cause they were all your school, schoolmates?

NG: Right.

SY: So the schoolhouse was for how many people?

NG: Okay, so when we were at our, its peak, that one graduation, graduating class had eight, eight people.

SY: Eight?

NG: Eight.

SY: Eight people.

NG: Eight girls. They were all girls. Mine, we had three. I tell the story that I was valedictorian of my graduating class 'cause there were three of us, and --

SY: This is in what grade?

NG: This is eighth grade. Graduation was eighth grade there. So I tell the story, there were three of us and I was valedictorian because the other one was a special needs child. [Laughs]

SY: But there was, what about the third one?

NG: And, well, she was just average. So this Reverend Harada from Orange County, he told the story -- 'cause he went, similar, he was always with, there were two in his grade from somewhere. He grew up like that too. And he was always salutatorian to this one girl. [Laughs] So I shared my story with him, too.

SY: He obviously wasn't as smart as you. [Laughs] So then were you very close to the other Japanese American kids?

NG: Yeah. Right.

SY: And there was one Mexican American child who was the classmate.

NG: Right.

SY: And you were, same, close, and did you notice that there was a difference, like culturally?

NG: Yeah, I think so, because why didn't we get, we were never, why wasn't she included in New Year's and things like that?

SY: Oh, so you did have Japanese American activities where all the families got together?

NG: Right, right. Well, at that time it was, my mom did New Year's, for instance. My mom did all the cooking and stayed home while all the men traveled from house to house.

SY: Really?

NG: Yeah, and then my dad traveled from house to house.

SY: And got food?

NG: And got drunk. [Laughs] Yeah, got food. I mean, he's not, he was not good at drinking.

SY: That must've been an interesting...

NG: Yeah, so we didn't, I guess I must've gone with, maybe we went with him too. 'Cause I do remember being in a home, so maybe my dad, we did go. I do remember some New Year's where all of us went together and went to a family's.

SY: But your mom really had to cook, made a full New Year's dinner and all of that.

NG: Yeah, she did that.

SY: And did you interact with the laborers at all?

NG: I think as teenagers, you know how you kind of flirt around with these, you see somebody that's cute and everything, but nothing, no. There was no interaction.

SY: So they were younger. They were all age.

NG: Some of them, all ages, yeah. But no, but no really, there was no interaction. All the kids were, except for Esther, everybody was Japanese American in the schools.

SY: Wow. And do you know how he hired these guys to stay there? I mean, was he --

NG: The families, you mean?

SY: Yeah.

NG: It must've been word of mouth. They must -- some people knew him from before the war. I know that. And then I think they'd just hear where there's work, you know?

SY: Yeah. They weren't, he didn't recruit from camp at all? I mean, I'm assuming all of these people were in camp.

NG: Yeah, I don't know how he did.

SY: They were --

NG: But I'm sure it was people looking for work. I remember there was one, he was mixed, Japanese and Mexican, and he went by his, he didn't tell anybody he was Japanese. He couldn't find work, but when he came to the island he got a job.

SY: He wasn't, he wasn't, his parents weren't a result of being on the island. [Laughs]

NG: No.

SY: He came.

NG: Yeah.

SY: Interesting combination at that point, right? Because there was -- I mean, did your parents talk to you about the, anything about there being a difference between Mexicans and Japanese? Or were they --

NG: I was raised, "You're Japanese and make sure all your friends and your, everybody that you're, are Japanese."

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

SY: So I was asking you about your parents and the way they treated other nationalities or how you felt about other nationalities.

NG: You know, that's what was, my, they always treated people, like, always graciously, and I never saw them treating anybody any way but good. But out of their mouths -- not, my dad never said anything. My dad never said anything, but my mom, "You're Japanese and your friends and your, if you get hakujin, white friends that'll lead to other things, so it's better not to do that." So our whole life was all... I was talking to somebody about, and it was, like, part of me. I never even, it just never occurred to me that it would be any, it would always be Japanese people. And I remember being at UCLA, there was this African American in my class and he'd follow me around and he'd say, "You know, we could go out." I'd say, "I can't go out." And then, but how insulting it was to him, but I didn't even, I didn't even, I was just oblivious. I said I, "My mother would kill me." I wouldn't go out. "Well, what if I become very successful?" I said, "It wouldn't matter." Oh my god, I just can't believe that I would talk to him that way. [Laughs]

SY: Yeah, somehow it, they didn't, so in other words, they didn't really look down on other people so that they... or did they?

NG: They didn't. I mean, they're just, 'cause they're...

SY: It was just that we're different and not that we're better.

NG: No. And then he, my dad was never like that. He was never, "We're better," or "Japanese..." but there was my mom, I think, and probably my grandmother too, but no, 'cause he ran a gas station. All kinds of people came in; he never, he was always, he had friends. They all loved him, which is -- and my mom too. People would come, she would invite people, different race of people, come into our house. Never, I never saw anything. She never treated anybody, but that was like a given.

SY: Yeah.

NG: So I told her, I go -- we all happened to marry Japanese, my brothers and me, but I told her, it's not gonna be the same with the grandkids, you know? [Laughs]

SY: You warned her.

NG: Yeah. Well, my older one married, happened to marry Japanese, but my other daughter married a Chinese, Chinese American.

SY: That's, yeah.

NG: I mean, it's just not gonna... forget it.

SY: Right, right.

[Interruption]

NG: No, I was saying how things have changed so. Like my grandmother, my cousin married this German, German American. Oh my gosh, how awful. Well he, my grandmother was, all of them were horseracing fans, and so he was off certain days of the week and he loved the races too, so she'd call him to go to the racetrack. So pretty soon after there was, other people started marrying in, it just didn't, was no issue anymore.

SY: And that was how long ago?

NG: She was my age, so, she was my age when, we were the same age. So when she got married, what, in the... she got married later, so maybe she got married in 1970.

SY: Interesting.

NG: And no longer.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

SY: So once, getting back to Mandeville 'cause it's such a fascinating place, so once you graduated from eighth grade, then what happened?

NG: Then the bus took us to Stockton and I went to Edison High School. And Edison High School went from ninth grade to tenth grade. Well, it was really six, seventh... seventh, eighth, nine, and ten was there, but we, we were on the island 'til eighth grade, so were there for ninth and tenth. Of course, I left after the tenth grade, and then kids went to Stockton High School for eleventh and twelfth.

SY: So what kind of transition was that for you, to go from living on the island with very few classmates?

NG: That's when, that's when it got real hard 'cause, I mean, I loved it, now to be in this big school and have all these different activities. And they were, who lived in town, they, the girls were playing basketball, they could go to the movies whenever they want, they were active in the Buddhist church so they could go every week. A minister, or minister's aide, came to the island once a month and in one of the little shacks he would hold a service for kids. But so I loved, that's when I started hating living on the island.

SY: That's when you became aware.

NG: I just, when my aunt, she came to visit and my aunt told my mother -- you know that she was, the night that my auntie was gonna leave back home and I was, like, crying all night 'cause I didn't want her to leave. And then my aunt said, "You know, she's really unhappy." So I think they kind of started to think about, yeah, the idea was to raise the money and move back, so they thought, yeah, I guess it's, after I graduated tenth grade they thought, yeah, probably this is a good time.

SY: Wow. Do you know if your brothers were unhappy too, or were they too young?

NG: They, I don't think they were unhappy. They didn't... you know.

SY: It was mainly you.

NG: Yeah. I was tenth grade, so they were, what, still sixth grade. They were still in the island school. They were not exposed to the high school at all, so they didn't care.

SY: So this Edison Junior -- Edison Junior High?

NG: High school, Edison High School.

SY: Oh, it's called High School, so that, it was, again, primarily Japanese American?

NG: No, it had all kinds of, I'm sure we were, we were the minority. A lot of, I don't remember. I guess a lot of... I don't remember. I don't even remember if there were any African Americans there. I think mostly Caucasian.

SY: You think they were mostly farm families?

NG: No, I don't think so. There were, there were not, there were people, non-Japanese families that lived on those other islands, because once a year we would have this pageant. Each, a music teacher would, this traveling music teacher would come to these little schools and then at the Stockton Auditorium they would have this pageant. I mean, I was like, we were just one little, like one little flower or something and we would learn this song, and I was just amazed. There were hundreds of kids and they were from all these different areas. Well, maybe some of them maybe were from the city. I'm not sure. Yeah, they were probably from the city as well.

SY: Yeah. How many, do you know how many islands there were?

NG: No. I don't know.

SY: They were probably all different sizes too.

NG: But you know, Edison was a very good school. It had a swimming pool. I learned to swim there. Almost drowned there, but... [laughs] They had a wonderful P.E. program with wonderful teachers, and we learned -- 'cause I'm really into sports -- and we did, learned tennis, we did archery, we did field hockey. Very, very organized P.E. program. And then they had the girls' athletic association, so then you took your, once I realized that then I took my gym, that last period, 'cause that's when it was all organized. They had field days and you competed on the weekends, and my dad would, an hour away and he would drive me to all these little extracurricular activities.

SY: Yeah, because really you only, I mean, if you had to take this boat back and forth...

NG: Well, I wasn't, now it was a bus.

SY: Bus.

NG: Yeah. Went to school in the bus.

SY: So how did you get from the island to the school? On a...

NG: On a bus, because by that time they had built a barge.

SY: Oh, the barge. The barge was sort of like a bridge.

NG: Yes, a bridge. We called it a barge, but it was a bridge.

SY: I'm thinking of a barge as moving, but --

NG: Yeah, no. It could move because it had to move in order to let the boats pass.

SY: So the barge, this barge or bridge, was, must've been short, not that long.

NG: Yeah, it's very short. Not, no, not long.

SY: So it was connected to land by a very, the, where you lived was connected to land, the regular...

NG: Right. Yeah.

SY: I see. And it would take him an hour. That's the, driving there?

NG: It took an hour. An hour and a half on the bus, only because he had to go pick up all the other kids from the other islands, but it was an hour by car.

SY: I see. So your dad, on certain days, would...

NG: Yeah, he'd come and pick me up. If I had, like, a club meeting. I joined the Spanish club and, boy, I joined the scholarship club, and he'd, we had meetings once a month or whatever and he'd come and pick me up.

SY: So, and your, what was your mom doing at this time?

NG: So she started, I think when my, my brother, youngest brother started school, then she went to work with all the other ladies. And they would, she was very good. I mean, I could never make a living. They were very fast, she and this, her good friend, and they, it was called piecework. You know what that means? When they get paid by what they did, so they would separate the roots of plants or whatever they did. So they got recognized very quickly and they became like the foremen of the warehouse work. So seasonal, it was always seasonal, so we would have a potato season where you'd cut the potatoes, so -- make sure that each one had an eye -- so they would plant those. And then potato season, when it's time to grade the potatoes all us kids got that first station where you took out all the rotten ones. The next person was a little better, they got to pick out the big potatoes, and then my mom and her friend, they were like the foremen, so they were at the end where everybody had already checked the potatoes, and they would just watch it go and if somebody didn't catch one they would just... [mimes discarding a potato]

SY: That was the best...

NG: Yeah, that was the best job. [Laughs]

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

SY: So, and did you have to continue working once you went to school, once you started school? Were you always working?

NG: Yeah, we, during the summer we worked, all the kids.

SY: Not during the school year, though.

NG: No, we didn't. And the kids, the kids all worked together, but I think there was, we might've worked on the weekend 'cause I remember when there were kids, like warehouse work, we all went together. We all were on the same truck together, not necessarily on our island, but going to other islands too. And it was good 'cause we could, I got to keep a lot of that money, so I could buy my own clothes and stuff, but my friend and I guess they gave us work during the weekend. I'm not sure. And there was really no set work, so my, I guess my dad asked the foreman if we could pull weeds or something, so I guess they said okay that we work. And then asparagus plants are awful, and it's not, when they're off season, I mean, it's just, it's a tangle of, it's just awful, and we had to do the weeding. But it's also, it hides you, so one weekend we didn't feel like working so we're fooling around, and then the foreman saw us and told my dad that, "You know, I don't think you were, were you really working today?" So... [laughs]

SY: Did he scold you or not?

NG: My, see, my, I used to get spanked and belted by my mom. I mean, she was twenty-five years old with three kids. She didn't know what to do. My dad never, ever, all he said to me that day was, "Were you really working today?" I mean, I knew exactly what he was talking about, so we didn't do that again. [Laughs]

SY: And you got, it's interesting, so your mom and dad let you keep the money that you earned.

NG: I'm sure not all of it, but I got to keep --

SY: Some of it, so it was...

NG: I mean, to me it was a lot of money.

SY: And as a young girl, did you go, where did you go shopping?

NG: Yeah, so this was a great time. Like when she, when he would have to pick me up -- he couldn't pick me up until after work, so my meetings with... and I walked to downtown. I walked to Stockton, I did my own shopping, and that's why my, we, the Japanese, the Buddhist church was in skid row, 'cause where else could they afford it? All the Japanese, what do you call, retail places, where my dad got his haircut, all on skid row, so here you are, you're past, I'm passing people playing the accordion who's blind, or somebody with no legs with their... and drunks. I mean, it's the stench, just like downtown L.A. I mean, it was, I just grew up like that. We'd walk from shopping in Stockton, which was nice, over to the Buddhist church, and you had to pass this, this area, so I thought nothing of it, right? And I take my kids downtown once, I mean, they thought I was gonna get them killed. You know, they just know the mall. [Laughs]

SY: [Laughs] Things have changed.

NG: Yeah. No, but it was, and that was part of it. We're not, we just did not, we're not afraid 'cause that was where everything was.

SY: You mentioned the Buddhist church. Is that, so, and this minister that came to the island once a month, so was it primarily Buddhist then, everybody?

NG: Oh yeah.

SY: Everybody was Buddhist.

NG: Right.

SY: There was not a Christian minister who came to the island.

NG: No.

SY: And it was just the Japanese families that went?

NG: Yeah, and my mom was very prejudiced towards Christians. I mean, I didn't know what Christians were 'cause we were Buddhist. And she doesn't even know what it means to be Buddhist. You know, 'cause you're just born a Buddhist. [Laughs]

SY: I see. And you're, the kids were the ones who went to church, not the parents.

NG: No, right. And we only went when there was a bazaar in town, in Stockton. They would have these food bazaars.

SY: Your parents would take you.

NG: And when we had, and they would have movies. I remember Japanese movies there. And then we would, the Obon, which was, which was not a carnival, which was Obon, which was dancing.

SY: So that was kind of the recreational activity, was to go to the Buddhist church?

NG: Uh-huh. Well, we didn't really go... just for, like the bazaar, what is that, once a year? It wasn't that much. The highlight, I mean, you're just, there's nothing to do. The highlight was the county fair and the state fair. That was a big thing to go to state fair, but there was really nothing to do.

SY: And your --

NG: But my, they would take us to the movies, though, every so often.

SY: Yeah, as kids, I can't imagine, just played with each other.

NG: Yeah. As, before high school it was fun 'cause you're just on your own. There are no parents. It's amazing we all lived. I think about it -- when our house burned down we had to live somewhere, so we lived on this barge, army barge or navy barge or whatever it was, and they closed off, so that it would be habitable they closed off most of the rooms section and so we just kept two, I guess I stayed with my brothers, so two rooms, those bunk rooms, sleeping quarters for us to sleep. And then, so we had this huge kitchen that was... but it was, it's on the river, and we used to play cops and robbers, and the ledge was like this and it's on the river, but we're racing around. And in fact, they opened up the upstairs once and cleaned it out 'cause the young people had a dance there. That was kind of fun to watch.

SY: You had a --

NG: No, we were, I was young. I'm, this is for teenagers.

SY: There were enough people to gather together for a dance.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And you, do you remember what your parents did for the, when they weren't working?

NG: When they weren't working?

SY: When they weren't working, yeah. Your mom cooked, probably, huh?

NG: Yeah, they were always working. So I think they played, they were, I'm wondering they played cards then. They might've played cards, Hana. But there was no, when they would get a, I don't remember, I don't know when we got a TV. We, I just remember listening to the radio, all of us together.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

SY: But so when you finally left, did you have any inclination, did your parents say this is, "We're leaving," or...

NG: I was just so happy.

SY: They told you and they said...

NG: I was really, really happy.

SY: You were really happy.

NG: Yeah. I mean, it was just, it was hard. Everybody else was doing things and we just... you know, and I wouldn't, I know my dad would've, but I just couldn't ask him, take me here, take me there. It just was too much. and so, yeah, I was very happy. I had no -- I'm sure my mom was very sad.

SY: Really?

NG: Yeah, I'm sure she was.

SY: Because she liked...

NG: It was safe for her. She had good friends there. She didn't have to worry about anything. And then, plus my dad now is venturing into a new territory, right? To open up his own business. But she was good, 'cause it was hard that first year. He worked it, with my uncle was not really enough money coming in for both families, and he was, that first year was hard, but she said, "No, this is what you wanted. They tell you have to at least stick it out three years, so we should stick it out." Then in the meantime, my uncle could not take that job. He decided to go work in the produce market, so then it was just my dad, so it was definitely enough money for my dad. They worked, he worked early, opened up at six and didn't come home until seven. My mom worked with him.

SY: And it was a garage?

NG: It was a, no, it was a gas station, Texaco gas station. But then he would do work, people who had... there was a garage. It was another, they had mechanics in the back, but for people who wanted, he would do extra work.

SY: And this was where exactly?

NG: In Sun Valley.

SY: Sun Valley, so, when your family moved back they settled in...

NG: Yeah, so we, in Pacoima, we, my grandparents lived in this shack. It was a kitchen and two rooms and a, two rooms and a bathroom. And so we stayed with them until we... my parents saved like forty thousand dollars. I mean, in that time, that's a lot of money for that time.

SY: That's pretty good, yeah.

NG: So, because there's no, you don't pay rent, you don't go anywhere. I mean, what else is there to do but saving money? Even though you're only making a dollar something an hour. But, so right after, we stayed with my grandmother for a short time until we bought the house, also in the, it's called North, no, it's called Mission Hill right now.

SY: So how, how had your parents ended up in Pacoima? I mean your grandparents, I'm sorry.

NG: Because they're all in the Valley, right, so --

SY: So right after the war?

NG: So right after the war they, they had a trailer, my grandparents, and they lived with their eldest son, which is the way it's supposed to be, but never in his house. His house was a shack too 'cause they were not renting or, selling or renting to Japanese at that time, so there was this little shack that they lived in. And my uncle had this, my auntie was absolutely wonderful, his wife, and so as long as she was alive everything was fine. But as soon as she died, then that's when things, it didn't, it didn't go well with my grandparents because my grandmother, they're simple people. They have just one way of doing things, and the Japanese, this is how we do it, and my uncle, he's a Japanese American. He doesn't want to do it this way, so right after his wife died, of course my mother, my grandmother wants him to go to Japan and find a wife 'cause he's got these three boys to raise. He says, "I'm not gonna do that." So more and more all kinds of friction like that, and so he just kicked 'em out, their trailer out of his property, and they took their trailer to my aunt for a while until they rented this little place.

SY: I see. And that's when you, your family came back.

NG: Yeah. As soon as we came back they moved in with us.

AK: What year was that?

NG: So '55.

SY: '55. So when everybody, you were the only ones, really, who left the family after the war.

NG: Right, yeah.

SY: And they all settled in that Valley area.

NG: They all stayed in the Valley. Yeah, they did, except, for my uncle who married. He was always in East Los Angeles, my Uncle Bo, the one that...

SY: Was in the army.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And so before the war all of their belongings and all of their things that they had, what happened to them? What happened to the, they were all renting houses, I assume?

NG: I don't think, yeah, I think they were all renting. I don't think they owned anything, yeah.

SY: And, yeah, you don't --

NG: And I think they got rid of their belongings just like everybody else. I told you that story about my dad, that the government said they'll keep it for you. [Laughs] And he says yeah, that's -- and he was talking to his friends, "Let's do that," and they said, "Are you crazy? They're not gonna keep it for us." And then for him to say "no-no" when here he trusted the government, but he was just angry.

SY: Yeah. He thought that, I think you mentioned that he didn't think that you would even have to go to camp, right?

NG: Yeah, he didn't, he felt the war's not gonna be long. Japan's gonna lose. It's gonna be very short.

SY: That is amazing that they switched, they answered "no-no."

NG: Yeah. [Laughs]

SY: So now that your grandparents' trailer was --

NG: No trailer now. There's no more trailer 'cause they had gotten rid of that trailer and bought, not bought, but rented.

SY: That's right. That's right, the house.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

SY: And so you rented them for a while and then you found, your mom and dad bought a house very close by.

NG: Yeah. It's in Mission Hills, so it's close to Pacoima, yeah.

SY: And that's where you started going to school again.

NG: Right, then I went, when I was... yeah, they were in Pacoima, so San Fernando was, it would've made no difference. My grandmother's place where she was renting or my new house, it was still San Fernando High School that I went to.

SY: And what kind of, what kind of transition was that, going from...

NG: Eleventh grade, okay, so right away there're Japanese kids there that, well, my cousin was going there, so I already felt comfortable. I mean, I knew my cousin and she introduced me to her friends. And like I said, Edison High School was really a good school when I think about it, but I didn't realize that the, until later, that they tracked you, so of course they were all like, all the students were like me. I didn't know there were other students until I took this, this foods class. Everybody had to take a home economics class, and I was with this girl who couldn't read the recipe. I didn't, 'cause we're all doing, taking algebra and whatever. Anyways, I go to San Fernando, so my first -- I got, they placed me in a Spanish One class and they should've put me in a Spanish Three class, so the first day I'm in this class and I have my lunch, and I go leave my seat, desk to tell the teacher, who was older, than older -- oh my gosh -- and it was chaos. I don't remember there being chaos in Edison. Nobody was paying attention to her. So then I go to lunch and I open my lunch, and somebody switched lunches. [Laughs] So that was my first experience in San Fernando. But I made really good friends there, so I was, I had a good time, eleventh and twelfth grade.

SY: It was, was it much larger than Edison?

NG: Yeah. I think it was... but even though Edison looked big to me, so I don't know, maybe it might've been the same.

SY: You know, we didn't talk about whether or not you were in school at Tule Lake. Were you, were you in --

NG: Yes, we went to nursery school.

SY: You did go to nursery school.

NG: Yeah, 'cause I remember we had to put our little handkerchief and I remember crying one day 'cause my mom did not put my handkerchief. [Laughs]

SY: What was the handkerchief for?

NG: I don't know. We used to, I guess you had to put a little handkerchief, whatever it was, with a safety pin.

SY: So you didn't go to regular school at all?

NG: No.

SY: You were too young.

NG: Yeah, I was too young. It was a little, it was like a nursery, preschool probably.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 22>

SY: So, now, in San Fernando, is there, was there, you said there was a sizeable Japanese American community.

NG: Yeah.

SY: So you still had the Buddhist church?

NG: Right. I hung around with the Japanese kids. My friends were all Japanese. Well, we had, we had Caucasian friends, but not, where we did things with them, but not, they didn't come home with us. They were in your class and things like that.

SY: Mostly social. And do you remember any kinds of anti-Japanese feeling?

NG: No, but see, I am always just so oblivious to -- okay, at San Fernando, well, my, this teacher that I taught with went to San Fernando. She's my daughter's age, little bit, maybe a little older. So San Fernando had their hundredth anniversary, and she was a cheerleader so they, at one of the football games all the cheerleaders from past years are there and cheerleading, leading the cheer, and she looks up at this, the stands, and they're old white people. She's Hispanic, so when she went to school, of course, San Fernando was all Hispanic, so it was like culture shock for her. Well, when I went to school there it was mostly Caucasian. I don't remember, one or two black, African Americans, and I don't remember the Hispanics either except that they had a car club. And so of course my friend who was, the Japanese kids who were leaders were in government, and all the white kids were in government, so I never saw anybody, I don't remember being with the Mexican kids except when there would be a dance and they would do that little choke dancing, and we thought that looked really good. And the car clubs, and they would get into some problems all the time with these car clubs. Anyway, we were, so we're ready to vote for our class, eleventh grade, we're ready to vote for our class name, mostly our class logo, and this -- I didn't, this I found out later, but anyway, I liked this, we were called Utopians and I liked that, was like a Disneyland castle, you know? But then there was one that was Atlas with, Atlas with the world on his shoulder, and evidently it got the most votes, but it came out that the Utopians won. So the group of Hispanic kids all got together and protested, and they had the principal there, and that was my first time that I realized how this, there's discrimination, you know? [Laughs] And I, sitting there listening to it, I realized, you know what, even though I didn't like Atlas, it won. And they were saying that they had overheard during the balloting and whatever, and I believed them, that, I think that's exactly what happened, because those kids, those, they ran the school, you know?

SY: And they didn't, the administration wasn't happy about that?

NG: Yeah, and I think they, he favored, 'cause they were the students, they were the, I don't, the Hispanic kids, I'm sure, were not academically upward bound and whatever, so I'm sure the administration favored, I mean, I know they did. They were those kids who were very active in all the student government and everything.

SY: I see.

NG: But it was an eye opener. I was very sheltered. [Laughs]

SY: And the, and the faculty was mainly Caucasian?

NG: Yeah. Yeah, they were.

SY: So when you say, so you're, you really stayed fairly close to these Japanese kids. You were one of the ones who kind of stayed... is it because of, you had similarities in church and you had social activities separate from everybody else?

NG: 'Cause now my friends were, went to the Holiness Church, some went to the Buddhist church, so now it wasn't, now there was diversity in terms of --

SY: So there was Christian, there were a lot of Christian Japanese as well as Buddhists.

NG: Right, right. So I, you just make, start making friends and they, you're comfortable. 'Cause I know my cousin, her best friend was this Hispanic girl that she's known since, like, kinder.

SY: Yeah, because that area really is fairly, well, at the time, was Hispanic. So you, yeah, but that's, you never noticed any kind of, other than this incident, did you have incidences where you felt discriminated against personally?

NG: I always did, yeah, outside. But I think it started when, you know you're, when you grow, it's like if you grow up in Hawaii, I feel like you have a real good sense of who you are because you're, you're the majority, and I think my growing up on the island with only Japanese people, I mean, I just, I knew who I was. But then you get out and you get these subtle, nothing overt but... and then you go the other way. Now, so now everybody who looks at you a certain way, you're, you lash out. You go the other, a hundred and eighty, right? [Laughs]

SY: This was you when you were in high school?

NG: Yeah. I think I was just, we were just insulated with our group, 'cause we went, when we were seniors we went to our first, we went to the beach party with the class, with our graduating class. I mean, they live a different world. They were smoking. We were very insulated. And then my, another time was when my, I love sports, so my friends said there's a softball league and her friend belongs to the softball league. I said, "Oh good. Let's go ahead and let's join." So we go to this house and they're drinking beer. I mean, it was just, we were really naive. That's just not...

SY: And all your friends were like that too?

NG: Yeah, we were.

SY: So you stayed pretty much to your own group.

NG: Yeah, we did. [Laughs]

SY: Now, did you feel that you were different less than or different, just different?

NG: I think later on I felt less than. Yeah, definitely felt less than, that I --

SY: 'Cause you thought that this, this sort of more active or experienced group was better?

NG: Yeah, I think so. I think I felt like... the fact that I was not confident, I think that made me feel like, well, something's, something's missing here. That, why am I, if I'm feeling something that's, there's something that's there, 'cause otherwise nothing would be affecting me.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 23>

SY: And in the meantime, had, did you have any thoughts about your history of being in a camp? Or was, did that ever occur to you that that might...

NG: Had been the reason why?

SY: Or did you have any kind of reference to your past in terms of having been... did you understand even, at that point, that you were separated because you were Japanese American and put in a camp?

NG: You know, I'm trying to... I don't, I don't know. I think I'm still amazed that that all happened, that we were in camp. But definitely, you, I know my mom definitely feels like there, I think she felt -- she will never say that, but I, we talked about it once and she doesn't ever say that, but she had to feel less than because they, look what happened to them, right? I mean, they were just so strong. And I don't know, I think, I'm trying to think when I started feeling, must've been after college maybe, 'cause, again, I was around Japanese kids and at UCLA I didn't, plus the fact that I didn't, I wasn't in a dorm situation because my parents, I went schoolgirling to earn my room and board. My mom did that, when they moved out here, and they would go to high school then they lived with a Caucasian family. That's how she learned to make turkey and things like that. So of course, when I'm starting UCLA she wants me to schoolgirl.

SY: I see.

NG: And it was a lot of reasons. Well, money, I'm sure, was one, but she also felt it was character building. [Laughs] And so I did that, and I hated it. It was, 'cause you live with --

SY: You lived with --

NG: I lived with a family with two kids, and there, for my room and board they just, it was good to have me there 'cause the kids, babysit the kids, and I didn't have to do anything really, just to be there.

SY: You didn't have to cook or clean?

NG: I didn't have to cook. I washed dishes and stuff, but I really didn't have any big things. My mom, when she put the ad in the paper -- I was sick that weekend -- I mean, the phone rang off the hook.

SY: Wow.

NG: 'Cause this, people want schoolgirls, or boys, whatever.

SY: And they, these were all Caucasian families?

NG: All Caucasian out there in that area, UCLA area.

SY: In the Westwood, West L.A.

NG: Westwood area. And then, so my mom and my aunt and me, we went to go interview, and we interviewed them because my mom wanted me to have a place where I did nothing. So she, I mean, some people wanted, had me, wanted to put a, once in a while that I would, they would have these parties and they had a little uniform. My mom says, "We're not going there." [Laughs] So some houses would be gorgeous and whatever and I would like there, but she wouldn't, "No, it's too much work. You're not gonna go there." So she settled on this family 'cause all, they just needed, she had young kids and she already had her housecleaner, she already had her gardener, she already had her maid, or her, when they -- they went on a lot of trips -- she already had someone that comes in and babysits those long, where you really babysit, where you feed them and stuff. She just wants somebody in the house, so that's, we did that. But it's hard to live with a, they say you're part of the family. You're not part of the family. I mean, you're just not, even though they could be the nicest people. So I met my good friend; she lived up the block. She was doing the same thing. She was from Watsonville -- I mean she was from Victorville, and she lived with a family with just one daughter. And so we, we'd commiserate how, what a rotten way this was. [Laughs]

SY: Was that common then, being a schoolgirl, for Japanese Americans?

NG: I think for people like us, from the sticks. You know, she's from Victorville, I'm from... because all those other Japanese kids, they did not schoolgirl. They lived at Hershey Hall and they, they had apartments. [Laughs]

SY: And you did this for, how many years?

NG: Two years.

SY: Two years same family?

NG: Two, yeah, two years and then I said I don't want to do it, so they bought me a car and I commuted.

SY: So how, how did you get along with this family? I mean, were you just in and out, you didn't talk to them?

NG: No, no, no. They were very nice. We had dinner together. No, no. We were, they were very nice.

SY: And do you stay in touch with them after you left?

NG: No, I did not. I did shortly, but my gosh, I've, why didn't I? I would like to. They've always had, I must've been their tenth one 'cause -- and they were not Japanese, so other people did the same thing, but they, I think I was their first Japanese American one.

SY: Wow.

NG: But students do that, who don't have means and...

SY: Right. It's interesting that your mother came up with that idea because she did it.

NG: She did it, right. Well, character building, I think, was number one. Appreciating home. [Laughs]

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 24>

AK: I have a question. I just wonder, because your mother's of that generation, like, did you speak to her in Japanese?

NG: No, no, no. She was English speaking. She's English, she's an English speaker. Her Japanese is not very good. I mean, she would not speak to Japanese people who are fluent in Japanese. She would be, she couldn't, she would feel... she could speak to them, but she would be a little embarrassed. And she did not read or write...

SY: In Japanese.

NG: Japanese, uh-uh. Even though she went to Japanese school and all that, she didn't. She could read at probably the simple kind, but when it's, some letter came from Japan, she would call somebody to make sure that it was, she was reading it correctly.

SY: Yeah. That's pretty amazing considering she came here when she was twenty, huh? So she --

NG: No, no, no, this is my mom.

SY: Oh, sorry.

NG: She was asking about my mom.

AK: That's right. Okay. Yeah, of course your mom spoke English.

SY: Yeah, your mom spoke English 'cause she was born here. Interesting.

NG: Yeah, that's, it's sad about when you don't 'cause there's never, I could never speak to my grandmother about really important things.

SY: She was complete, she was only Japanese speaking, didn't speak English?

NG: Right. And with my limited, just no...

SY: Even though you were very close. Now, did you stay, so you stayed close to your grandmother, especially after she...

NG: Because after, in 1955 when we came, as soon as we bought the house they lived with us the whole time. So she died, so my grandfather died in, let's see, Karen was born in 1969, so 1968 he died, and she died two thousand... forgot how long ago she died. I don't remember now.

SY: Yeah, she lived to be...

NG: Hundred and five.

AK: Wow.

NG: Yeah, so she, so...

SY: And she stayed with you for many years after your grandfather died.

NG: Right. Twenty years, she lived twenty years after -- he was eighty-two, when he died at eighty-two he said, everybody said, "Oh, he lived a good, long life." Well, that's not so long today, you know? And she lived twenty-three years more. And I loved having them there. It was, but I'm sure it was not, it was not easy for my mom. But my dad, my grandmother said to me my dad never, ever said anything that made her feel unwelcome there, but I think it's 'cause he never had, he never had family. And, but you know how mothers are, they say things to their kids, and so it probably was annoying. If my grandmother said, like my grandmother, as, when she got older she'd be sitting there and she wouldn't, I said, "What's wrong?" She says the food doesn't taste good. So I go to my mom, I said she said the food doesn't taste good, 'cause I'm like, "What are you making?" And then she goes, then she's like, "Go watch her. You go, go watch her later." And of course she's eat it, she's eaten it all up. [Laughs] So I know it's hard on my mom, right, 'cause you can't help it. But as a grandchild...

SY: You liked it.

NG: Yeah, she could do no wrong.

SY: And you, when, you had conversations with her, but she spoke Japanese, you spoke English?

NG: Uh-huh.

SY: And so, but you, I mean, what are the kinds of things you talked --

NG: Yeah, so for the fact that she said how poor she was. I could get little, but I really, can't really have a conversation. And then it's funny 'cause she, it didn't matter what she said. She had, I certainly would not live by what she told me to do. Like okay, she, first of all, I could never say, call my mother-in-law "Mother." I could not. And she would say, "You need to call her mother." I said, "She's not my mother. I cannot." [Laughs] I don't call her Mother. But then I, that was it. She, I would not, I just said that, and if she said it again I said okay, okay. I would never argue with her. And they have those, their ways, but it's like --

SY: Morals?

NG: Yeah, she, like my, like my husband was a fulltime dad. He changed diapers like, there was no question, and so one day we were there and he was changing diapers, and my grandmother was horrified that I should not have a man do that. And I said, "Oh, I think he likes it." [Laughs] But I would never try to change her ways.

SY: Yeah. But she certainly, she still held onto a lot of [inaudible] --

NG: But if it was my mom who said that I would argue with her, of course. [Laughs]

SY: That's interesting. [Laughs]

NG: Not my grandmother.

SY: How, yeah, especially because you knew her for such a long time. You didn't, she lived so long, so you...

NG: I mean, she really was not, I wouldn't have chosen her for, like, my social, active, you know. She would be very right wing. [Laughs]

SY: Right. But being that she lived with you too, that was, that was a way of getting to know her really well. So when you moved out... well, you never moved out, right? You just commuted to UCLA. Wait, you lived as a schoolgirl, then you started commuting, so you went back, living back home.

NG: I did.

SY: At home.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 25>

SY: And then how did you meet your husband?

NG: He was in the neighborhood. I would have, we had our gas station, he would come in, so I knew him. And at that time there were a lot of gangs. Well, they're clubs; they're called clubs. They were clubs. And he was in one --

SY: This was in the '60s? '50s? '60s?

NG: Yeah, I guess '60s.

SY: '60s.

NG: Late '50s and early '60s, and they used to have problems. There would be fights and everything.

SY: Japanese American?

NG: Japanese Americans, yeah. Especially, like I remember going to -- this was my cousin, this is now later -- where groups of Japanese from different areas would be fighting. But anyhow, so the Valley had a club called, let's see, they, the Freelancers, I guess it was called, so they were up to no good. I mean, they were into cars. They liked, they used to have a drag strip there, up by the Hansen Dam, so all these guys were into cars, so they would get an old car and they'd fix it up and they would have these drag races. But they were up to no good. And they had, so their, it was a family -- I think the father was a gardener and the mother helped him -- I think she was a little strange, and they had these kids that today you would call special needs kids, so they, since they were, liked that family, all the guys hung out at their house and they would drink there. They had no, nobody hassled them because these parents were not parenting type parents. So none of them did well in school, and a couple of them died of drug overdose, but out of that bunch my husband's really good friend did, after the, after the service went to school and became a pharmacist. And my husband, after the service, same thing, met these two guys that had graduated college and they were doing the same, they were at Fort Bliss, Texas, and they were, he never did any, he always stayed in the States. And he was lucky; it was just after Korea and before Vietnam. So anyway, he made friends, made friends with these two guys who were both college graduates, and it kind of woke him up, you know? "Hey, we're doing the same thing. I guess I should go back to school." Unfortunately, right after high school he went to Valley and enrolled, took fifteen units, said this is not for me, so he enlisted in the service, volunteered, volunteered for the draft -- you know how it...

SY: Uh-huh.

NG: And then when he got out and decided he's gonna go back, went to Pierce, gonna start at Pierce 'cause he lived on the west side now, West Valley, and Pierce said, "I see that you have fifteen units of F's," because he didn't withdraw. [Laughs]

SY: Oh, no.

NG: So he had to get A's and B's to get it back to C level. [Laughs] But anyways, so yeah...

SY: So this was before you...

NG: So I knew him after he got out of service. The story goes that he had a girlfriend, but she sent him a "Dear John" letter.

SY: When he was in the service.

NG: Yeah, so we were, like, friends and then...

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 26>

SY: So as you were growing up, going to high school and after camp, did you feel any negative... or how did other Japanese Americans treat you if they knew that you were at Tule Lake?

NG: I did not -- yeah, I did not feel any, no one ever said, "Oh, you were --" I shouldn't say that. Some people, they said, "You were in Tule Lake?" There was, like, an inflection.

SY: Your friends?

NG: Yeah.

SY: Was there, was this from friends in high school?

NG: Yeah. Right, but it, it's like Susie Katsuda, who said, "Oh, you were in Tule Lake?" I mean, it was like, "Wow, good for you." So it all, I think it all made, it was different with different people. But it's funny you ask, because I've gone to a lot of different forums, and in fact, Phil Shigekuni wants to do this program after he saw -- I didn't get to see that film, No-No Boy, I think it was. No, not No-No Boy. It was another one. I saw No-No Boy. It was another --

SY: Right, it was The Cats of Mirikitani, was it?

NG: No, no, no. There was another play and it was, she, it was a play about, she, one of them was in Tule Lake and one of them was not, and then they, there was, and they meet years later. And after that play they had, like a...

SY: Discussion?

NG: I think it was Kashiwagi's play, the father. Anyway --

SY: Hiroshi.

NG: -- so Phil wanted to do, he felt that there needs to be, like, a healing for that group of people, and so he said, so I went to my, 'cause I said my parents never talked about being, feeling less than that they went to Tule Lake, and so I went, I did it several times, asked my mom and my aunt if they ever felt any hostility from the Japanese American community just because you went to Tule Lake. And they both say no. They just, they did not. But Phil, who has already this, he finds that kind of hard to believe, but I mean, I've said, "They say no." And I know as a, today, in today's context, I'm happy, I'm glad my dad said no 'cause I said to him, I think I told this story about one Sunday -- 'cause we used to go to dinner every Sunday at my mom's -- and I said, "You know, the radio could be saying, 'Go to camp,' and you just went to camp. But at least you said 'no-no.'" [Laughs] So today, in this context it's different, but, so I don't really... and especially with all the, more and more people bringing those things out, you don't, I don't feel less than. I feel like I'm glad we were...

SY: Yeah.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 27>

SY: I want to get on to your being very active in the San Fernando JACL, but maybe we can get back to this question. I wanted to ask you about that because the JACL has a history of Tule Lake.

NG: I know. In fact, when I joined JACL my dad was not very happy 'cause he, he remembers all the, one of the reasons, well, all the, that they were not looking out for him or the community, he felt.

SY: So let's, let's go back to, 'cause you went to UCLA and you were, were you in a sorority, Japanese American sorority at UCLA?

NG: Yeah. Well, just the last year, as a senior. I don't know why, this, my friend and I just out of a whim said let's, let's join. So we --

SY: And what was that like?

NG: It was like, I just thought it was funny, this little ritual, little singing. I don't know, we were just like, "Why did we do this?" I mean, they were nice. It was fun. The dances were fun. People were nice and had fun activities, but it was, like, corny. But, and we were seniors. I mean, what, it wasn't like this is, it wasn't something that we took seriously. It's funny because even my, my daughter, she -- my older, my younger daughter would not join, but my older daughter -- joined the Thetas and, in fact, was pledge mom. And so one of the, what do you call, socials, pledge mom things, whatever they had, presents, Yas and I went, and he's going, "Oh my god, is this serious?" [Laughs] But...

SY: But he, but you...

NG: But it was, I think they have, it's fun.

SY: Now, you mentioned Yas, so tell, Yas is obviously your husband, so give us his full name.

NG: Yasunori.

SY: Yasunori.

NG: Gohata.

SY: Gohata. And so he grew up in, in...

NG: The Valley.

SY: The Valley also.

NG: He was, they were in Los Angeles, I think living in Los Angeles, but after the war they settled in Sun Valley. His mother is Kibei, father, mother was Kibei and the father was Issei, so they, he had a whole different -- he's not, was not close to his family. I think language and also different kind of thinking. Father was a gardener, mother cleaned house. My mom cleaned house too, before the gas station.

SY: Right. So your father, he came to the gas station, so your father knew him.

NG: Yeah.

SY: First? Before you met him?

NG: I don't know, same time maybe. [Laughs]

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 28>

SY: So after you were married, then did you go, did you, what did you end up becoming professionally?

NG: Yes, I was a teacher. So we got married in '64. He, so he, now he's going to school because right after that he decided he needs to go back to school.

SY: So you supported him while he went to school.

NG: Yeah. But he also, but he still worked. He still worked. He went to school. The first two years, 'cause he was in junior college, he worked fulltime as a draftsmen at RCA, and then went to school at night. And then, then when he had to speed it up, then, I don't, I think he worked part time. Not quite sure. But then he went to engineering. That West Coast no longer exists, but he used to be a... all the classes are at night 'cause it's for working people, and it's engineering, and engineering school. So yeah, so then when Karen was two years old he finally finished.

SY: Wow.

NG: But he still, then, so he was still at RCA, but just now became an engineer.

SY: And you were working?

NG: Yeah, I was working. Well no, I was, I was on childcare from when she was born, stayed home for three years. I would sub now and then. And then I get the letter from LAUSD, she was -- no, I was home for three years, and then Kim was born in March of that third year, and I get a letter from the... 'cause we were all on childcare. There's tons of us all on childcare and they needed to, they needed to get a handle on things, so LAUSD sent me a letter saying I need to come back in September or I resign. And I'm home, I mean, I can't imagine working and taking care of these kids. And as I saw my neighbor every morning bundling up her kids, I cannot do this. And I remember Yas coming home and I'm greeting him at the door and I've got the letter and I'm crying. He goes, "What?" And, but I couldn't think of, I couldn't imagine me not teaching. I mean, as a career, not to be working, I just couldn't see that. So I get my mom to watch Karen. I start to, today she'll be in childcare whatever, and everybody's gonna do this and everybody's gonna do that, and my mom goes, "You act like you're the only one working." [Laughs] But once you start you just...

SY: You manage to...

NG: You manage to do it.

SY: Really? Wow. So you never stopped --

NG: Yeah. But I had family. I had family. Two days a week she did go to, she did go to a daycare, but then my mom, from the gas station, would not go those three days and watch Karen, then my mom got a Japanese lady to come to my mom's house and take care of Kim as an infant. Then when they got old enough, then my aunt, my aunt took care of all the kids, my kids, later on my brother's kids, 'cause she had one the same age as Karen.

SY: Wow. That, again, I come back to the, your family was really very close and supportive of each other.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And it's not just your immediate family; it's this extended family.

NG: Yeah, 'cause that's the hardest part, the childcare, you know? 'Cause my daughter, I watch my grandkids, and my older one, we, we've been the only caregivers for her. She teaches. But my other one who lives in Westchester, she's always, she's been lucky, but she has a person that comes in -- she used to live across the street, so it was great. It's very costly, and luckily she has a job that she could afford it. Otherwise...

SY: So do you, do you feel like it's been a good thing to have... I mean, are there advantages and disadvantages to having this family unit that's managed to stay together for so many years? This, because, largely because there's so many siblings, right?

NG: Right, yeah, but we, we've had, there's one, now I'm estranged from one of my cousins.

SY: And the woman, and the aunt who had the eight kids, that family is, are you close to that family?

NG: No, that's the family now I'm estranged with, for, I don't, circumstances I don't want to put on here. [Laughs] But we were, 'cause the eldest... they're gone. My auntie's gone, my uncle's gone. In fact, all, she had three daughters, they're all gone. They died before my grandmother. My grandmother said this is not right that she should be living and they're not. But the, and she being the eldest, the eldest grandson was, the eldest child, who happened to be a grandson, was my grandmother's first grandson.

SY: And how many grandkids did your --

NG: She had, like, twenty-seven.

SY: That's a lot.

NG: Yeah, and then we made, we did this tree. But, so and then, she was like sixteen, she had to get married, so he, and he was like four -- premature -- he was like four pounds, so he was very special to all the aunties because my auntie was, like, they didn't feel that responsible to have all these kids. And so, and he became, as an adult, like the leader of the family, so when there was a funeral or whatever, he's the one that was at our house when my dad died or my grandmother died or my, you know. He handled everything. So, but I'm estranged from his family now, so it's kind of...

SY: But for the most part your family has managed to stay pretty much...

NG: And my parents are still -- I mean, my parents, my mom is still, and now I only have one aunt left and my mom, the only two children left. And of course, they're close too. They're still close.

SY: Close to each other.

NG: Yeah.

SY: Yeah, that's nice.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 29>

SY: So when you, when did you finally, well, when did you decide to join the JACL? When you said that your --

NG: Yeah, in fact, it's funny 'cause we're working on membership and in our newsletter we're gonna start writing why we joined. But I was, like I said, I was searching, 'cause why was I making fun of everything that was Japanese? You know, it was a self hate thing, right? So they just happened to be around when I was in that state. Phil was president, I went to my first meeting --

SY: Phil Shigekuni?

NG: Phil Shigekuni was president, went to my first meeting, they had a speaker and he, I forgot. I don't even remember who it was, but it resonated, their programs resonated with me because it was looking into who we are and the kinds of things we do. And what it might -- and Dr. Kitano came several times.

SY: Harry Kitano.

NG: Yeah, Harry Kitano came, and he was, as he was describing, I just remember one, one story he told about... you know, without being, even though there's Yonsei, Sansei, Yonseis, he's talking about this young man who was in his doctoral program and he's acculturated and yet he said without being taught he's playing basketball, this young man, and he's talking to him about how he's not particularly fond of this one player. And he said, "You know, he's a hotdogger." And so Dr. Kitano was saying, even though he, it's many generations, to him he still has that Japanese, some kind of character that the teamwork was more important than he making these baskets. So anyway, that's why I, all the different programs. And then Dr. Ichioka came and did that whole thing on the Isseis. I just felt that of all, that group will give, will bring to me things that I'm interested in. So they brought Rashomon to our community center, so that's... and the people I like.

SY: And do you remember what year that was that you joined JACL?

NG: About '74 maybe. '74, yeah.

SY: '74, so your, you, your kids were...

NG: Like two years, Kim was like two years old and --

SY: So fairly young still.

NG: Yeah, four or five years old.

SY: And did your husband join with you?

NG: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then, because they were young, and then they had also family, they had holiday parties and, and they all had young -- but they were older, so then they kind of took care, like Phil's kids kind of took care of my girls. So it was comfortable then.

SY: Yeah. It was really, so you were part of a, the, I mean, this JACL really pretty much encompassed the Valley Japanese American community?

NG: I don't think so, no. Not at all.

SY: Just a small portion of --

NG: Yeah, because there was a divide. The people who started the CC, they were farmers.

SY: Community Center.

NG: The Community Center. They were farmers, they were gardeners.

SY: I see.

NG: And they saw -- the JACL people, they were engineers, lot of engineers, the men -- and I felt there was a divide because I felt like... I don't know, they felt, I felt like the JACL, okay, maybe they did, they provided intellectual things, but when the community needed brawn and some real help, where were they? You know? So I felt like there was this division. And the VFW too, I just felt like they, the VFW felt, they felt they were more grassroots. They're really Valley people. And then if you look at the JACL, they were, these people were not from the Valley. Most of them came from Los Angeles, most of them didn't have, like many of the ones from the Valley, they got -- just like our family, we have a Hamamoto clan -- there were all these big clans of people, and to me the JACL people were like outsiders. So these outsiders then formed a group.

SY: Interesting.

NG: Yeah, 'cause...

SY: Did it, did it reflect back on the formation of the JACL during the war of the before the war? I mean, was there a connection?

NG: I think there might have been. Those like my dad wouldn't have anything to do with the JACL, so I'm sure the older ones --

SY: But the ones who started your chapter, the San Fernando Valley, who were the ones who started?

NG: They started it before the war.

SY: So it was a continuation of the chapter from prewar days, so there was that connection to...

NG: And I just found out, like Mabel Takimoto, who was one of the presidents and was part of the prewar JACL, she was out there with Mike Masaoka explaining to the community how you should cooperate with the government. So I'm sure people like my dad, he would not be part of that conversation with somebody. That was on that side of the fence, you know?

SY: Right.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 30>

SY: So what is, what role do you play now with the JACL? What do, what...

NG: Well, I still feel we provide those kinds of cultural and civil rights, we bring out, I think, all the civil rights issues that no -- the CC, CC is, our community center is like the umbrella. They, there's an athletic program that's part of the CC, and there's a senior group that provides all the things for the seniors. And they do, they are, because it all depends on the leadership, but if there's a certain leader then they do provide the cultural, but for the most part our, to me, JACL has the interest and the focus, 'cause that's our focus, is civil rights and cultural awareness, and that's why I continue to stay, 'cause I think that's important.

SY: So they, in some, in a lot of ways they've become more progressive over the years, your particular chapter. Or do you think JACL as a whole has become more progressive?

NG: I think we're, we, because of the leaders we've had, like Paul Tsuneishi was like, when the redress movement started, I mean, it was Paul, Phil and Sue that started that, but it was really Paul who organized that EO 9066, so --

SY: Group, this is a separate group from --

NG: Right, because JACL was, they're so conservative they didn't, so... but of course, we still, even though we were separate, we still knew that JACL was important. And maybe they couldn't initiate, they couldn't do that, but they were certainly supportive.

SY: So when you joined, then that whole issue was just starting to become apparent. And did you feel that you took sides, or did you, how, what position did you take?

NG: Well, first, I think it started, well the, in 1976, this was, yeah, 1976 was when Richard Yamauchi was our president, and he was still a student, and so he told us about the Manzanar pilgrimage and that we as a chapter should participate. And they had, this was their seventh pilgrimage, so it's been a while, and so we got a, Paul got us a free bus from the city and it was packed, and it was all Issei, Niseis, Sanseis, and Yonseis on that bus. It was absolutely the best. Was a lot of sharing that Phil did and -- Phil Shigekuni and Paul Tsuneishi did -- it was really a really good trip, and we had a lot of, big group of Isseis that went. But -- I told you this, right? It was, okay, there was a windstorm and they did not get off the bus. It was so, so terrible, and I had said they only got out to see Wendy Yoshimura. [Laughs]

SY: Who was the speaker.

NG: But anyway, I came back really motivated from that trip, thinking that this is, we have to do this every year. And I knew that we couldn't afford it. People will pay to go out there to the desert, so my cousin and I, we started, and with JACL's help, we started a Manzanar Bus Fund, so that when we had bake sales and whatever. So there was always money to fund a bus, so we went for twenty years.

SY: Twenty years you took the...

NG: Yeah, we took that.

SY: That group. And you were pretty much in charge of that, then.

NG: Yeah, so Yas and I were in charge of the bus. And it, I mean, after umpteen years you just kind of... and I never -- okay, so then the redress movement started -- we never thought it was gonna happen, but we knew the education had to be there, and so the first thing they did was put out that questionnaire to see what the community thought. 'Cause everybody, I mean, Phil went to the VFW, he went to West L.A. JACL, they said forget it, nobody, we're all fine now. But then when Rafu did that survey and the people said they want individual compensation, individual reparation, redress, then I said okay, that's what we need to work on 'cause that's what, this is what we have to do. And I, and they worked very hard and they worked with JACL, they worked with Mineta, and I remember, and we went to a lot of fundraisers, and I remember when Phil came back and said, "They're not gonna go with the redress. They're gonna go with this commission." And I remember being so angry. You know, there's JACL again. They just can't put their foot out, can't do the right thing. But you know, that was the best thing that ever happened because it really is not the money. It's really the education, and that, those commission hearings was an eye opener for everybody, and it made people like my mom and dad who never said anything, not sharing... so it was, it would've, it had to be that way, I think.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 31>

SY: And what was your participation in the commission hearings? Did you --

NG: No, I just, I was not part of it. I just went to...

SY: You did go to the --

NG: Yeah, just went to go hear 'em. But, you know...

SY: So you went how many days?

NG: I know I went a couple of days, and I think only one night 'cause when I went during the day, then I dragged my husband after work. I said, "You gotta, you gotta hear this."

SY: So that, so you were, after the commission hearings, then you felt like that was the right thing to do.

NG: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I heard stories -- but even today we're hearing things, I'm hearing things that I didn't know. But definitely at that time it was, like, an eye opener, did not know these stories at all. Nobody's, nobody ever shared stories like that.

SY: Did the San Fernando Valley JACL, did they recruit people for the hearings? Do you remember?

NG: I think they did. I think, I mean, they encouraged Dr. Oda, I know.

SY: Mary Oda.

NG: Yeah, went. And I was shocked that my mother, our good friend, he testified and he's not a leader or anything, but he... yeah, I think that's what was so surprising, that people not in the news, just regular folk, had the courage to go up there and tell their story. Yeah.

SY: And were your parents part of that group who really wanted to, were disappointed that they were gonna have these hearings and then ended up --

NG: No, they, they just were not part of the process, so it didn't matter to them. I mean, they didn't have an opinion one way or another.

SY: So after the hearings did you stay, or did you do anything more to be part of the whole redress?

NG: Yeah, well, the kinds of things you do. You know how you go to fundraisers and how you do, write letters and all that kind of stuff.

SY: So you were involved in that.

NG: Yeah. We did those kinds of things.

SY: And that was with the JACL?

NG: With JACL, but you know, you, I mean, none of us thought this is gonna happen. None of us. It just, it was just unheard of, that... it's not gonna happen. 'Cause it, we'd done a lot of letter writings, on different issues. This was not...

SY: Right. So how, so when it passed and when you got your check, did your, did you -- well, you had such a big family, everybody, you probably could've started something. [Laughs]

NG: I don't think we celebrated. It was just, I don't think it was like a celebration. It was just, I don't know, just something that happened.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 32>

SY: You know, I love the stories you've told about being on the Manzanar bus for all those many years and some of the people who went with you on the pilgrimage. Can you tell us some of those stories about some of the people who went?

NG: Well, I was just saying that, how it was, it got to be a chore, but after the day you knew why you did it, because people who had never been, this was their first time, they'd come, came back with that same kind of emotion I felt. So you knew it was worth it. And I was saying how... was it Tomai? No, Tonai. No...

SY: Min Tonai.

NG: Min Tonai's niece came when we were, I think must've been the, when they opened, and so she lived up north and so she was on that trip. He had called and said, "She wants to go on the trip. Can you reservice it?" Sure. Didn't realize that she was there when she was an eighteen year old years before, and how that trip and that whole, opened up her, her feeling for the career that she chose, Rosalyn Tonai. So you know, those kind of things that just... and I know Dr. Oda did not want to go for the longest time, and when she finally did it was like catharsis for her.

SY: She went on your bus, huh?

NG: Yeah, she did. That was the year we had a couple of buses, and she wasn't on the one I was riding on, but... yeah. And I remember one year one of the fellows that was in the children's orphanage, he was a hapa and it was hard for him being a hapa in that children's camp, but he came. There was a woman professor from Boston, I think, and she was, she came on it for something she'd, her studies or something, but she wanted to experience this. I remember being, there was always students, so one year they had this program where we all got in a circle and, to talk about being in camp, so the kids, of course, they're young, they are, they're irate, "How could this have happened?" And then there, here are these Isseis who are seventy, sixty and seventy years old, and they're saying, "You know, we really had kind of a good time," and they, those kids didn't want to hear that. [Laughs] So, but yeah, it was a good experience, a lot of, lot of people.

SY: To do it for twenty years, though, was pretty amazing.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And then finally you just said...

NG: Yeah, and it was, it was also to where you would get, I would get very discouraged 'cause to me I felt like everybody should go on this. Why wouldn't you go on this trip? And pretty soon I'm, it was hard to fill the bus, and then where most, the majority of them were not from the San Fernando Valley, so then I said I think it's time to...and they still call during the Manzanar time. "Are you gonna, is there gonna be a bus?" So we have, we've gone, we've done, when the opening, did it again, and then we, for our thirty-fifth or one of those we... this time was under JACL. We dissolved the Manzanar Bus Fund and put it with the JACL.

SY: JACL. So your group is now paying those special fines that they take the bus out.

NG: Yeah.

SY: So you developed a relationship with Sue Embrey over the years?

NG: Yeah, so I go, so I go to my first pilgrimage and I want to get involved, so I go to this meeting. And I, it's six people doing this, all this work, and they used to come every year asking for money and I remember one board member saying, "You know what? Why don't they get a grant," or do whatever. Then I realized it's six people, you know? Then, and she was always so good. She would help us with the buses. Well, Tak Yamamoto worked on her committee, so he always got the bus for us, and she always kept us abreast of what was happening. And we always had Mas Okui, who always, he used to -- we lost him to the teachers, but he would do the narration and he would lead us -- that was a new thing we started too, where when he came we'd get off the bus and then he would, we would go through the camp and walk over to the cemetery area. And then as soon as UTLA started then we lost him, but he would always come home with us and give us a talk. He's great.

SY: So, yeah.

NG: And then Ralph Lazo too, he used to, came on our bus a couple of times, and he, you know he, I don't think he would've shared anyway, even though we would, he didn't want to talk about ever 'cause he always felt it was a Japanese... you know. But a wonderful man that came with us.

SY: Wow. That's amazing, 'cause you, yeah, so you got sort of...

NG: Yeah, and he was, he's just, he... 'cause I was teaching at San Fernando Elementary at that time and we used to have career day, so he, I'd always get him because he was a counselor, so he'd come and talk as a counselor. He was also a park ranger, so he would come and talk as a park ranger. [Laughs] Just a neat guy.

SY: Really? It's nice that you got to know him.

NG: Yeah.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 33>

SY: So now your role in the JACL, what, how do you see your role now and how, what direction are you going?

NG: Well, I'm still committed, I feel, still feel there's a need for a JACL. We're not, it's too bad, maybe how we could change that so that it's not Japanese Americans, 'cause it's not Japanese American and in our vision we don't, there's no Japanese and there's Asian Pacific Islanders, and disenfranchised communities. So I wish we could change our, somehow, our name, but I still feel there's a need. Our president is Brian Moriguchi and he, his friends, his peers, they don't, they feel they're, they don't need it. There's not a need for it like it was back in '60s or '70s. and I don't, and his father was very, very active, president and everything, but he, the only reason he got involved was because of what happened to him in the sheriff's when they were, found all these negative, stereotypical epitaphs written and the supervisors wouldn't do anything. So he sued the department, to his, I mean, he lost a lot of years as far as moving up the department, and then JACL was there to support him, I think at that time, personally, it affected him. He felt that he, he was happy that there was an organization like that. And then, now that he's part of us I just feel like he really does appreciate the kind of work we do. And there's a lot of things that most, the Community Center people, they like going to the, they like going to Pachanga or, they like going to the, to the casinos. [Laughs] And if they're, so when we, to me, we can provide programs -- we showed The Harimaya Bridge this year, this past, yeah, this year, I mean, two hundred people came 'cause they're, maybe they're not up to go out to the theater. And then we brought, luckily Dan Taguchi brought his Manzanar musical to our center; we had three hundred people that came. And we had Grateful Crane that put on their camp dance, and so I feel like who, who else? We're there. And then our, like our speaker for the installation's going to be Julie Su, who is, who's now working in, who was just appointed by the governor in labor relations, but she was the head, lead attorney for that garment, the El Monte garment people. So I think our community needs to know that there are people like that. And your film, they're not gonna see that film. I mean, it's just...

SY: Well, it's nice that you have a community that supports the work that you do. So the San Fernando Valley, which is really outside of Los Angeles, the greater, well, it's far, it's really a separate suburb kind of --

NG: Right.

SY: -- that --

NG: Yeah, like Day of, the Day of Remembrance, you don't see Valley people there. So it's, I think it's important.

SY: Yeah, it's really pretty, somehow it's a little more isolated in Los Angeles, but yet you have a fairly strong base, right? I mean, there's still quite a few Japanese American families.

NG: There's a lot of families out in our valley. We just don't know them. They don't, we, they get involved first through athletics.

SY: Right, 'cause the young people, right?

NG: Yeah. And that's, that's a whole new, that's their life for, until high school. [Laughs]

SY: So it's really nice that there's, is there a core leadership group at your organization that, I mean, you're a part of that little core group that's sort of maintaining activities.

NG: Yeah, we're getting, we're trying, we need to recruit 'cause we're always, we're old, you know? Our board is old. And we, trying to find... we have this very, doctoral student on our board and just, he keeps us informed of the things that are happening out there. He just, we just got a new, they were going to disband that Asian Studies at Cal State L.A. I mean, a lot of work and a lot of petitioning, and they got it reinstated. But he keeps us abreast of issues and cultural events that have to do with the different ethnic communities.

SY: And are other people in your family, besides your, I guess there's one cousin who's very active, right, in the...

NG: Yeah, he's gone.

SY: Oh, he's gone.

NG: He did, he had the same, he had a real feel for... he was in Manzanar. It was an important, I think he liked, that was an important part of his life in his own self esteem, 'cause I think you're with a lot of your, you're not... 'cause his parents, my auntie and uncle, they stopped, after the eighth child they no longer were together. I mean, they never divorced, but there was always this estranged... so I think that period where must've been a lot of good, must've been a happy time 'cause they were all together at that time, so when I approached him about -- he didn't go on that first one, but after that he was part of it, and yeah, he felt it was important.

SY: So among the family he's probably one of the most supportive?

NG: He was, yeah. Yes, absolutely. And he, but he passed away.

SY: And your mom's still, and your mom's still around, which is nice.

NG: Right, yeah. She's good.

SY: Yeah. And your daughters, do they talk to her about, do you all talk to her about camp and her experiences in camp?

NG: No, we have not. But we should. This will kind of motivate us to ask more questions.

SY: Well I'm, I think we're gonna close because we've gone over and I think Ann needs to take a break. But thank you so much, Nancy.

NG: Okay. Thank you.

SY: Fabulous.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.