<Begin Segment 6>

SY: So at the time you were the only child?

AM: Yeah.

SY: And subsequently, did you, did your parents have other children?

AM: Another, I have another brother.

SY: Just one brother, who was, when was he born?

AM: He was born in Manzanar, 1945.

SY: I see. And his name is...

AM: Brian Tadashi Maeda.

SY: So all these prewar years, you were really the only son.

AM: Yeah.

SY: So your father, then, probably, did he put a lot of pressure on you?

AM: Well, I think he did. He, I remember when I'd say something that he thought was bad, why, he'd let me know it was bad and... [laughs]

SY: Yeah, the snake incident would probably be a good... [laughs] And in the meantime, what, how was, what was your mother like? What would, how would you describe her?

AM: She was always, she worked in the nursery. And we had a Hispanic help and she knew how to communicate with him, and I thought that my haha, she could speak Spanish, but I found out when I took up Spanish that she was pretty close but not the correct Spanish word. It sounded, sounded like the real word. [Laughs] But the helper understood what she was saying.

SY: She learned on the job, right?

AM: Yeah.

SY: She learned, never went to school for it, just learned.

AM: No.

SY: So she, so did you have to work too on the, in the nursery?

AM: Yes. When I was in junior high school I had to wheelbarrow sand and manure and soil and make different piles, and then with a shovel I had to mix it, left hand, right hand. And in junior high school, when we had to get into our gym shorts, my classmates would envy my biceps because they were larger than usual. [Laughs]

SY: So it paid off, all that hard work. Were you, were you in sports in high, in junior high school?

AM: Not to a great extent. Track and, I don't know what you call it today, but we'd take a football and drop kick it to hit a target or punt to a target, things like that.

SY: So you, and this was at what high school?

AM: This was at Lincoln Junior High School.

SY: Lincoln Junior High School. You never made it high school before the war. You were still in junior high school.

AM: Yes, I went to Santa Monica High School for almost a full year.

SY: So you were almost graduated when the --

AM: No, just a, the first grade in high school.

SY: Tenth grade.

AM: Freshman, junior, senior, it's a three year high school, and at my age I don't remember if it was freshman, junior, senior or what.

SY: But you were, at least you had spent, you remember how many years were in high school there at Santa Monica, how many years?

AM: Not quite one.

SY: Okay.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.