<Begin Segment 12>

LD: Because you said, how come you're not a crotchety old man, you said.

EU: Yeah.

LD: How come, "I don't know why I'm not a crotchety old man?"

EU: Oh, I don't know. I should be, maybe, but I don't think... there have been too many good things in life, too many blessings. I guess in the nature of the work, the career I have chosen, through the YMCA, with all of its faults, it taught me to be able to work with people, and to look for the best in people and I still do.

LD: Do your kids know all of your stories?

EU: No, they don't, almost none of it. My children have, I think, maybe they're embarrassed to ask me. I've been reluctant to sit them down to tell them my life story, we don't do these things. Hopefully maybe at some time, they'll want to, they'll be curious enough to ask, plan to share with them what our life was like growing up.

LD: Why do you think they haven't asked? We've heard this about the Sansei, not being able to ask their Nisei parents about their stories.

EU: I sometimes wonder about why our children may be embarrassed to ask about it, our growing up days. But I think it may be because enough times they heard from their parents, and we've told our kids, "Hey, you don't know how hard it was growing up." Tell 'em, "Hey, if you think things are bad now, we knew what poverty was like." Well, they don't want... I don't think they want to embarrass us by having to ask us, "What was it like to be poor? What was it like to go without rice on the table?" Because I think that'd be terribly embarrassing. They ask for so much, we give them so much materially, that it would be difficult for them to ask us, "Mom, what was it like not to have a dog you wanted for Christmas? A pair of shoes you wanted for your birthday? What was it like to put cardboard in your shoe in order to cover the hole so that you didn't have to walk bare feet?"

LD: I guess you would also like them to know about what your mother and father were like because...

EU: I think so.

LD: What would you want them to know about your father and your mother? What would you want them to know?

EU: Well, I think what I would like... and I think my son has somewhat captured the essence of what his grandfather was like. Mainly that he was a pretty proud individual, he was a self-made man, a very talented man, he was an artist, all kinds of things. Because if it wasn't for his admiration for his grandfather, he wouldn't have named his son George. Then he doesn't know his grandmother on his father's side, my mother. We've not talked too much about my mother, because she died at an early age. But he remembers very dearly Grandma Setsue on his mother's side, who in her own right was a marvelous, marvelous woman. She was the greatest.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.