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MU: Okay, this is an interview with Takashi Matsui. The interview is taking place here in Seattle. I am the interviewer, my name is Marvin Uratsu. Tak, let's start off with the question: where you were born?

TM: I was born in Hood River, Oregon. Hood River is about eighty miles east of Portland, Oregon, along the Columbia River.

MU: And when was that? When were you born?

TM: Oh, a long time ago. [Laughs] 1917.

MU: Makes you about eighty. How many brothers and sisters?

TM: I have two... well, I had two brothers and two sisters. But my immediate brother died in the Japanese army during the last war. So now I have -- and then one of the sisters died -- so I only have one brother and one sister.

MU: Are they still in Japan then?

TM: They are still in Japan, yes.

MU: Now, where did your parents come from?

TM: My, both my parents came from Fukuoka, southern part of Japan.

MU: Any special reason for them to come to Hood River?

TM: I understood that somebody decided that that was a good place to be. Because it was sort of a dry country, they raised fruits, you know, apples and whatnot. And work is supposed to be so hard. So, not only my parents, but also his cousin -- cousins, settled in Hood River, I guess, early part of the century.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.