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AR: How old did your father live to?

MM: My father must have been about eighty-five or something like that. My mother was 104. We've got that picture of her there. She was, on her 100th birthday, we had a party for her at the Ranch Kitchen. So somewhere around there I've got all those pictures.

AR: When... the 1950s, the federal government allowed Japanese immigrants to become U.S. citizens. I was wondering if your father ever became a U.S. citizen?

MM: Well, at that time, I guess, that must have been when he did. Because he became a citizen around that time there and so did my mother.

AR: Oh, okay. Your mother hadn't been a citizen either?

MM: No.

AR: Was that something important to your father to become a citizen?

MM: It was important to them, yeah. So they both went to school to become citizens and they both got their, at the same time.

AR: Oh, yeah. Was that you think in the '50s, maybe?

MM: Yeah. I was married already, I know. So...

AR: When did your father and mother retire?

MM: Well, since they were retired, they done the same thing all the way through. She was... they, my mother and my dad lived down here and... well, my mother was always at home. My sister had been married and had I don't know how many kids, and she took care of those kids. That was Margaret, and she was supposed to be the secretary and the smart one. She had about five kids and my mother was the one that raised them. And my sister, Josephine, she helped raise them, too, and she had about two or three kids herself. And I was the only one that was already married and my husband wouldn't even let me take the kids down there. I said, "Why?" And he says, "They got enough kids over there. They don't need anymore."

AR: So what did your sister do? She was a secretary?

MM: Yes, she was. She worked here for the... oh what is it? Oh, she working with the government and then she moved to California and she worked there the rest of the time. She retired from there, that is Margaret, she was with the government all along.

AR: I see. Okay.

MM: Yeah. But that was after the war.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2012 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.