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DC: So can you tell us about your childhood in Albuquerque before the war? What part of town did you live in?
MM: What kind of what?
DC: What part of town did you live in?
MM: In the south valley.
ET: Yeah, in Armijo.
MM: Armijo, yeah.
DC: So how were you treated by people of non-Japanese ancestry as you were growing up?
MM: They were nice to us.
ET: We never had any problems.
MM: No problem. They showed us how to speak, how to eat chili beans.
DC: How to eat chili beans?
MM: Uh-huh, and showed Mother how to make tortillas and she could really make good tortillas, too.
DC: So your whole neighborhood was mostly Spanish-speaking?
MM: Hispanics, uh-huh.
ET: We had some folks that were black folks, but they were really nice to us, too. And they had a big family, so overall everybody treated us nice.
MM: Yeah, that was nice you know.
DC: Did you have a lot of interaction with white people or white kids growing up?
ET: Oh yes, quite a bit.
DC: Where? At school or...
MM: At school. And then they'd take us home with them to meet their folks and all and they'd come to our house. And it just became a real nice relationship.
DC: Uh-huh. Were Japanese customs and traditions or Japanese language part of your life when you were small?
MM: Of course. You know... and gradually we got to where we didn't know how to speak Japanese really, and it bothered my folks. So they decided they'd send us to my aunt's place in California so we could go learn the Japanese culture.
DC: I see. Is that when your whole family moved to California?
MM: No, we kids went out first, and then later they all moved out, we all moved out.
DC: Oh. So you went there as a permanent move or you just went to your aunt's house to visit sometimes?
MM: Well, for a while, it was permanent. It wasn't because we...
ET: No, You just stayed.
MM: We stayed there and the folks opened up a grocery store there, a produce store. And, then finally my dad decided he wanted to come back to New Mexico, and that's where we came back.
ET: That's when the war broke.
MM: Uh-huh, after the war broke, yeah. And then we just didn't come home. Charlie's family came with us and we all...
ET: Well, it would be my dad's sister, his family, her family, so actually our cousin was married to Charlie's older brother, so that's the reason the families all came together, and my... so we had people that vouched for my dad.
CM: Goto and Matsubara, and the four families.
ET: Yeah, four families, yes.
DC: Four families came back?
ET: Uh-huh.
DC: Okay. Do you know about when you moved to California and when your parents joined you?
MM: Oh, when we moved back to Albuquerque?
DC: No when you moved to California.
MM: Oh, when we moved.
ET: We went to school there, yeah, we finished high school over there in California.
MM: That's true. We went to learn the Japanese culture, didn't learn too much. [Laughs]
DC: Were you part of a bigger Japanese community there?
MM: Uh-huh.
ET: Oh yeah, they were, they were all over.
MM: We went to the Japanese school. We went to the American school first, and on Saturdays we all went to Japanese school. We didn't learn too much.
ET: I think we were too old. [Laughs]
DC: What kind of things did they teach you at the Japanese school?
MM: Well just grammar and...
CM: Read and write?
MM: Huh?
CM: Read and write.
MM: Read and write, yeah, that was difficult. To write Japanese.
ET: So we had the younger kids, we had to compete with them.
DC: How old were most of your classmates in the Japanese school?
ET: Oh they were really young when they, because we were already...
MM: We were already in the tenth grade when we went out there, you know. And the little Japanese kids are cute. We just, it was comical. They'd snicker because she and, my sister and I were... "How come those old ladies are with us?"
DC: Was there anybody else your age in the Japanese school?
ET: Oh yes, uh-huh.
MM: They knew that we were in high school already, you know. But it's been fun.
<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2012 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.