<Begin Segment 23>

TI: So now I want to ask about raising kids. So both you and Alice were Niseis, and you have three boys, Japanese Americans, Sanseis. Did you do anything, you and Alice, in terms of consciously thinking about Japanese culture, Japanese identity, for your Sansei children?

YM: Not particularly, I don't think. There weren't too many opportunities for that, I don't think. Alice was, you know, she was sort of more steeped in Japanese culture than I was. In San Francisco, they have a lot more Japanese activities, and her father being very active in the Japanese community there. So she was very good at Japanese language and she used to communicate with our relatives in Japan in Japanese. But she spoke Japanese pretty well. But here, among the Niseis, maybe just like we're doing here, we just speak in English and don't have too much Japanese culture as far as certain activities. Of course, food, we always enjoy Japanese food.

TI: Well, so for instance, like on New Year's Day, did you have like a special, special foods for the family?

YM: No. We used to, when my parents were alive, we'd have Japanese food. And we'd do mochitsuki, which is making mochi from rice, you know, that sort of stuff. But not so much now.

TI: Well, the mochi making, did you do it traditionally with the pounding?

YM: With the pounding, yeah.

TI: And this is when the Isseis were around, or more recently?

YM: Well, this is mainly when my parents were still alive. We'd drive down to Detroit, they were still there, and we'd drive down there and on New Year's, we'd have mochitsuki. And my mother would be the one that cooked the rice, and then she'd turn the thing over while my brother and I would pound the rice. [Laughs] That was delicious, really enjoyed that.

TI: Good. And anything like, any Japanese festivals like Obon dancing, Bon Odori, stuff like that?

YM: They do have Obon here. I don't attend them, but they have lantern lighting services and all that sort of stuff. The JACL group does that, I believe. And there are a lot of Japanese from Japan are here, the new, we call them Shin Issei, new Isseis. And they do a lot of that, but I don't get involved with that.

TI: And so looking at your three sons, have any of them expressed any interest in Japan or Japanese culture? Like have they traveled to Japan, have they shown interest?

YM: Well, I mentioned Susie, Helen's daughter that my second son married. When he married Susie -- Helen's family is Buddhist, and our kids were raised as Protestants. And when David married Susie, he became a Buddhist. They were married in a Buddhist service and everything. And Susie was a very devout Buddhist, and they often spoke about going, taking time and going to California to the Institute of Buddhist Studies to study Buddhism for a period, like a year or so. But unfortunately, she died before that happened. My son then decided -- he was a lawyer -- he practiced law for about a year after she died, and then he decided, well, if he's going to go to California and do a, they decided to take this course, I think it was for a year. And when he completed the course, then they offered him a scholarship to go to Japan and study Buddhism there for four years. So he gave up law and went there and studied at the Nishi Honganji at Kyoto. And when he was finished, he became a Buddhist priest. And while he was there, he met Diane Hane, who was, she was a Sansei girl from San Francisco. She was, graduated in, she was an art major, and she was in Kyoto studying Japanese textiles. And David met her, they were living in the same dormitory. And so they got married in a Buddhist ceremony in Japan. We went there, and they were married in a Buddhist temple. Then they came back, and he, the first thing he did was become an assistant minister at the Stockton Temple. And then he became involved with the Institute of Buddhist Studies. And recently they moved to Berkeley and he became the pastor of the Berkeley Buddhist Temple, and also he's the director of Institute of Buddhist Studies where they train students to become priests, Buddhist priests, without having to go to Japan like he did. And they offer graduate courses for the university. So he speaks Japanese. When he went to Japan, he couldn't speak Japanese at all. But when he finished the course, he was very good. He translates books for other people into English and so forth, back and forth.

TI: Interesting. It's not a very common path for Sanseis to do this.

YM: No.

TI: This is the first time I've heard of someone really getting into it. And was there a particular reason you thought? I guess maybe his marriage to Susie may have influenced that, to go into Buddhism and then all that?

YM: Yeah, I think Susie influenced quite a bit in that direction. She was quite a gal.

TI: Good. So, Yo, that's all my questions I went through. And I wonder, is there anything else that I didn't ask about?

YM: Well, my eldest son, Steve, he, all three of them graduated from the University of Minnesota. And he went to Cornell to get his doctorate degree in biochemistry, and then he went to UCLA to do post-doc work. And from there, he went to work for Allergan, a pharmaceutical company. They specialize in high care products, also they manufacture Botox. He does testing for them, safety testing. That's his responsibility at Allergan.

TI: And he's still located in California?

YM: Yeah, he works in Irvine, California, but he has a home in San Clemente. Then my youngest son graduated from the University of Minnesota and he went to Mayo medical school, and there he met Jane Sexton and they married while they were seniors. And they have four kids.

TI: I'm sorry, you were telling me they all go to, a lot of them go to impressive schools.

YM: Yeah, they are real good kids.

TI: And so you have four grandchildren?

YM: Four grandchildren. David, the minister, has one son, about eighteen, I think, but the boy was born Downs, Down Syndrome. So he lives at home with them.

TI: Good. Anything else that you'd like to think back, reflect on? You mentioned Alice earlier.

YM: Yeah, I can't think of any. Of course, Alice was a dietician, she became the head therapeutic dietician at St. Joseph's Hospital here in St. Paul.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.