<Begin Segment 5>

TI: But talk about your father. He also went back to Japan to get married?

SK: Yes, because I guess he wrote to him that there was a daughter from Furukawa, which is close to his place, which was my mother. She was twenty-one, twenty-two. So he went back and got married. But then I remember when I was about nine, ten, he came to United States. 'Cause my father was, he was, he wasn't a drunkard, but every evening, he likes to have a drink. And he's always blaming the wife, that can't make good sake or something, always blaming her.

TI: This is your mother?

SK: Yeah. So I guess my mother must have wrote to her brother that he's not... because there was twenty-two years' difference. He was forty-something and she was twenty-something. So anyway, he came to take her back to Japan, divorce, take her back, but my mother says, "No, I can't do that to my brother." The old days, I guess the brother, older brother was the pillar of the family and they... because her sister, same thing happened in Japan. He was kind of a drunkard, so in those days, you had to buy the sister back. So her brother, Furukawa, had to give a lot of money, and they had to give up some buildings or something. So she says, "I can't do that to my brother."

TI: Let me see if I can summarize this. So your mother wasn't really happy in Watsonville, and so she called her brother, her brother came here to --

SK: Not the brother, a baishakunin.

TI: Oh, the baishakunin came, to possibly take her back.

SK: Yeah, come to take her back.

TI: But she said no because she knew if she did that, her brother would have to have paid a lot of money or something for that to happen.

SK: Yeah. So they had three children our age.

TI: Okay. That's interesting.

SK: Learned from my mother, gaman, you know.

TI: So let's talk a little bit more about your mother. So what was her name?

SK: Chisako.

TI: Chisako?

SK: Chisako Furukawa.

TI: Furukawa. And do you know what kind of work her family did in Japan?

SK: I was surprised. Because when I was in the military, I finally got good relation with the company commander, he was a captain, and I told him I wanted to go see my uncle in Yamaguchi. I was in Tokyo, so I can't go on a weekend pass, can't make that trip and back. He said, so, he told me, "I'll give you two weekend passes in succession so you could go to Yamaguchi and visit the family."

TI: And so this would be your mother's brother?

SK: Yeah, and my father's family, too, we visit all over there. Anyway, I was surprised because my mother's brother spoke good English, so I could talk to him in English. Because he had a, his sister's son served in the Japanese army, so he hated Americans. So I never had good relations with him. He didn't like me at all. So he would talk to me in English. And he was a farmer raising rice and things, but he was also part-time schoolteacher. So that's how he, I guess, I don't know, he talked good English.

TI: Interesting.

SK: I was surprised.

TI: And what we had just talked about was -- we're jumping around a little bit -- but that was during the occupation when you had to visit.

SK: Yeah.

TI: So your mother's family, so farming, and then it sounded like the, also there was some education or teaching also.

SK: Well, they're a samurai family, too. And then it was, their farm was real close to the main town. So after the war, development came and they built an office building and everything on that property. They were fairly well-to-do.

TI: And so what town or city was this?

SK: Yanai.

TI: Okay, so they, your mother and father got married, and when they came back to Watsonville, they had three children and we talked about that.

SK: But the irony, too, is when my mother and father wanted to come to the United States, back, she couldn't come because she couldn't pass the... I don't know why, those days, her eyes weren't good or something, and they said, "You can't go." So then my father found out that if you come first class, they don't check your eyes. So he came first and she came later, first class.

TI: Oh, so there were, like, health requirements. But then if you came first class, they didn't check you.

SK: Yeah. First class, it's no, no checking.

TI: But then it was more expensive, though.

SK: Oh, yeah, and he had to, she had to come later. Get all through the paperwork. That's why always, he's blaming, the wives always give him trouble. They didn't have any children at first.

TI: So the first wife there's no children, the second wife, he had to bring her over first class.

SK: Yeah.

TI: She didn't make good sake. [Laughs]

SK: [Laughs] And things were rough, depression areas.

TI: Right.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.