<Begin Segment 2>

JK: So your grandparents, or first-generation, they immigrated from Japan to the U.S., so they're the Issei, the first generation, and then your parents, were they born here in the States?

PD: My father and mother were born in the United States.

JK: Okay, so the second generation, or Nisei, so you are, you're the Sansei. Did your grandparents and parents, what language did they speak to you?

PD: My parents, my father went up to, I guess, at least grade school, anyway, and then my mother, I think she went up to high school, so we mostly just spoke in English. But I did, I did go to Japanese school when I was little, at the San Jose Buddhist Church.

JK: So your grandparents, did they speak to you in Japanese or English?

PD: I think it was broken -- [laughs] -- broken English maybe, but I was quite young when my grandmother was still alive, so I, I just remember her maybe during my grammar school era.

JK: And you remembered some broken English being spoken to you.

PD: From my grandmother, I guess I must, I was too little to really know that much about what I was talking about with my grandmother.

JK: And when were your parents born?

PD: I think my dad was born in about 1912, I'm not sure. And my mother, I forgot her birthday, but she must have been a little bit older -- I mean, younger.

JK: And were they born in that San Jose area?

PD: Yeah, my father was born here in San Jose, and my mother was born here in San Jose. She attended, I know she attended Roosevelt High School, but I'm not sure where she was, she was born.

JK: Have they told you how they met?

PD: [Laughs] I never did ask.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.