<Begin Segment 6>

JS: Okay, now turning to you, when and where were you born?

MN: I was born in Salinas, California, on November 17, 1930.

JS: Okay, and you, you, earlier you said you had eight brothers and sisters, is that right?

MN: Well, there were ten altogether.

JS: Ten altogether?

MN: Uh-huh, yes.

JS: Okay, and how many sisters and how many brothers?

MN: Five and five.

JS: Five and five? And you were the...

MN: Second from the, the, second from the bottom.

JS: And your oldest brother, you said, passed away before you were born.

MN: Uh-huh.

JS: And what was the cause of him passing away?

MN: Well, he, he was a butcher, and he cut his fingers, cut his hand, so they took him to the hospital, and they, they put some medicine in there, and the medicine was the wrong, so it turned into, his hand turned into gangrene, and I think in those days, they didn't know what to do with gangrene, so he died by, by blood poisoning.

JS: Was he working at the, was that, he was working at the store?

MN: Yeah, he was, uh-huh, he was a butcher at our store.

JS: Okay. And what childhood memories do you have of growing up in Salinas before the war? I mean, you said something about not being able to go to the swimming pool, but other, but besides that, what other things do you remember?

MN: Oh, we did, we had all, we had fun all the time. I played with all my girlfriends, but then I... they, they, all my friends called me the town bully.

JS: Why was that?

MN: I don't know why, I don't know why. I think I used to beat them up. [Laughs]

JS: [Laughs] So you had this reputation then, huh?

MN: Uh-huh, of beating up all the girls. But I had a lot of fun.

JS: Who were your friends? Were they Japanese?

MN: Yeah, they're all Japanese, uh-huh. Betsy next door, Fusaye, and Kaye Masatani. She still, she lives in Santa Anita right now. She's a really dear friend. She's the one that always says I was a bully, and she's about five-inch taller than me. [Laughs] And I used to, and she says I used to beat her up. I don't remember. [Laughs]

JS: But she keeps reminding you of this. [Laughs]

MN: Yeah, exactly.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.