<Begin Segment 12>

KO: How many children do you have besides Gene?

KO: We adopted a little one. We didn't have baby, we tried to have baby. When you try and have baby you don't get pregnant, when you don't want to you get pregnant. [Laughs]

AO: So we adopted Charlene and we found out that there was a Dr. Diferego.

KO: Difiguredo.

AO: He's Portuguese, fluent in Japanese 'cause he must have been born and raised... Japanese education.

KO: Bring the baby --

AL: So your... the daughter, right, that you adopted --

AO: Charlene.

AL: Is she Nihonjin?

AO: She's Japanese.

AL: Oh, she is Japanese, from Peru?

AO: No, from Japan.

AL: From Japan. Oh, okay.

AO: He happened to locate her in Fukuoka and at that time she was about six or eight months old so he sent a picture after we agreed to sign the contract to adopt her. But it took quite a long time and the immigration would come to our house and actually go to the neighbors and ask questions about us.

KO: Make sure we have enough money to raise the children.

AL: So do you know why she was available for adoption?

AO: That wasn't mentioned to us. She was found as an orphan... not an orphan but in probably a children's home, whatever. And as soon as we signed a contract to adopt her, then she was transferred to Elizabeth Sanders, a nursery in Yokohama.

AL: So how did she come over? Who brought her on the ship?

AO: Dr. Difiguredo with his --

KO: Difiguredo, I think he's Portuguese.

AL: Did you have another child after that?

KO: Yes, shortly after I got pregnant. When you're trying so hard you don't get pregnant and when people don't want a baby they get pregnant. So anyway we try so hard and to doctor and nothing wrong with me. So we adopted and shortly after I got pregnant.

AL And so who is your third child? Is it a boy or a girl?

KO: Patty.

AL: So you have Gene, Charlene and Patty.

KO: And then Gene did real well in the school so we tried to ask her lawyer how is her background intelligence but he was nasty so I just didn't say anything about it. She's very smart, she was graduated from Berkeley.

AL: This is Charlene?

KO: Yeah.

AL: Oh, that's great.

KO: And most importantly, three get along fine and they don't feel any different. Sometime you hear somebody else say children, grown up children, they fighting they don't talk to each other but there's no such thing.

AL: So your family was close.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.