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RP: Before we go any further, can you share with us the rest of your brothers and sisters? Who is the oldest in your family?
MW: Well the oldest was a boy and he died of dysentery. And the second boy...
RP: What was his name?
MW: The oldest boy?
RP: The oldest boy.
MW: Ben, Ben died of dysentery. The next boy was Tai. And he, he died at eighty. All my siblings are, now are gone. My mom, my dad, the whole family is gone. I'm the only remaining. I'm the youngest. And Tai went into camp with us but then the next year he, he went into the service. And he was with the MIS. And then after the war he went to Japan and he was an interpreter because he lived in Japan because back then it was a custom of the Japanese to send the number one son back to Japan when they were about ten, twelve or whatever to enculturate them in the Japanese culture. So he went back there so he was, he was fluent. And when he came back he said he hated it because they put him back in the third grade and here he's fifteen or something like that. So that's my brother. And then the next girl, the next one is a sister, my sister Betty, who was Hideko. And unfortunately she had Osteomyelitis. So, when... she was kind of crippled.
RP: One leg was longer than the other?
MW: Pardon?
RP: One leg was longer than the other?
MW: Yes. And then the next one is Judy, my sister Judy. And when she got married to this fellow, well, that was maybe in the early fifties. She and her husband applied for insurance with the auto club. But they were turned down because they said that her husband's brother was a "no-no" in the camp. And so he was branded a traitor and, "So you have a traitor in the family," and so they didn't sell her the insurance. I was shocked when she told me that.
RP: And that was... and then you came along after that?
MW: No... oh, I'm the next one after Judy.
RP: Judy, okay.
MW: Yes. I'm the last one.
RP: The last one.
MW: Uh-huh. But in between my mom said she had fourteen miscarriages, or whatever, stillborn. I said, "Oh my gosh." They had no care. They didn't have prenatal care or anything like that. And so, and she said, oh, she was working at the store sometime and she just felt, she just realized she's pregnant and so they went and got the midwife. You can't imagine that today but it happened.
<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.