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RP: This is an oral history for the Manzanar National Historic Site, and we're talking with Michiko Kawaguchi this afternoon. And our interview is taking place at the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church on Franklin Boulevard in Sacramento. The date of the interview is April 2, 2011. My name is Richard Potashin, I'm the interviewer, and Kirk Peterson is our cameraman today. We'll be talking with Michiko about her experiences at Santa Fe -- I'm sorry, not Santa Fe -- Santa Anita Assembly Center as well as the Topaz War Relocation Center. Our interview will be archived in the Park's library. And Mich, do I have your permission to go ahead and record our interview?
MK: All right.
RP: Thank you so much for coming and sharing some of your stories with us today. And can you give us your birth date and where you were born?
MK: I was born in San Francisco, September 30, 1925.
RP: And were you born at a hospital or born at home?
MK: No. In those days everybody had midwives that came to the house, yeah. So, as far as I know, all of us had, were birthed by midwives.
RP: And your full name at birth?
MK: I beg your pardon?
RP: Your full name at birth?
MK: Michiko Hara Kawaguchi.
RP: And can you share with us your father's name and your mom's name?
MK: Do I what?
RP: Your father's name and your mother's name?
MK: Yes. Sunesuke Hara.
RP: Okay.
MK: And Setsu Matsumoto.
RP: Okay. And where did they come from in Japan?
MK: They came from Yamaguchi-ken, on the southern end of Honshu.
RP: Okay.
MK: And...
RP: Do you know much about their family life in...
MK: Not too much. We, I made one trip with my mother-in-law. She had never been back in over eighty years to... you know, since she had come. And we made a stop at my mother's home. What had happened was that they were five daughters and per Japanese custom the oldest one married, took a yoshi, what we call it. The man comes into the family and takes the family name so that the Matsumoto name would not die out. And fortunately she had one son who in turn had two sons, so the family still lives in the same home. And all five sisters are gone now, you know, but they, they would have been... seeing as how I'm eighty-five, they would be gone. But my father was also from the same area. And...
RP: Was his family...
MK: I don't, I don't know what my grandparents on my father's side did. But my maternal grandfather, he was a businessman and he bought a lot of land. That's why... and they occupied it so all during the war and everything they were able to keep it all. We went to visit and he had just built a more of a western style house. So that we would be more comfortable staying there and what have you. But they had a, they manufactured noodles and they were up like at two o'clock in the morning to start the noodles so that by four o'clock they would be ready to, it would be all packaged and ready to be delivered to the supermarkets and various places. So every morning at ten o'clock you sampled their noodles to make sure that batch was acceptable.
RP: Wow. Did, do you roughly know when your father came to the United States?
MK: He came when he was eighteen. And he came to Seattle first. And then he had more friends down in California so he came to California. My mother came straight to San Francisco.
RP: And do you know if she... was she a picture bride?
MK: She was living, I think, with the Hara family. I really don't know. They never did discuss it. But seeing as how she came, I think, in like 1920 or something like that, it must have been. Because my dad was already here. But you know, they would have researched the families and then you know, and made the arrangements in Japan.
RP: Right.
<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.