<Begin Segment 6>

MJT: My dad was converted in Hawaii to the Methodist church. My mother used to say that before he was converted, he did everything. Evidently he was a pretty loose man from that point of view, drinking and smoking and so on. But I never in my life, knowing my dad, did I ever saw him smoke or drink. Although my mother would say, "Your dad drank and smoked quite heavily," before he was converted. He was converted in Hawaii, and the strange thing was that when we settled in San Jose, California, the minister that was called to the Methodist church, the Japanese Methodist Church in San Jose, was Reverend Haruyama, who was the man that converted my father, and who happened to come then to San Jose to be the pastor. And my dad became a very active lay person for the church, and was a strong believer. But my mother, every New Year's, would put out tangerines and mochi, which was a Shinto ritual, greeting the new year and feeding, I mean, it was food for the gods. And that, my mother was a Shinto. But when she married my father, which is traditionally in Japan, you take your husband's religion. So when my dad became a Christian and joined the Christian church, my mother did likewise, and she became a lay person in the Methodist church as well, and very active in the West Los Angeles church. And so that's interesting that both of our fathers was converted.

KL: Yeah, and then encountered those people again later.

MJT: And to run into those who converted them sometime later in their life.

KL: You know, we do interviews sometimes at the West Los Angeles United Methodist Church. Yeah, Rose Honda, who's a member of the congregation there...

MT: Oh, we know Rose Honda.

KL: ...has helped us set some up. Tell me your memories of West Los Angeles United Methodist Church in your youth or before the war.

MJT: Well, my interest in the Methodist church in West Los Angeles was because of a girl by the name Mary. And her mother, Mary's mother, was very church-oriented. And because Mary worked during the day on Sunday at the flower shop, so kind of watched the flower shop so the parents could go to church. They demanded -- maybe that's strong -- asked Mary to go to youth group meetings. And the one that was available was the Methodist church youth group. And for some reason I got wind of that, and I would come by with my souped up car, which I had, Double Barrel Green Hornet, they called it, used to call it the Green Hornet. And it was all green and had two barrels, exhaust pipes and so on. And I would come by just in time when she got let out of youth group, and I offered to take her home. And, well, eventually what happened was when Mary's influence was such that I not only would come by and pick her up, she had me come in and be part of the group. And after a short while, I became the president of the group, and got so involved in the youth activity of the group. Many of my friends were Buddhist young people, we got along really well, and we had a basketball team that played in the Japanese basketball league. And most of it was a mixture of Christians and Buddhists, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was can we play basketball. [Laughs]

KL: What was the team name?

MJT: The Warriors. Uni High was... what was Uni High's name?

MT: I think Warriors were, we were the Warriors.

MJT: Well, anyway, we had a senior group and a junior group. The junior group we called the Papooses. Today that would not be allowed. And the senior group were the Warriors and the younger group were the Papooses. And we played in the church, the Japanese church. But I can say that we were blessed as a family that both of my parents were of Christian faith, or had religious aspirations in their life.

KL: And Shinto is very interested in landscape and in mountains and streams and stuff, I believe. That's interesting that your mom, your mom grew up on that hot springs resort, right? So they were kind of caretakers of the water is interesting, too.

MJT: Yes, well, she wasn't as involved in the management in terms of natural things. She worked, she worked in the berry business, she supervised the berry business while my father worked in the orchard. People in the orchard owned, usually had a berry patch, and my mother would be one who would supervise that as far as the program.

KL: Did you help in your dad's garden, in the vegetable garden at your house?

MT: Oh, not too much, no.

KL: It was his domain? But you worked in the store?

MT: In the shop.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.