<Begin Segment 5>

AL: Did your family celebrate, or I should say what kind of holidays did your family celebrate? I mean, like Christmas or did you celebrate Boy's Day? Could you describe some of the traditional holidays?

AN: Oh, yes. All holidays, no matter what. It was always a get-together with the family, with my uncles and aunt, we'd all go to picnic, we'd have a party at my home. I remember quite a few of those that my grandpa and all my uncles and aunts got together. Annually we had a family picnic, annually. We would go out to the park and we had a whole bunch of us get together, the whole family. After all, with twelve children all married, and all my cousins and aunts, we always had an annual picnic, that I well remember.

AL: What park did you go to?

AN: Oh, we went to, out in the country somewhere, what we call Kaawai, K-A-A-W-A-I, there was Kaawai Park. We used to go out to a country park, a nice park right on the beach. Those were fun days.

AL: Did your family celebrate Boy's Day?

AN: Boy's Day? Yes, they did, in a small way. Not like they do in Japan, but they did.

AL: So speaking of Japan, do you know any, the level of communication like between your father and his family or your grandparents and their family in terms of communicating back and forth with Japan?

AN: As far as I know, my father was communicating with his family or his brother. That's the only communication that I know. Probably my grandpa was also, but I wouldn't know. Yeah, that's what it was about.

AL: Did your family ever visit Japan before the war?

AN: Did what?

AL: Did you ever visit Japan before the war?

AN: My dad went back when he was single, before he got married. He made enough money to take a trip to Japan, he did. I think he did a couple of times before he got married.

AL: Do you think he had any plans to ever go back to Japan?

AN: No, I don't think so. Although that was a trend of most of the people that came from Japan, that they'll make money and then go back, but I don't know. Most of the Hawaiian people, people that came from Japan to Hawaii, once they started raising their families, I don't think they had any idea of returning there with their families. Because now they knew that the kids were Americans, and the only thing they would send their kids back to Japan is to go to school, which was a good idea, to send them to school. Mostly they went to college, college-age, and they'll send them to college. That's where, during the war, many of the kids that went back to Japan to go to college there, they got caught in the war. And those are the people that were forced to fight with the Japanese forces, and here they have their own family back home in Hawaii. So actually, if their brothers, one brother's fighting for the U.S.A. and the other's fighting for Japan. And we had several like that.

AL: Do you know... these are personal friends that you knew that that happened to, that got caught?

AN: I'm trying to recall. No. I know some that went back, but they didn't have brothers. But I learned later on that there were quite a few of 'em.

AL: So speaking of Japan, like when you went to Japanese language school, what did they teach you about the emperor? Did they talk about him at all?

AN: For me, since I was in grade school, it was strictly reading, writing and arithmetic, that's it. Not too much else. And maybe Japanese history, but I can't recall.

AL: And so your regular, your other school, was that a public school that you went to?

AN: Uh-huh.

AL: What was that like? I mean, who were the teachers, who were the students?

AN: Well, as far as the English school is concerned, regular English school like any other place. But the grade school in America, no difference.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.