Densho Digital Archive - Mas Okabe Interview (denshovh-omas

<Begin Segment 4>

KL: And then there was you.

MO: And there was me.

KL: Mas is a nickname, right?

MO: Well, it's short for Masayuki. I think anybody that had Masayoshi, Masatoshi, this and that, you know, everybody used to call me Mas.

KL: What is Masayuki, do you know of a translation for Masayuki?

MO: Yes, it means to follow a straight path. Masa is tadashii, and yuki is to go.

KL: What do you mean mas is tadashii?

MO: Tadashi means "honest." I guess my father wanted me to follow a straight path and named me tadashiiyuki, to go.

KL: So your whole name is Masayuki?

MO: Uh-huh, Masayuki.

KL: I interrupted you, you were starting to say...

MO: No, it's okay, it's fine. So that's the story behind my name.

KL: And then the two little ones?

MO: Beg your pardon?

KL: Then the two little ones, the two other siblings?

MO: Well, Yuki, I don't remember him too much, except that he was my younger brother. I think he was two years younger than myself.

KL: What year were you born?

MO: I was born in '29. And then the other brother, Takashi, he was born in '39, right before the war. So he lives in San Jose also right now. And he's a cute little kid. He's a nice kid.

KL: Yeah, you would pick up on things like that at age ten, whereas with the other ones...

MO: He was a good kid. When we went back to Japan, he had to go to Japanese school because he was small. And he used to tell us because he was from America, he was not treated too well in Japanese school there. They used to pick on him. But he survived, you know. I think it made him stronger, made him study harder.

KL: So do you remember your mom and the three kids leaving to go to Japan on a visit?

MO: No. I just remember them going. And because we had a restaurant and I was, what, '35, I guess I was about six at the time, and I was underfoot, so my father sent me to his friend's place out in the country in the delta called Sherman Island, and I stayed there for a couple of years and I went to school there. And they had this one-building school where all the kids, all grades, we went to this one building, and I went to school there for a couple of years.

KL: When you say in the delta, is that somewhere --

MO: Yeah, around here. Sherman Island. These people were very nice to me and kind. They were like my second parents.

KL: They people you stayed with?

MO: Yeah.

KL: What was their name?

MO: Kakimi, K-A-K-I-M-I.

KL: How did your parents know the Kakimis?

MO: I don't know. I think they met before he became the owner of the restaurant. I think they used to maybe farm together or something, because Mr. Kakimi was a good farmer, and Sherman Island, he was the foreman of this ranch, and he used to do everything there. He used to irrigate and do all these things. I used to follow him around when I was a kid.

KL: Did he mind?

MO: No. He tried to teach me. He was very good, very nice people.