<Begin Segment 2>

KL: Do you know what your grandparents, your mother's parents' professions were?

AO: My mother's parents, I really don't know. At an early age, her mother, I know, died. And...

KL: Did you know how or why?

AO: No, I don't. And her father, I think, was a doctor, if I'm not mistaken.

KL: I wonder if it was hard for them to let their daughter that they were so protective of go to a new country.

AO: Yes. I guess it was her oldest brother at that point who was head of the household, and he didn't want her to go, and refused to help her with the passage. So the brother that we met, who was one of the younger brothers, but I think my... I can't remember whether he was older or younger than my mother, but he helped my mother to come to this country.

KL: Do you know around what year she came?

AO: 1920... it was just before the alien exclusion act went through. Twenty or '21. Yes, I should be able to figure that one out, because my sister, I have a sister living in Japan still who she had intended to bring with her, but her mother-in-law said, "You can't take a baby."

KL: Your sister... oh, your sister was born in Japan?

AO: Yeah, my oldest sister. And she was born in '21. So I guess my mother came in... no, my oldest sister was born in 1920, so she came in 1921, because my sister was, her picture is on the passport, my mother's passport. And I think she was seven or eight months old.

KL: What's her name, your sister?

AO: Yoshi, Y-O-S-H-I-K-O.

KL: So she remained in Japan.

AO: She remained because her grandmother then kept her and raised her.

KL: How did your mother feel about that?

AO: Oh, my mother was devastated. And unfortunately, she went to her grave without ever seeing her.

KL: How did they keep in touch?

AO: Letters.

KL: Did they write pretty often?

AO: My mother wrote all the time, and when a letter came from Japan and news of Yoshi, we hated it when those letters came because my mother was always crying.

KL: Did you ever meet, when did you meet Yoshi for the first time?

AO: For the first time I met her in '70... let's see, when was it that we went to Japan? '77, I think. The four sisters, four alive sisters here went to Japan, and that's when we met her for the first time.

KL: If I somehow forget to ask about that, remind me, because I would really like to hear about that trip when we get more to the...

AO: And then in 1982 we got her to come here for a visit. And I have an older sister who lives in Fresno. My youngest sister lives in Berkeley, and she stayed with Atsuko in Berkeley. And when they drove her to Fresno, she realized how expansive... I mean, this is just California, this is only one forty-eighth of the country, and she says, "No wonder my father wanted to come here."

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.