<Begin Segment 25>

WP: So did your parents go back and visit Japan?

SY: Yes, yes.

WP: When did they do that?

SY: I can't... my mother went back about two or three times. Because she went the first time, and then she went back the second time because she thought maybe she was, might not be able to see her again if she wasted any more time, so she did go back. And then she went back a couple more times after that.

WP: And did you ever meet your family, any family you had in Japan?

SY: No. Well, some of them did come to visit, but I wouldn't know them if they walked into my room and said hello, I wouldn't know them. I know only the ones that I have here in San Diego.

WP: And can you tell me more about your mother later in life and her getting her citizenship?

SY: My mother lived a very comfortable life. I think she lived... she did these things, and this was her hobby, her, the thing she enjoyed doing the most. And my mother was getting of age where you get to a certain age, you can't buy anything for an old lady. I'm getting there. And so I thought to myself, okay, I am going to enter some of these pictures at the Delmar Fair, which is going on now. And I entered it, and she got a best of show. This one is one of the best of show. This one I think she got a blue ribbon.

WP: This embroidery here of the rooster, she won for that?

SY: She won best of show on this one. And she's won about four or five best of show, which is very unusual. In fact, the year, the last year, which she was one hundred, her eyes were bad, she couldn't... her hands were arthritis, and so she decided she wasn't going to do it anymore, and not only that, it was bothering her shoulders, her arms, so she quit doing that. And the Delmar Fair people called my mother and said, "You didn't enter anything in the fair this year." And I got to thinking, isn't that amazing? Because I used to put her things in every year for about twenty years. And the year she quit, they called my mother, and my mother says she was so delighted that they called her, she was tickled pink at that. But she won her last best of show at the age of a hundred, and my son's got it. I don't know if you know what a kabuki is. It's a... they have a story. It's a story that is like Mikado or Shakespeare, it's been around for a long time, and it's this man who is dressed like a lion. And she made this picture because it is so... and she won a blue ribbon on that one. Not only blue ribbon, she won a best of show. And I think she was very happy because she figured at a hundred, to get something like that, was very... she enjoyed life very much. I think a lot more because she didn't let things get, bother her like I thought it did. He probably is still saying, "God damn," because everything was not right, you know. But my mother just kind of said, okay, if that's not the way it's supposed to be, I'll do it this way. And I think you live, not only longer, but you live happier that way.

WP: What made her decide to get her citizenship?

SY: Because she knew that if she got her American citizenship, she can go out and buy property, and that's what she did. She had quite a bit of property up in Encinitas. She had one, two, three... three or four, something like that.

WP: How did she get involved with real estate or buying property?

SY: Well, see, he's in real estate. If you saw her, you would think no way would she understand, but she did. But you know what? When she died, well, before she died, she said, "There is no place in the whole world that you could live in a country like me and survive as well as I did." That's how much she had more faith in America, that this is a wonderful... there is no other place she could survive as well, and it is.

WP: How did your father feel about that?

SY: No, I think he still, like I said, "God damn." [Laughs] No, he's always been very negative, I think. So he could. Maybe he's not there, I don't know. His outlook in life was very not good, very angry. I don't know why he was that way.

WP: And do you think he ever regretted not having your family in Japan, not going back there?

SY: I don't think so. He would probably choke himself if he said that, because he was always right. Because he doesn't make mistakes.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.