Densho Digital Archive - George H. Morishita Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

<Begin Segment 5>

KL: You said -- let's back up a little bit. You said your parents came into Seattle and your mom didn't like it, it was too cold. What happened?

GM: Yeah. My understanding is that she complained, and then my mom told me, "Oh, Reiko..." see, when I was in the army, Reiko was the youngest one, the only one at home with them, and my mom shared a lot of stories with her. But anyway, so it could have been Reiko that told me that story, that my mother complained that it was kind of cold and all that. And my dad told her, well, there's a warmer place the he knows of, and brought her to Los Angeles.

KL: Do you think your dad had lived in Los Angeles before?

GM: I believe so, yeah. He ended up as a cook. Not a fancy cook, but I think some other things first. No, go on.

KL: What I was going to ask was if you had a feel for, between he first came here in 1906, and then he returned to bring your mother in 1924. Do you have any sense for how often he traveled back and forth, or where he was during those years?

GM: No.

KL: Do you know when they were actually married?

GM: I just know my mom told me he was married before. Because like I said, my mom was about fourteen years younger than him, he was born in 1883 and she was 1897. But she once told me that he had been married before. But I don't know too much about in between, because she didn't share too much, like I said. My father didn't want her to.

KL: Do you know when Hiroshi was born?

GM: Hiroshi? You know, I always wish I had asked my older sister Tosh and Jean, who had been sent to Japan as a two-year-old. And then when we went over there in '34, she came back with us. Well, let's see. I was born in '31, and Jean was the oldest here, and I think she --

KL: Actually, maybe this is a good time, if you would go through all your siblings kind of in birth order and just tell us their names so we have it straight. You can start with Hiroshi.

GM: Okay, well, Hiroshi was the oldest. And if I go backwards...

KL: Okay, that's fine. Yeah, however it works.

GM: Reiko, the youngest, was in 1935.

KL: Would you spell her name?

GM: R-E-I-K-O, Reiko. And then I was born in '31, then I had a sister, Susie, born in, she was two years older than me so she was twenty-nine. And then there was Tosh, who was three years older than Susie. And then there was Jean, I think she was only one or two years older than Tosh. All of us were born in the U.S. And then Aiko may have been three, four years older than Jean. And then her older brother might have been a few years older than her. I'm not sure. Because I saw a picture of them when they were younger, and she looked like eight years old and he might have been thirteen or something like that.

KL: So you said...

GM: But he died about, well, by the time my mom took us back in '34, he was already, died. So I'm not sure, I always tell people I thought he died about '32 or something like that, '33.

KL: How did that affect your parents or your family?

GM: You know, I don't remember that. I just know that my oldest sister, the one in Japan, she wasn't... I understand she's not unique. She was pretty bitter toward my mom. But I remember that when I was in the army, she said, "You know, when you guys were leaving, you know what Mama said? She just tapped me on my head and said, 'Be a good girl now.'" I said, "Neesan, you have no idea. Mom is, it must have killed her. but she was just that kind of..." I said, I tried to tell her, said, "You know what?" And I told my friends later, I said, I remember when I was, my friends brought me to the airport and my mom, and I was getting ready to go overseas, and my mom got an awful cough when I gave her a hug. And I laughed and I told my buddies, "Hey, my mom cried for the first time." When I was coming out again, a few of the guys that were out of the army brought my mom to LAX to pick me up. And the second time in my life I gave her hug, she coughs, and I said, "Number two, the second time she cried," you know. So I wasn't wrong when I tried to tell my sister that Mom was just that way, I'm sure. But no, she never... I mean, she wanted to come here, I know that. She really wanted to come here. I felt kind of bad in a way because I was a dumb kid.

And when I was over there, one of my aunts, my father's half sister that I didn't know about, and she was pretty progressive for, she was about same age as my mom. And one day she said, "Take your sister to America." I said, "Auntie, she's married." "Oh, the men, good for nothing, they took us to war, look what happened." [Laughs] Well, I finally took her to the American embassy and consulate in Kobe, I think it was. And I remember this guy was showing the priorities. He said, "Priority one," I forgot if it was married to an American or parents are American. And priority two, number two would be one or the other. And then she would fit the third priority. And he gave the understanding that if she's on the waiting list and anybody priority one or two applies, the would bump her. So I said, "Neesan, there's no chance you're going to be able to go." And I come back, I meet a guy my age, except he was an officer, and my wife and his wife are friends, and I met this guy. And we're talking, and when he heard that, he said, "George, you know if you really wanted to bring her, you could have brought her." And that kind of stuck in my head, I go, maybe he's got a point. Because I didn't really... and then when she died, that kind of hit me because my kid sister's, Reiko's in... because my sister was still in her thirties when she died. And she said some of the relatives wrote to Mama saying that there was no medical reason why she died, according to the doctor. In other words, she just didn't want to live anymore and went oh boy, great.

KL: I think people who are modern immigrants recognize things about that story, too.

GM: It's my age.

KL: Was Jean born in Japan?

GM: No. Jean and all the rest of us were born here. Reiko, like I said, my mom was pregnant with her before we went back to Japan. Jean and all of us were American-born citizens.