<Begin Segment 15>

EB: So tell me about your family, your husband and children, how did you and your husband meet? Was he in camp with you?

GS: Yes, he was. But he was in camp for only... it was a very short period of time. He was in Tule Lake, but he left early to go out to do sugar beet work, and he never returned to camp. He was in the camp just months. And he went out, he went to Montana and he never went back, and then he kept working his way east because he had a brother in Chicago or Milwaukee or somewhere around there. And he... I remember him telling me, his father gave him twenty dollars when he left camp, and that was it, and he had to manage on his own. And he did. So he took any kind of job that he was able to get, busboy or garage or driving a truck or whatever it was. And then he went to school, and back then, as you probably know, the Big Ten schools did not admit Japanese Americans. So he went to a small Lutheran school for a while, and then later he transferred over to Minnesota and then to Wisconsin. But then he came back, he moved to California. And when he came to the church here is when I met him. That's how we met.

EB: Okay, and his first name?

GS: My husband's name is Joseph, Joseph Seto. And he was really born and raised in Tacoma, Washington.

EB: Okay.

GS: So I met him here, we were married here in the church, and both of our kids were born here and baptized here in the church. My daughter was married here in the church, so there was a history here in the church for our family.

EB: You've always been fairly active, I guess, in church activities?

GS: Yes, yes. My father was very community-orientated, and perhaps that's one of the reasons why he was block manager, I don't know. Here, too, this is another question I never was able to ask him. But perhaps from him -- and my mother, too, my mother was active in the church, and she felt that we should give to the community, but I think my father even more so. And perhaps some of this comes from him, you know, it rubbed off on us. When I say "us," my sister and me, because my other two siblings, they don't have any interest. Yeah, the church has been a big part of my life, and I feel it's important.

EB: Did you ever talk about your experience with your children, and did your husband?

GS: Oh, yes, we have, quite often. And they're very interested, my son especially. So through the years, he... anything that's to do with ethnicity, he's always been interested. When Manzanar had the dedication two years ago of the interpretive center, he came down from... at that time he was living in Portland, so he came down for the weekend, because he wanted to go to the dedication. And then when the Japanese American National Museum had a... they did something at Ellis Island in New York some years ago, I don't remember if it was a special exhibit or what it was, but at that time my son was living in New York working there, so he went to that also. But things that are Japanese American, he's very interested, as is my daughter, but he more so. He went on a student exchange while he was at UCLA, he went to Japan for a year, and he speaks far better Japanese than I now. [Laughs] But there, we have all kinds of books at home, and both of the kids have always been interested in it. And I don't make a point of sitting them down and saying, "Now, listen, you have to learn this," or, "we've got to talk about this," but whenever the subject comes up, it's very easily discussed in our family. They are interested.

EB: Good.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2006 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.