Densho Digital Archive - Sachiye Okamoto - Miho Shiroishi Interview (denshovh-osachiye

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KL: Okay, this is Kristen Luetkemeier from Manzanar National Historic Site. Today is August 21, 2012, and I'm in Las Vegas at the Main Street Hotel with the Sumi sisters, Miho Shiro...

MS: ...ishi.

KL: Shiroishi, and Sachi Okamoto. And we're here for an oral history interview about their childhood in Terminal Island, their experiences in Manzanar, and their adult lives after World War II. And Ashley Nottingham is recording, and Alisa Lynch and Jeff Burton are also here in the room. And before we start with the questions, Miho and Sachi, do I have your permission to record this interview, to keep it at Manzanar, and make it available to the public?

MS: Oh, sure.

SO: Yes.

KL: Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to start asking you about your parents and a little bit about their background. Would you tell us your father's name?

MS: Our father's name, Risaburo, R-I-S-A-B-U-R-O, Sumi. And mother's name, K-A-Z-U-Y-E, Sumi.

KL: Where was your father from?

MS: They were both from Wakayama, Japan, and he came here when he was eighteen, and she later, about eighteen. Later, right?

SO: He came over and worked as a schoolboy here. And so he went to school in the American schools. And I think he went up until the fourth grade, so he knew all about the history of the United States. And he always wanted to visit the Grand Canyon, and he never got to see it, which, you know, we didn't take him, which I regret.

KL: He came as an eighteen-year-old and then he took elementary classes here?

SO: Yes, and he said the kids used to bring him an apple and say, "Here, Mr. Sumi, it's for you." Because he's an adult and in first grade or so. Yeah, so he knew all the history of the United States.

KL: Do you know about what year he came?

SO: [Addressing MS] When was he born, do you know?

MS: I don't know.

SO: I don't even know that.

MS: I thought that when he first got here, he was working as a domestic in a home.

SO: Right, schoolboy.

KL: Where did he come in to the United States? Did he talk about his trip?

MS: I never heard from my father, but my mother told me that she came in through Mexico. So I was thinking maybe... I don't know, that's probably illegal, I don't know.

SO: Yes, it was.

MS: Well, that's what she said, she came in through Mexico.

SO: Our mother was his second wife. His first wife died giving childbirth, and so he sent his baby back to Japan to be raised by his sister. And then when my mother turned eighteen, they sent her to be his wife.

KL: Their families were acquainted with each other?

SO: Yes, yes. Yeah, in fact, my mother's mother had to give her away because their father, her father ran away, was it to Manchuria?

MS: To Singapore.

SO: Singapore, so he ran away to Singapore. So the mother was left with these two kids that she couldn't take care of them, so she gave my mother away to my father's sister who was raising his child from the United States. And so my mother and his child grew up together.

KL: Wow. What took her father, what took your grandfather to Manchuria, do you know?

SO: We don't know. It was Singapore, Singapore. [Addressing MS] Do you know why he left?

MS: He just left his family and went there, and then got married again. And I know at that time they said he had a child, a boy. And then he came... I remember when he wrote to my mother when he got back to Japan, and he sent the picture of himself when he left, and I think he was probably in his thirties. And then he had another picture of himself as an old man when he returned to Japan and said that the people wouldn't talk to him, or they were upset.

SO: Right.

MS: And so I remember our mother sending him packages. And shortly after, he passed away. He probably was in his, oh, maybe eighties or nineties at that time when he came back to Japan.