<Begin Segment 7>

KL: What about your parents, what defines them in your memories? What were their personalities?

MU: My father was, he loved children, and so he was, he would take us on a picnic. Mother would make us a little lunch, and the pump house for the farm was way on the other end of forty acres, and he would have Mother make lunch and he would take us kids way out there and we have picnic. He loved kids. He was real good with us. Or he would take us fishing.

KL: What did you do on the picnic?

MU: When you go out in the field there's not much we could do but run around.

KL: What was your --

MU: And of course there's a language barrier, too.

KL: But you could sense that he loved you and loved...

MU: Oh yeah.

KL: What was your mother's personality like?

MU: My mother, she was gentle. She grew up to become a teacher. I don't know how long she taught in Japan, but when she came to the States the Japanese community had the, they wanted the children to learn, understood English -- Japanese, so they had Japanese schools on Saturday, and she taught one of those schools.

KL: Was she your teacher?

MU: No, no. We had someone else from Fresno.

KL: What did you think of Japanese language school?

MU: It wasn't easy. Of course, we grew up speaking English most of the time. So we endured it. [Laughs]

KL: Where did you learn English, if not from your parents?

MU: At elementary school, at Alvina.

KL: Was it difficult?

MU: First, I think there were, during the year there were six times when they, we received a report card. The first three times, just a blank, there was nothing there because teacher didn't know how to grade us when we didn't speak English. But after that, I looked at the report card and it said, "Very satisfactory," so I guess I was doing okay. [Laughs]

KL: Good, yeah, you caught on.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.