Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: George Maeda Interview
Narrator: George Maeda
Interviewer: Kristen Luetkemeier
Location: Santa Ana, California
Date: October 13, 2014
Densho ID: denshovh-mgeorge_6-01-0001

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KL: Today is October the 13th, it's 2014. I'm Kristen Luetkemeier, a park ranger at Manzanar, and I'm here with George Maeda today for an oral history interview. And we're here in Video Resources, who opens up their studio to us to do these oral history interviews. So, Jeff, what is your last name?

JK: Killian, K-I-L-L-I-A-N.

KL: Jeff Killian and others from Video Resources may come and go. But before we start, George, I want to just confirm that I have your permission to record this interview and to make this conversation available to the public.

GM: Yes.

KL: Thank you for doing this. I want to start off asking you about your parents so we can get a little bit of background on what their lives were like before you came along and the families they grew up in. So would you start with your father and just give us his name and when and where he was born, and a little background information on his family and his growing up years?

GM: My father was born in 1884. One of two sons and three daughters, and they lived in a farm in the hills of Hiroshima. When my father was about sixteen, he and his older brother came to this country to make some money and work for ten years and their plan was to return to Japan and take care of their parents. Well, after ten years, they hadn't accumulated enough, so my father sent his brother back and said he'll join 'em in ten more years. And during that last ten year span, he met my aunt, who thought what a wonderful husband he would make for her sister. So my mother essentially became a "picture bride," and through communications, she came to this country never having met my father, but with the agreement that they would marry. Met in San Francisco and got married.

KL: What do you know about her background?

GM: She was from the city, my mother's birthplace was Hiroshima, from the city. Her parents were merchants, and she came from a middle class, upper middle class family, pretty well-off. Went to a very prestigious school in Hiroshima. As a matter of fact, my mother's grandfather was a samurai warrior. And so she lived a different life than my father, she was a city girl, brought up properly. [Laughs]

KL: What was her name?

GM: Kimiko Yamasaki.

KL: And I don't think I asked you your father's name.

GM: Yozo, Y-O-Z-O, Maeda.

KL: And what was his family's work or class?

GM: They grew rice in the hills of... there's a name for that area, but I can't think of it now. But they were rice farmers, poor, not well-off. But the end of the story, when he sent his brother back him with his share of the money. And after he married my mother, he mailed his brother and said he wasn't going home, so he can have his share of the money. He became a very wealthy rice farmer. He couldn't have children, so he adopted a boy from the village who inherited his farm. But he was one of the wealthier rice farmers in that area.

KL: Do you know that uncle's name?

GM: You know, I don't. Last name is Maeda, that's all I know.

KL: Did your mother ever talk about her motives for agreeing to be a "picture bride" or what it was like for her to...

GM: No, they didn't speak. They didn't talk about it much. I heard this story that I just told from my mother. My father never spoke about it, except kiddingly he said when he saw her coming off the boat, this big fat woman was waddling down. She wasn't fat, but he used to kid her. No, they didn't talk too much about it, I knew that she was... I guess that was called a "picture bride" in those days.

KL: Do you know where each of them came in, what worked?

GM: It was in San Francisco. My father came in, I think it was in Seattle.

KL: You mentioned that they were from different backgrounds, your dad from the countryside and a farming background and your mom from a middle class urban background. How did they reconcile those backgrounds with each other, what was their relationship like?

GM: You know, when she came to this country, I'm guessing that her whole lifestyle changed. She became a farmer's wife, and so she never worked until about 1946 was the first time she ever worked as a seamstress. She never worked when she was raising us. So if anyone had to make adjustments, it was my mother.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.