<Begin Segment 13>

KL: Did you work -- so when did you... well, let's go back to 1947 or so in Japan. Did you graduate from high school?

MS: You know, I think I did, but it was kind of mixed up because I went to a sewing school and the other school. So I think I did. It's kind of mixed up anyway.

KL: Did you find work after graduation?

MS: I went to Tokyo because my sister went to Tokyo first, and then she got a job. I forgot, where was it, Air Force, too, I think. And I went to Air Force also, and I found the, I stuck with the clerk, and what do you call the other one? Oh, boy.

KL: You worked as a clerk?

MS: Yeah, first.

KL: Do you remember your job interview or applying for work?

MS: I think, I must have interest somebody, otherwise I wouldn't get the job? But that part, I don't remember. The only one I remember, got the job as a clerk, and then typist, and the last thing was the secretary. Well, I guess the secretary in Japan is not as hard as in the United States, it's more easy type. And I mentioned that lady from Utah, a Mormon lady, she helped me, so that was nice. Did typing...

KL: How did she help you?

MS: Oh, when I don't understand all these forms to type and things like that, because I didn't know English too well. So that was nice, she helped me. I think she's till alive in Utah, I'm pretty sure.

KL: Who did you live with in Tokyo?

MS: In Tokyo? Well, my sister was there, so we stayed in the same apartment and all of that. I used to have a friend, she used to work for IBM across the street in the hospital, and she used to come to our place, office, and have coffee and doughnuts, whatever. And she got married to my brother-in-law in San Francisco. And so she introduced me and my husband. So he came from Portland, Oregon, to Tokyo, my husband. We got married at the American embassy.

KL: When did you and your husband meet?

MS: Oh, he came to Japan.

KL: What year did you meet?

MS: Oh, my goodness, I forgot. [Laughs]

KL: Around 1950s?

MS: We've been married almost forty-seven years. And, see, we corresponded about three years before we met, and then he decided to come to Tokyo to meet me, I guess, and make sure this is a nice person. [Laughs]

KL: You corresponded by letters?

MS: Three years, three years, yeah. And so he came and I guess we got along pretty good. And so my sister-in-law, she was in Los Angeles already, I mean, in California, and she's still there. And, well, she's not doing too good now, but anyway.

KL: Who did you say introduced you and your husband?

MS: My sister-in-law, my friend. She used to work in the hospital across the street from my building, come to my building.

KL: And who was she married to?

MS: My husband's younger brother, George.

KL: Oh.

MS: Yeah, my younger brother. And she's the one introduced me to the older brother, Joe, my husband. Well, he wasn't married yet, see.

KL: She just suggested you might want to write?

MS: Yes. So that was nice.

KL: And he came to visit you?

MS: Yes. No, he just came to visit me, and they have to check my background, I was in concentration camp and all this and that. They have to check all these things, so it took time?

KL: Who did?

MS: The government have to check.

KL: Before you could work?

MS: No, before I married to my husband. And they have to have a blood test and everything. And everything was okay, I didn't do anything wrong. So I guess they must have, tell my husband that everything is okay, so he came to Tokyo. And then we married in the American embassy. And then he waited, I think he only stayed about a week maybe, because he have to come back to work. So I wanted until I get the passport, and the result of they checked the blood and my background.

KL: What was your citizenship then?

MS: Japanese. I didn't have the... I didn't know that either, those days, and I didn't know it was gong to happen that way. And then they gave me the American citizenship, I went to school when I came to the United States.

KL: Did you become a Japanese citizen when you arrived in Japan?

MS: It was already American, I mean, Japanese citizen.

KL: It was already Japanese because your father was Japanese?

MS: Right, right, yeah.

KL: Were you ever dual with Peru?

MS: No, I didn't want to... I didn't even know they had those days, dual.

KL: When you were born, though?

MS: No. See, that's why they pick the certain fathers, probably, because they're Japanese, no citizen papers, Peruvian.

KL: Do you think there were other reasons why they picked up your father instead of some other person?

MS: No, I think because, see, he used to help this little Japanese school. And person like that, I think probably they think they were kind of suspicious and spy or something, I don't know that, too. That's why they pick up just certain fathers when they picked up my father, because he used to help the Japanese school.

KL: How did he help the school?

MS: Oh, just different things, you know, I don't know what he really did, but they find out he was doing it, helping. I don't know really myself what he did.

KL: Was it a school for kids?

MS: I think so.

KL: Like a language school?

MS: I don't know. I don't know what it was. So anyway, that's what happened.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.