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RM: So this is Rose Masters interviewing Pat Sakamoto on May 19, 2015, this is tape number two. And before we jump into some bigger questions about the "loyalty questionnaire," I wanted to let Kristen Luetkemeier, who is the videographer here today, ask a couple of questions.

KL: I'm not sure we recorded your biological father's name and his parents' names. Or we did, but I missed.

RM: I think you're right.

PS: Okay. My father's name was Hiroshi Henry Morikawa, and my mother called him Hank.

KL: And his parents' names?

PS: I don't know.

KL: I was curious about how his family got to Manzanar from San Fernando, because that was kind of unusual, wasn't it?

PS: I don't know. I don't know how they got... because my mother never ever mentioned anything about his family. I think she literally did not like them.

KL: Well, and then you mentioned that she had that argument with her father-in-law when she went to live with Hank's family, and then went back to her own family.

PS: And then I think she came back again.

KL: To his family?

PS: Well, she would have had to because then after he came back from beet topping, they were together.

KL: Yeah, my question, how did it affection their relationship?

PS: They came back together. But I think when she was left alone with his family, I think it didn't go well.

KL: Oh, I see, so the argument was after he had left.

PS: Yeah. I'm sure she did not like them because they probably... I'm sure my mother was a little more verbal than most Japanese women, because she was raised in a Caucasian family, and my mother always said how she felt, she didn't hide her feelings.

KL: Another person who, I think, was prewar friends with the Kunitomis although I'm not sure about that was Hikoji Takeuchi who was shot by MPs pretty early on in Manzanar and survived, but I wondered if your mom ever talked about that at all, that shooting.

PS: No. Was it near the barbed wire?

RM: It was out near Blocks 35 and 36.

PS: Oh, that was far away, isn't it, on the other end?

RM: It's on the north end of the camp.

PS: Because I'd ask my mom about something, and she would just say, "Oh no, I never went to that side."

RM: Wow.

PS: She never left that little area where her barrack was. Block 20, that was her territory, she rarely... I mean, she walked to the hospital to have Janice. And then I think that's as far as she ever went, but she didn't go to visit anyone. Oh, she did mention going to eat at different mess halls, 'cause she said, "We'd hear the food was better somewhere else," and she would go where the food was.

RM: I've only heard that for teenage boys doing that, but it's interesting that other people were doing that also, going from mess hall to mess hall.

PS: She said the word would be out that somebody else was a better cook.

KL: Maybe this is obvious, but why did she stick so close to Block 20?

PS: I don't know. My mother has not been one to travel far, you know, walk, or exercise. I think... and plus, there were no strollers, you would have to carry your child. I think that's why she didn't go very far, and when she was pregnant, I think even walking to the hospital, was that kind of far?

RM: Yeah, it'd be a ways from Block 20.

PS: I think that was it, because she actually walking there, and then she was going to change her mind and go back. But I think her water broke and then they said, whoever saw her said she had to go, her time was due now.

RM: I never thought about women walking to the hospital to give birth, but of course, you couldn't just call a cab.

PS: You couldn't call anybody. Yeah, you couldn't even call even if you were in your barrack, there were no phones, no cell phones, oh my god.

KL: And then the last question -- and maybe this is getting out of order, I hope not -- but I just wondered if you'd say more about anything you know about putting your sister in the orphanage while she was delivering you in the hospital and recovering and stuff, what she said about that.

PS: She just said that when she would go and visit Janice in the orphanage, because she wasn't allowed to go live in her barrack yet, she said they would have her dressed in coveralls or pants, my mother always had her in dresses. And she was so unhappy, and she said she would look so sad on the other side of the fence.

RM: And I think we will talk a little bit more about that once we get past the "loyalty questionnaire" and segregation and Tule Lake. Because then you were born in April of '44, is that right?

PS: Right.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.