<Begin Segment 14>

RM: I guess last question, do you know if your dad spoke Japanese?

PS: Yes.

RM: He did?

PS: Yes.

RM: And do you know if he had spent any of his education in Japan or if he just learned it from his parents?

PS: I think he either... I don't know, but most of the people or the Japanese here, they went to Japanese school. So he may have gone to Japanese school, or maybe it was just the Japanese he learned from his parents. Like my stepfather, he didn't speak English until he went to school here, and he was born here. Because they had a farm, and his mother never learned to speak English. And if that's the case...

RM: So let's actually continue with what you found out, I guess, about your dad's history after he was segregated at Tule Lake in northern California, what happened to him and his family after that?

PS: I know nothing, there was no contact. I think they only contact my mother ever had, I think there were two letters that she had received from him, but I think he was already in Japan by then. And he asked her to send him cigarettes and coffee, and my mother did nothing. Didn't answer the letters, didn't send anything. He just said, "Say hello to the kiddos," I kind of remember in the letter, but that was about it.

RM: Was that the only communication that they had were those two letters?

PS: Uh-huh.

RM: And she didn't respond?

PS: No.

RM: Wow. Did your mom ever talk about, was she angry at him? Because it struck me, when you said she was madly in love with him before the war, and then to have all this happen, did she ever talk about being angry?

PS: I think she was angry, because anytime I would try and defend what he did, she would just yell at me. I think she was angry, not even just disappointed, I think she was plain angry about it. "How dare he leave me with two children, or leave me with a child and pregnant, leave me in this situation?" And to choose his parents over her. So she was definitely angry?

RM: Did your dad or his parents ever come back from Japan?

PS: No, I don't think so. You know, my mom used to say every once in a while, she would talk to someone that he knew before the war, after, way after the war, and they would say that he never came back. So I think my mom still kind of asked about him, but she never said anything to us.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.