<Begin Segment 20>

RM: Did you all ever go to big events in L.A.? Like I know earlier I brought up Nisei Week before the war. Did you ever go after the war?

PS: Oh, yeah, I used to go Nisei Week, I used to dance in Nisei Week.

RM: What was the earliest one that you remember?

PS: I had to be a teenager by then because... I had to be a teenager, because I remember getting dressed.

RM: And what was it like? I've seen photos, and it's amazing.

PS: The carnival was really nice, it was fun. My parents took us, we had a good time, there was lots of games, and then the dance and the parade and everything. Plus, it was a giant parking lot. I think that's what happened is that there was big parking lot left anymore for them to put up the carnival, I don't know. I know we stopped going, I stopped going because it wasn't the same to me.

RM: Were there other events that you went to?

PS: I used to go to Koyasan picnics, because the Kunitomis belonged to Koyasan Buddhist Church, and they used to always have their picnic in Huntington Beach, and we used to always go.

RM: I was gonna -- oh, go ahead.

PS: But I always enjoyed going to that because it was a potluck. Everybody brought food and shared it, and then they had games where you threw the egg and you had the three-legged race. Just the normal, like, if you went to the fair type of thing.

RM: Were these picnics, were they going on when you were in your teens?

PS: Oh, yeah.

RM: And did they continue for a while? I hadn't heard about the Koyasan picnics, but I like the idea.

PS: I'm trying to think when was the last time I went to one of those. I had to be in my late teens by then, because I think even my sisters remember, they may remember going to the Koyasan. But you ask Bruce, he'll remember the Koyasan picnics.

RM: I will. So, I'm glad you brought up the Kunitomis. Did your family, it sounds like, remain close friends with that family?

PS: Pretty much. When Frank and Hide, they stayed in Chicago for a long time, they had two children, they had Cynthia by then. I think they came here when Cynthia was maybe ten years old, eight years old. They came back, and I remember my parents helped them out financially, and they rented the apartment across from our house, it was up the hill there. And then eventually they moved to where his mother lives, 'cause I think they all pitched in and they bought that triplex over there on Parkland, and that's where my aunt and uncle lived. And that's where Frank's mom, Sueko's mom lived, and her sister, Chiyoko, and Kingo, all of them lived there. So we all kind of were in that same group because we used to visit them a lot.

RM: Were your mom and Sueko close after, during this time?

PS: Not so much, because I think Sueko was married, and they didn't live there. I had met her husband and boys. I think at some time they got a divorce, I don't know.

RM: So since we're sort of in your high school years a little bit, I wanted to ask about when you learned that Paul Sakamoto wasn't your dad and that this guy that your mom had been married to was your dad. How did that come about?

PS: I can't exactly remember. I just know, the only thing I can think was I needed that birth certificate for something. But it had to be my later teens or maybe mid-teens.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.