<Begin Segment 5>

KL: And what about your dad? He grew up around growers, and I assume he worked in Fuji Nursery?

KN: He actually worked, he lived on a farm in Gardena. And then he went to high school, (Venice) High School. He was quite an athlete. He was a way better athlete than I was.

KL: And then when did he and your mother marry?

KN: It must have been a couple years before I was born, so it must have been '35, '36.

KL: Mid '30s. And then did they both work at the Fuji Nursery?

KN: Yeah.

KL: Did your dad have any college background or education?

KN: Well, as I mentioned, he had a degree in agriculture and engineering from Davis, U.C. Davis. That was an ag. school.

KL: Do you think he had a real interest in agriculture or do you think he was being pragmatic as a Japanese immigrant, or do you think it's both?

KN: He didn't have a choice. I think it showed, because after the war, him and my grandfather Nishimura went into business processing seafood. And he'd design almost every equipment and built it with a machinist. So they didn't have this machinery, and so he always had design magazines around, so you could tell he always had interest, I think, in engineering.

KL: There's another question about Shimpei I just remembered. How did he get the name Morgenlander?

KN: I have no idea. That's a German name. I did talk to him one time and asked him that, and he always signed his name M.S. Nishimura. And he said to me, "I got a second name because I didn't want to be confused with my dad and my grandfather." Because my grandfather used to always sign his name "S. Nishimura." So if they both signed their name "S. Nishimura"... he always wrote it M.S. I have no idea. And you're sort of polite, you never ask him, right? You never asked, he never told, you know?

KL: Frank Hirosawa's daughter and I were sort of speculating, because she knows German very well and is interested in the language, so she was kind of speculating about meanings and stuff, but it's just curious.

KN: Uncle Shimpei spoke German very fluently. You see, he was also interested in polymer chemistry when he was going to school. When he passed away, I had to dispose of all his books, nobody wanted them. But they were all in German. Polymer chemistry at that time, Germany was the leader in polymer chemistry. So if you wanted to read anything about polymer chemistry, you had to read German. So I still remember when I went to see him in the University of Illinois, this is in probably about 1950, '51, he told me, "I'll be done with lecture about noon or so, why don't you come by this lecture hall?" I went in there and I couldn't believe it, I thought I had a stroke. I didn't understand one word that was being said in that. And I asked him later what language was it, he said, "I was speaking German." Apparently for the summer session, there was a bunch of scientists from Germany that came, so he chose to speak in German. He was very fluent in German.

KL: Did he speak other languages or read other languages?

KN: He was very fluent in Japanese, too, so he was trilingual. I don't know what other language he spoke, but he was very fluent.

KL: Did he ever travel internationally?

KN: Not that I know of. He might have after the war with Robert Emerson. I wouldn't know about that.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.