<Begin Segment 2>

TI: Okay, so let's first talk about your father. Can you tell me his name and where in Japan he was born?

GS: I think he was born in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi-ken, in Japan, and then...

TI: His name was?

GS: Yoshitaro. Yoshitaro Sakato. Now I have to think back... Henry was Yoshitake...

TI: Yeah, I think it's Yoshitaro. Yeah, Yoshitaro Sakato. And what kind of work did your father, father's family do in Japan?

GS: I don't know really what they did in Japan. I don't know. We never did correspond, I never did correspond with the family, although I did go to Japan to see the relatives. I saw more of my mother's side, she also was Iwakuni and Wakicho, they called it. There was a little town between Wakicho, and there was a river that separated Hiroshima from Yamaguchi-ken, Otake was Hiroshima-ken. My great-great-great-grandfather was a samurai.

TI: And this on your mother's side?

GS: Father's side.

TI: Father's side, okay.

GS: And he was killed in battle between Hiroshima and Yamaguchi-ken.

TI: I'm curious, did you know that growing up, that you had an ancestor who was a samurai?

GS: No.

TI: So this was later in your research when you traveled.

GS: '60s, when my dad brought back a katana, sword, that I have. But the webbing and all that is all decaying and falling apart, six hundred-some years old.

TI: Did that, did that surprise you, that you had an ancestor who was samurai?

GS: [Laughs] Yeah

TI: 'Cause that's uncommon, that's not a common thing for a family to have that. Your mother's side, what was her maiden name?

GS: Hatsu Kawado.

TI: Kawado.

GS: Hatsu Kawado. Boy, you're pulling out my -- I have to think back sixty, fifty, sixty, seventy-five, eighty years ago. [Laughs]

TI: I'm trying to stir up those brain paths. Do you know what your mother's family did in Japan?

GS: I have no idea what they did, although I did visit them.

TI: Well, how did, how did your mother and father meet?

GS: "Picture bride," I guess.

TI: So it was kind of an arranged baishakunin.

GS: Arranged, baishakunin type of thing.

TI: Okay. So, do you know why your father came to United States? Did he ever tell you why?

GS: He thought this, the United States would be, they could make a lot of money and then go back to Japan, their plans were. But like they say, they all came here anticipating to make a lot of money and then go back, but they all never did go back.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.