Densho Digital Archive - Art Imagire Interview (denshovh-iart-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Well, tell us about your brother, Robert, a little bit. He was a little older than you, wasn't he?

AI: He's quite a bit older. He's eleven years older than I, so yeah. He was, he was more like an uncle to me than, than a brother. It's just recently that we've become a little bit closer. But he used to wheel me around in the, in the baby carriage. Yeah. So, my brother grew up and then he was, he was just out of high school, yeah, he'd be twenty. He was born in '22 so he was, he was out of high school hoping to go to college and then war kind of interrupted things for him.

RP: Was he working in your father's business at all?

AI: I, you know, I don't recall. I don't recall what he was doing. Well, he would have, he would have been well out of high school at that time. He'd be twenty. But all I recall is once we moved to Reno he was looking around for a job. Like I told you he tried to enlist in the service and they wouldn't take him in. And when they finally did he went in, took the physical and ended up being 4-F. So, but he...

RP: Was that just after the war?

AI: Pardon?

RP: Was that just after the war began, or just after you --

AI: No. That was after, that was after we had moved to Reno. And he was, tried to get into college, remember I told you, he tried to get into college and the university wouldn't accept him because he was Japanese descent.

RP: This was --

AI: And then when he tried to join the army they wouldn't let him because Japanese descent. And then they finally, when they did allow him to join, he was 4-F. So, yeah, I don't know much about my, what my brother did before the... I guess I was just too young to realize what he was up to, doing.