<Begin Segment 5>

RP: How about your mom? Was she basically there in a supporting role? Was she out there on the farm as well and also raising...

AF: No, she didn't have to work, but she did it to be sociable with some of the workers. I remember she didn't have to work. My father never made her work, never pushed her.

RP: She got together with those Issei women? Chatted a little?

AF: Yeah, chat, chat, chat.

NN: When she came out here from Japan, I believe -- and there were moments that, when they would have a spat. And she would remind my father, "You told my parents that we would be working here." She didn't realize how hard -- because she was raised in the city -- how hard the farming work was. And so my dad was mentioning that when they were doing seasonal work, and I guess she wasn't as fast as some of the other women, so he would sort of help out her, help her out. [Laughs] And so there was great cooperation there. And in addition to that, she would say, when she was angry, "Yes, and I never expected to shovel manure all day long." [Laughs] So she had a tough work to do, but she did it. And they did quite well together.

KT: But he was a very generous man, though. Bought her fur coats and diamonds, 'cause he could afford it. But he was very generous to her, very good to her.

NN: I believe it's probably because he lost his own mother at such a young age. And so he just adored her. And knowing that she's the mother of his children, too, he was very good to her. But they compensated for one another. Because my father was quite stoic, but very gentle in heart. And my mother is the one that would communicate with the visitors that would come. And so they matched fairly well.

KT: Yeah, I could remember when people used to come and visit. My dad would sit in the conversation for a while, then he would excuse himself and leave everything up to my mother.

RP: So she picked up English a little better than he did, or what was it about her that...

AF: No.

KT: It was communicating with the Isseis, yes.

RP: That's "women's talk," right? Let's talk a little bit about your upbringing, being of Japanese ancestry growing up in America. Can you share with us stories about culture, holidays? Were you raised sort of an American way, Japanese, or a mixture of both?

NN: Well, within the community that they were in, in Venice/Culver area, they had a large congregation of Japanese community. And so my father was quite involved with some of the, they had a Japanese school. What they wanted to do was to perpetuate the language and have not the American-born, their American-born children forget the Japanese culture. So within a small area, they had judo, they had Japanese school, and some other activities. And it was, that was located near the Douglass Aircraft, I don't know if you're familiar with that area near the Marina Del Rey. And there's a creek that used to run alongside out into the ocean. But during the winter, it would flood. This is before they put up the, what is that? What did they call it now? Where they, it's terrain where it's concreted, where the water...

RP: Concrete channel?

NN: Yes, channel. And so it was all dirt with a creek running. And in the winter, I guess they always had flood which involved the church, the school. And so the parents would stack the chairs on top of the tables to avoid as much damage as possible, but I guess they got they got frustrated with that and located another place to have this community center. And so my father was one of the main contributors at that time, and so they established the -- it's called the Venice Japanese Community Center, and it's there to this day, continuing with the cultures of teaching the children culture, language, and arts, crafts, martial arts.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.