<Begin Segment 6>

RP: And I imagine that all the girls went to Japanese language school?

AF: Oh, yes.

RP: You had to.

KT: We had to. We were forced to.

NN: I went briefly.

RP: And so what was your attitude about, about going and about learning about your traditional culture? How did you accept that?

AF: Oh, I just took it as matter of fact, we had to go. So we went.

RP: Made the best of it?

AF: Oh, yes.

KT: We were told to go, so we went. I mean, we didn't know any better to fight them.

NN: I went after the war, very briefly. But my sisters were able to get piano lessons. Kiyo played the piano, according, and Aya, you played the piano, too, did you not?

AF: Well, I started to before the --

NN: And then my other sisters played the violin and I was too young. And so when we went into camp, that's where the, my mother had me start Japanese dancing lessons.

RP: And so the motivation for, for you getting into music mostly came from your mother?

AF: Yes.

RP: And was she musically inclined?

AF: No, not at all. She studied bread, that's all.

RP: But she wanted to give you sort of a well-rounded look at...

NN: Yes, I believe so.

AF: I think she enjoyed it.

RP: So you actually, did you have a piano in the house?

NN: Yes, my sister...

AF: She used to.

KT: Yes.

RP: When did you start playing piano?

KT: I must have been around six or seven. I started taking lessons, which I hated. [Laughs]

AF: Oh, I did, too.

NN: But also, she learned to play the accordion. And so when she was, oh, gosh, I don't know if you were about twelve or ten, there used to be a JACL within our community, and they would, the young Niseis would -- they're older Niseis compared to me -- but they would have these meetings, dinner meetings, and invite Mary Kageyama to sing as well as my sister to play the accordion. And so I borrowed one of their albums, and I did see her picture in there in the little news brief.

RP: That's interesting just because in an interview that we did with Mary, her and her sisters were all musically inclined and took lessons from their mom who taught music.

AF: Yes.

RP: Yeah, and apparently, just before the war, Mary and her sisters were sent by the JACL on a tour of some of the military bases in California, like the base near San Luis Obispo, Camp Roberts. I don't know if it's Camp San Luis Obispo. But they performed for --

AF: She was very, yes, she was very talented, Mary was.

RP: Uh-huh. So you knew, did you know the family when you were --

AF: Yes, oh, yes. I knew the younger sister, Tilly.

RP: Tilly, right. And they, of course, had some amazing voices.

AF: Oh, yes. She had a real clear voice.

RP: She still does.

NN: She's still singing, is she not?

AF: Yes.

RP: She sings for the, the high school reunion every, every year. So that's, that's a very nice connection.

AF: Yeah, they had nice voices, that family.

RP: And so periodically you would, you would play for these dinners?

KT: Yes.

RP: Once in a while?

KT: Then when we got into camp, I started accompanying Mary.

RP: Oh, you accompanied Mary?

KT: On the piano.

RP: On the piano?

NN: She also was in a...

KT: Jazz band.

NN: Western, Western band called the Sierra...

RP: That was the Sierra Stars.

NN: Yes, right. I don't know if you were in there or not. Were you in there, too? [Referring to someone off camera.]

AF: Oh, no, no, he was in the jazz band. He used to play the --

NN: Yeah, he was in the Jive Bombers, but there was another.

Off camera voice: She was always up at the music hall, Block 24.

RP: Block 24, yeah. We'll get to that in just a, just a little bit.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.