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RP: Just to backtrack a little, can you give me your mother's and father's names?

FS: My father was Kametaro Ishii, and my mother is Tane Ishii.

RP: Can you spell both of those for us?

FS: Kametaro is K-A-M-E-T-A-R-O, and my mother was Tane, T-A-N-E.

RP: Where did, where did your parents hail from in Japan?

FS: They came from Wakayama-ken, Japan. Arita-gun and Arita-shi, Japan.

RP: And did they have intentions of coming to America and making money and perhaps buying land in Japan and returning there?

FS: Right. My mother, when my father came to Japan to find a wife, they had set my mother up with him. And she asked her aunt what she should do, and she said, "I think, since you're a daughter, you don't inherit any land. So I think you should go to America, make your fortune, come back and buy your property." So they came to America to make their fortune, but of course, with ten, having given birth to ten children and the firing during the war, it just never happened. They had their own property. During the war, we had our house, and we lived in Nevada. During the war, when my father was fired, no one else wanted to hire a Japanese. So my brother went to work after hours in a grocery store, because they didn't want him to work during the day, 'cause they didn't want anybody of Japanese ancestry on the floor to discourage customers. My sister went to cosmetology school, and they gave her a state license at the age of seventeen instead of eighteen, based on hardship. So she also went to work. She'd go to high school, and then after class, she'd go and work 'til midnight. So my sister and brother were really the prime support of the family during the war. My father did odd jobs working for different places, and then eventually he took on a gardening job with the owner of the Nevada Nursery. And the Nevada Nursery would give him the customers, and he'd go out and do the gardening during the summer. Of course, during the winter it would snow, so there was no gardening in Nevada.

RP: If you can give your siblings that you mentioned, names, so we know who... maybe in order of age.

FS: Of birth? Okay, my brother was born in Utah, and his name was Hanichi, H-A-N-I-C-H-I. And he came to Sparks. When he was two years old, my grandparents were going to go back to Japan, and my mother asked them to stay because she'd given birth to the second child who had passed away. And so she was pregnant with her third child, and they said that she needed help with the children. And my grandmother said, "Well, we'll stay if you'll allow us to take the oldest son back to Japan when we go." So they stayed, and my mother gave birth to Hanroku, H-A-N-R-O-K-U, and my grandparents left with my brother when he was two. He never came back to the United States. But in 1980, 1979, my mother went back and visited him. And then in 1980, my older sister and I went back. My sister and brother were born right next to the railroad property, and my sister's Masako, M-A-S-A-K-O. And when she was a newborn, the first month of life, the house that they were living in caught on fire, so they had to find a residence. And there was one family that took my mother and the two children in, but they wouldn't take my father and uncle. So my father and uncle (rented an) apartment, at the time, and then when they got stabilized, they brought the property on C Street. And they bought a small house at the time, and that's where we lived all our life. Okay, and then the next brother was Hiroshi, H-I-R-O-S-H-I, and during the war, he used to raise rabbits to sell to the Italian market. And then my mother raised chickens, of course, she raised turkeys, they had a lamb. We did everything, we lived off the land. And then my sister Toshiko was born, T-O-S-H-I-K-O, and then I was the next one, F-U-M-I-K-O. In between, we had four, three brothers and a sister who passed away.

RP: Fumie, tell us a little bit about your dad, and you mentioned in our pre-interview that both your mom and dad were not traditional in the sense that they didn't see specific gender roles for you and encourage you to be independent and strong.

FS: Right.

RP: How did that relationship develop from your early childhood?

FS: Well, my dad was, I guess, the stronger of the two parents, the disciplinarian. And I remember when I got my driver's license. He told me if I wanted to drive the pickup, which we owned, I would have to rotate the tires on the truck. I think it was a ploy that he needed the tires rotated, but I had to go out to prove to him that I could change the tires on the pickup before I could take the car, because he said he didn't want me calling late at night saying I had a flat tire. He wanted me to be able to change the tire. So I did, I even had to change a flat tire on the truck before he would let me drive the pickup around town. Now, this is something my sisters and brothers didn't have to do, but I had to do it to get permission to use his car. But he always wanted us to be survivors, and he said that in the event anything happened to our husbands, he wanted us to be able to provide for ourselves. So he really encouraged us to have some kind of background. So my oldest brother was a watch repairman, my sister, two sisters were beauticians, and I was the only one that went to college. My other brother was a vice president for United California Bank. So we were all, had jobs so we could support ourselves if anything happened. And I was the only child that went to college, and I had a teaching credential. So I was kind of set in life.

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