<Begin Segment 13>

KP: You mentioned earlier that your family really didn't practice many of the Japanese traditions until you went back to Japan. When was that? When did that happen?

TI: Well, we went to Japan during the summer of 1954. And my father, right after the war, Japan had put out bonds to help with their recovery, and my father bought some of those bonds. And so when we went to Japan, the bonds were still there for us to use. My mother used all of the money that was there every time she took a trip, it was already there in Japan, luckily. And so anyway, that's when we picked up the dolls, the Girl's Day doll set, and we picked up the big carps. And my brother would fly those carps every Boy's Day, May 5th, at the nursery. He had some long bamboo he can get from different places, you know, and put it up on those, at the nursery in the corner there. And those are the only other celebrations that we did. We did put up those dolls every year for a while, and then as people, children grew up and moved away, we stopped doing that. But we always got together for New Year's Day, first at my mother's place and then at our place. And we have lots of pictures of us in our kimonos, we brought back kimonos to wear. And those were good times for us.

KP: So there's an interesting arc I'm hearing here, and that is before Pearl Harbor, you talk about seeing what was going on in Japan, thinking, "Oh, those are some different people," you didn't really relate with that. And then Pearl Harbor seemed to pull into you, into your mind, at least, a consciousness that, "Oh, I am Japanese." And then after the war, you go back and --

TI: Yes, and then we went to Japan.

KP: Right. And then how did, I mean, how did that all come together inside of you as to how you were related or not related to Japan?

TI: Well, that was the first time I met my cousins, when I went in '54. We knew about them because they had sent pictures. My mother always corresponded with her sister and her brother, and that's when I met my relatives. And then, in addition to my having gone, now my brother Yoneo's daughter went over there. And, well, first it was my brother Joe's son who went as, like a university overseas for one year, he went to Japan. That's where he met his wife. He is now a doctor in Hilo, Hawaii. He's the first one who went, and then Vicky, my, Yoneo's daughter, went to Japan for a year. And then our daughter Susanna went as well. So there are many connections. Not just my mother and I going, but connections with the children now. And my husband Frank always encouraged Ken to take his family to Japan. Well, not in his lifetime. Anyway, there's a connection, and yet, I never made a big deal of it. I've always called myself Japanese American, however. I always kept that connection in Bakersfield as well as up here. And that's why we joined the Florin JACL. And the reason we joined the Centennial church is because when -- I knew the pastor, for one thing, because she had been a pastor at the First Church of Bakersfield. And then when we visited the church, it was so diverse. They have, right now, our church has a group of Fijians and Tongans who meet separately. And on the board, we have Japanese Americans, my son is on the board now. And we have Chinese Americans and African Americans. It is the most diverse Methodist church I think there ever is. So we really like that church. And that's all part of it. I don't have to say I'm proud of Toyota and of Nissan, and all the cameras they make and all. My husband used to. [Laughs] I figure that is them over there doing it, not us over here doing it. But he always took pride in Japanese things, much more so than I ever did.

KP: One more little step backwards, 1953, was it, that they changed the U.S. naturalization law so that people could --

TI: Oh, yes.

KP: Did your parents...

TI: My father died in 1951, so, of course, he couldn't. And he would have, he's one who would have. But my mother found that the people who were older than her could take it in Japanese, but she couldn't. And English was just too hard for her to have to learn to do that. And by then, anyway, my brother was in charge of everything. I had told my, I think I told my children, "I don't think Grandma ever paid for a thing in her life." I think my father took care of everything, and then my brother took care of everything, and then I helped to pay once she was over at the assisted living place. I don't think she ever paid for a thing in her life. [Laughs] Life was easy for her. So no, it was not like the group here in Florin where there's a, we have a beautiful picture of all the people who took and passed the test. And so often with the people that I interviewed, they probably told me about getting the, their citizenship, yes.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.