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RP: Well, we'd like to get a little better picture of some of your family history. Can you share with us your family background of your father and his family in Japan? Were they landowners? Were they highly educated?

MI: Yes. My father's father, which would be my grandfather, was a land owner. And they're from Hamamatsu.

RP: And where...

MI: Shizuoka.

RP: Oh, Shizuoka.

MI: That's south of Tokyo. And he was one of several brothers. And majority of them are very academic. Well, in fact, they were academics. And I think that's where my dad is such a, has such an interest in academics, reading and furthering education. So there are, I understand, statues in Tokyo and there's another place in, near Mashiko that had another statue in the high school and I understand they're all related to my dad. So that shows that he came from a very academic family. And his purpose in coming to the United States was with his cousin. And his cousin went to Stanford and my dad stayed. And he didn't have the funding to go back.

RP: Your father's cousin returned to Japan?

MI: Yeah. But he got his, I understand that he did get his degree.

RP: At Stanford?

MI: Yeah, and I think I'd like to look that up and see that, whether these informations are a hundred percent correct. You know, when did he get it and what was the major that he got it on. I'm assuming that it might have been on trade.

RP: Can you give us your father's name, Mary?

MI: It was Fukutaro. And then he went by the name of Frank Suzuki.

RP: Do you know much about his educational background in Japan? Did he, did he actually go to college at all, or...

MI: That part is very vague to me, but I'm assuming he did go to at least high school. But my dad didn't speak too much about that so I'm, I can't give you an accurate answer on that. And my mother also was very academically-oriented. But in those days women do not go to school, like high school and things. But she was a high school candidate. But she did pursue her interest in education when she came back to the United States. And might be one of the very few Isseis who graduated from college in costume designing.

RP: Which college was that?

MI: I'm trying... Woodbury. Woodbury College in Los Angeles. That's very... and then she drove a car when a lot of Issei ladies never drove a car. They're a pretty modern couple when you think about it.

RP: Very much so.

MI: Yeah.

RP: Were there any other members... you mentioned that your father came over with a cousin. Were there any other members of the extended family who also came to the United States?

MI: Came to the United States? No, not that I know of. And that's it.

RP: Right.

MI: Yeah.

RP: And your father, you said that he had a number of brothers?

MI: No, he didn't have, but he had a number of uncles.

RP: Uncles.

MI: And I had heard it not too long ago that one of the uncles even went to England, which I find pretty interesting.

RP: For education?

MI: Trading.

RP: Oh. So they were, yeah, a whole different...

MI: So there, it's a whole different...

RP: ...class.

MI: Class, right.

RP: Education, trade, commerce.

MI: Right, right. And...

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