<Begin Segment 27>

RP: And after the service, you returned back to California?

TM: No. I went back to New Jersey.

RP: To Seabrook?

TM: Yeah, Seabrook. And then my sister, my younger, Noriko, she was out of high school. She got out of high school in '46, yeah, '46, yeah. And she went to beauty school and became a hairdresser. And so she wanted to go to a bigger city to do her work. So she says, "I want to go to Cleveland." So I said, "Okay, I'll go with you." So we went to Cleveland. So I lived in Cleveland for five years. And that's when I met Hide, in Cleveland, yeah. And we got married over there, yeah. And then we, we came back to California, and I got married in '54 and that's when we came back to California.

RP: Where did you settle?

TM: Settle?

RP: You settled in what area?

TM: Oh, L.A., yeah.

RP: Did your parents return before that time from Seabrook?

TM: Yeah. My father got sick. He had cancer so... and my brother Itsei was living here before. So we figure this is a better place to live. So he came here to live in California and then I, we, I came back in '54. Let's see, when did my... yeah, my father passed away, he was sixty-six, so he died fairly young. And...

RP: Was Mike, Mike, your brother Mike drafted eventually?

TM: Yeah. He was a draftee, yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. Out of camp?

TM: No. No.

RP: Chicago.

TM: No, from Seabrook.

RP: Oh, from Seabrook.

TM: No, no, Chicago. That's right, Chicago, yeah.

RP: So, did he serve... where did he serve?

TM: Korea. Yeah, before the war. See, he went in around '46 so, so he went in about '46 and '47. He spent a couple of years over there. And he hardly spoke Japanese, and he went there and he learned Japanese somehow. [Laughs] He came back and he was able to speak Japanese.

RP: Huh. So he was, he was used as an interpreter in Korea?

TM: Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.

RP: Now, did you use the GI Bill to go to college?

TM: No. I went to a watch repair school.

RP: In Los Angeles?

TM: No, in Cleveland. Yeah. So that was almost like a dental technician job. You're sittin' all day. So I got tired of it. So I didn't even go into it. My brother, Mike, he was a watch-maker for forty-nine years. Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. Mike was also involved at Manzanar at the high school. I guess, I don't know if he was the student body president or...

TM: Huh?

RP: Was Mike the student body president in Manzanar?

TM: Yeah. I think that's what somebody said. They picked it up in the computer. And I think one of my kids, when they went to Manzanar and they were going through that and they came back and they said, "Oh, I didn't know Mike was a student body president, class of '44."

<End Segment 27> - Copyright (c) 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.