<Begin Segment 8>

RP: You mentioned she attended church. What church?

HN: Konkokyo church. It's still there in east L.A.

RP: And is that a Buddhist church?

HN: No, it's a Shinto church.

RP: Oh, it's a Shinto church. There weren't too many of those around.

HN: What's that?

RP: There weren't too many Shinto churches around.

HN: No, that was the only one. And it was right there in east L.A., First and Evergreen. It's still there.

RP: The original church?

HN: Yes and it's still goin'.

RP: It's still a Shinto church?

HN: Uh-huh.

RP: How does Shinto differ from Buddhism? Do you, are you familiar with...

HN: I don't know. I had to go to both. My dad was Buddhist and my mother was Shinto. So I went to both churches.

RP: Oh, on the same Sunday or did you alternate?

HN: Well, I forget what I did. I must have alternated, can't go to same church same day. But...

RP: So, so one week you were Shinto and the next week you were Buddhist.

HN: Yeah. That's right. It was interesting growing up.

RP: Yeah. You, you had a --

HN: The only difference in the churches is the Shinto religion, they believe in the divine being, not God per se, but a Japanese divine being. And that's the religion of the emperor of Japan, you know. So he's the, kinda like the physical god of the church. So when they commit suicides or do things like that, they all talked about Tennoheika banzai and then they cut themselves open. But that's kind of a sad story. I don't know why anybody would want to kill themselves.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.