<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Your mother, what was her name?

RM: Haruko.

RP: H-A-R-U-K-O?

RM: U-K-O.

RP: And was Haruko from?

RM: Oxnard, California.

RP: Was she originally from Japan?

RM: No.

RP: She was Nisei?

RM: Nisei. But they took that away from her when she got married to my father.

RP: Because your father was a, was an...

RM: Alien.

RP: Alien. And there was a law against...

RM: She didn't know about it 'til they went to camp.

RP: And then they took their citizenship away.

RM: Yeah. So they both had to take citizenship classes later on.

RP: To, to...

RM: Get their citizenship.

RP: How did, how did your father meet your mother?

RM: Oh, I don't know exactly because, like I say, I wasn't born then yet. But way I think is that he, he started doing, taking judo up there. And the Japanese people around there, they were farmers, mostly farmers, so they started a group up there, Oxnard. And then one of the boys was my uncle, I think it was my uncle Howard. And he, he was doing it and he, and then I guess that's the way he met my mother up there.

RP: Through your uncle?

RM: Yeah.

RM: Yeah. So they got married up there, moved down here. He moved the nursery, too, that time. That was the, the time he moved the nursery from the Van Nuys area, too.

RP: Van Nuys to Cahuenga?

RM: Yeah.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.