<Begin Segment 3>

RP: Tell me what you can recall about your father. How do you remember your father as a person, his personality?

GU: I remember him as a disciplinarian. He was very strict. But even when he got real mad at me, he never struck me physically. So his voice was very loud, and so I, it was very difficult for me to say anything against him, do anything against him. And I guess that's helped me to go through my life trying to stay on the right side, not to bring shame to him, his name and to my dad. I think that was mostly generally true with Japanese people, that you don't try to bring shame to your family. You can't say that about that nowadays, but back then, it was, it was pretty common, I think.

LU: That's why it's about what he said. He was strict.

RP: Any other values or...

LU: He was a hard-working man on the farm. And when I think back on that, for a person that came from Japan with hardly no education, he, I guess he accomplished quite a bit.

GU: Yeah, I guess that's what, in thinking back about it, his life, he, for education that he didn't have, he really accomplished a lot and he was able to provide for his family a lot better than any of the other people, even educated people.

LU: Besides raising a big family.

RP: You had thirteen kids?

LU: There were eleven children plus two...

GU: Cousins.

LU: Two cousins that came from Japan and just stayed with us.

RP: They came at a young age and then were raised by the family?

LU: Yeah.

GU: I don't know what age they came, but I imagine they were in their teens.

LU: Yeah. It's a long story, but they came here for another reason, to try to join with their mother that was living here. But somehow, it didn't turn out, so my father, rather than go back to Japan, he told them that, "You could stay with us," if they wanted to, so they did.

RP: But their mother was living in the United States?

LU: Yes, I think so. And I don't know the whole story, but I think that was it. That's the reason they came here from Japan, the two cousins.

RP: Were there any other family from Japan that settled in the United States that you're aware of?

LU: You mean part of the family? No.

RP: Another -- I don't know if I would call it a tradition, but there many Issei parents that for one reason or another sent children back to Japan for schooling, did that occur in your family?

GU: Not that I can recall.

RP: Everybody who was born in the United States stayed here? Do you recall any trips back to Japan just for a short time? Did your father take trips?

GU: Some part of the family did go to Japan for visits, but that was before I think either one of us were born. In fact, one of my brothers was born in Japan and then the family came back here, he eventually got naturalized as a citizen.

RP: Which brother?

GU: That was David.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.