<Begin Segment 3>

RP: How about your mother? First of all, your father's name?

IK: Yoriyuki. It's just the way it sounds.

RP: And your mother's name?

IK: Mitsu. It's... they call her Mitsuko generally, I guess.

RP: M-I-T-S --

IK: S-U...

RP: K-O? Mitsuko?

IK: Yeah, Mitsuko would be, that's... the K-O is the, the Japanese all stick on most of their names, I believe. But she, she was very pretty gal.

RP: And what was her, do you remember her maiden name?

IK: Fuwa. F-U-W-A. And by some of the information I got, it was a very prominent name in Kyoto. And she passed away at the age thirty-six.

RP: Did your parents meet in Japan?

IK: That part's a little strange. I didn't quite make it... I don't know. I just don't know whether... I think my father went to Japan, married her and came back, and that's all I can say about that.

RP: Now how many siblings did you have?

IK: One that lived, my bigger, older sister, and my mother had a couple of miscarriages.

RP: What was your older sister's name?

IK: M-I-Y-O, Miyo.

RP: After your father completed dental school at USC, where did the family settle?

IK: Los Angeles. That's all I remember of him, where he lived, and that's where I was born. And we can, we can own most of Los Angeles 'cause we moved around quite a bit, and I don't know why, but we did live all over the city.

RP: And your father was able to set up a practice?

IK: Yes. Prewar he had a practice in Little Tokyo, which was Little Tokyo then. And, well, at First and San Pedro Street, I believe. Quite close to the city hall. And he was there until the war started and camp was next.

RP: So most of his clients were, or patients, were Japanese American?

IK: Yes.

RP: Did he attempt to try to open a practice elsewhere?

IK: No, even after the war he went back to Little Tokyo and then at the end of his, mostly the end of his life, he bought an apartment house and converted one of the units into an office and spent the rest of his life there.

RP: Tell us about your biological mother.

IK: Well she, I didn't know her well enough, but as a kid she was... excuse me... I'm sorry...

[Interruption]

IK: I was eleven and... that was what sort of turned me around with religion, was that the church people came by and said the Lord needed him, and all I could think about is, "Who the hell let her, needed her more than anybody but me?" And that was a sort of a turn in life, and in life that's, that had a very large impression on me, which, I guess, meant everything to me.

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