Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Margaret Saito Interview
Narrator: Margaret Saito
Interviewer: Kirk Peterson
Location: Sacramento, California
Date: December 17, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-smargaret_2-01-0015

<Begin Segment 15>

KP: So you moved to Sacramento?

MS: In 1947 I think. I'm pretty sure. I was a sophomore... and then we lived in a boarding house for a while and I went to Sacramento high school here. My sister did go to a junior high here because she was of the age to go to the junior high. It was close to Japantown here before the redevelopment. So that was the area where there were many businesses, stores, a theater, barbershop, pharmacy, things like that.

KP: Did you suddenly notice that now that there was New Year's celebration and stuff that you attended?

MS: Let's see, I don't think I attended anything special. I had been to homes that have done special things so I do know what the traditional spread is. But my mother never really observed the traditional... she did the things that she knew and that we liked. So it wasn't, it wasn't like many.

KP: What do you remember about your, that would be your --

MS: Stepfather?

KP: Stepfather, yeah.

MS: Oh, well, I know that my sister and I really didn't care for him. And eventually -- excuse me -- eventually they divorced. And then I was called to be a witness or whatever. So I do recall that. And then...

KP: Was he, do you know if he was Nisei?

MS: No, he's not Nisei, he might have been Kibei. Issei or Kibei. I really don't know.

KP: So he didn't, did he speak English well?

MS: Well, I guess he spoke English but not like... Yeah, I think he did speak English.

KP: Not like you were used to?

MS: Right. Yeah, he was of a different era.

KP: And your father remarried in '46 was it?

MS: I think '46, yes.

KP: And where did he... ?

MS: Well, I think he was in Arizona about that time because my brother, I think he says that they were in Arizona. But when he was little he came back to Temple City where my grandmother lived. And then so the first year when we came back to California, my sister went down to see her father, our father. And then spent the summer, or the better part of summer, and then the following year I went. And then the year I went, Benny was about a year and a half.

KP: What was that like, going back into your father's new world?

MS: Oh, it was kind of different. His wife was like maybe ten years younger than me. But she was always kind to us because she had a stepmother. Her father was a pharmacist, I don't know if he was a Nisei or what, but her mother and my stepmother when she was little and another sister were in Japan during the typhoon time. And the mother was trying to find protection for them and the mother died. And so then the father was a widower and he remarried and she had this stepmother that, she was like the slave, where they had another family, I mean, and then she was the one that washed the diapers and did all, she was just a girl but expected to do much more. So she always was kind to us because she knew how it was to be, to have a stepmother.

KP: So you felt welcomed in that family?

MS: Yes. And then we were close to those children growing up because we lived in San Bernardino after I was married. And then we saw them growing up and so that made it close.

KP: And then also was your grandmother's people and more of your relatives were there?

MS: Yes. I did get to see them like at Thanksgiving. And I guess we would come back to Sacramento for Christmas maybe. At times we didn't, we would celebrate with them.

KP: Did you do the train? To go down there?

MS: No. I always drove, we always drove. Yeah, and I still do. And I fly only if time is important. But now I have time so I don't have to... I really prefer driving.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.