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RP: Did any other members of your father's family come to the United States?

TI: Well my, my mother came to the United States. But, she came here, I would say, as a bride.

RP: What was her, what was her name?

TI: Her name was, Yoshida is her family name. Yoshida, Fumi.

RP: Short for Fumiko?

TI: Yes, uh-huh. And she was I think born in Yokohama. So, it's not very close to Koza, you know. How they got together is something else again. There was a so-called go-between and, who introduced my father to her and they were married.

RP: Was she a "picture bride" then?

TI: I don't think she was a "picture bride." She may have been because this man maybe got them pictures of her and showed it to my father. That part I don't know.

RP: So did they meet in the United States?

TI: Yes, uh-huh.

RP: And they married here.

TI: Yes.

RP: Okay. And tell us a little bit about your mom. You said that she was a little more educated than your dad.

TI: Oh yes, uh-huh. Being from the large city, Yokohama, she went to, I believe a public school, and she was better educated than my father. But there was one thing though, my father was real good calligraphy, you know, using a brush. And he did some beautiful work with the brush, uh-huh, that my mother couldn't do.

RP: Did he pursue that art through his whole life or...

TI: No, not, it was more or less a hobby with him.

RP: And what would he calligraph?

TI: What was that?

RP: What would he calligraph? Would he calligraph a poem or a, a...

TI: Well, sometime, no, I don't think he did anything with poem but it would be two or three Chinese... what do they call it? Well...

RP: Kanji?

TI: Kanji, yes. You know, Japanese borrowed all that from the Chinese. And he'd write kanji and... which was real, real beautiful I thought at that time.

RP: Your mom also had a talent, a skill, a creative talent of sewing?

TI: Oh yes, uh-huh. I never knew where she learned how to sew but she was very, very talented. She made all the daughter's dresses, uh-huh. And when they were small, of course. And I don't know if she made any of my... she might have made some shirts for me. But, very talented, yes.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.