Densho Digital Archive - Helen Mori Interview (denshovh-mhelen

<Begin Segment 3>

RP: So when did he meet your mother?

HM: It was probably the year before I was born. I don't know. She never talked about stuff like that.

RP: Or how they met?

HM: Yea. Oh, she met because a friend, personal friend in San Pedro introduced them. Yeah. Matchmaker like, you know.

RP: Your mother's name?

HM: Satsuki. Her maiden name?

RP: And her maiden name.

HM: Maiden name is Onami. O-N-A-M-I.

RP: Tell us a little bit about what you know about her background. She was Nisei?

HM: Pardon me? She, she's a Kibei, Kibei-Nisei. And she's what you call a Meiji woman. She was born in 1907. And when she, and they, her parents were farming strawberries in Irvine before the war. And when she was about fifth grade, he took the whole family back to Japan 'cause I think they made a lot of money, you know. Went back to Japan, Hiroshima, Mihara, in the Mihara city area. And I guess he was sort of like the mayor of their little town at the time, a long time ago, since he came to America and all that stuff. And she got through, she was, she was the third daughter. They had ten kids, seven of them were born in the United States, and then the rest were born in Japan. She was the third daughter. And she was fortunate because the older daughter, oldest daughter, married a rich guy. Family guy with a, the family had money. They went to Tokyo. So when my mother graduated from high school, she invited my mother to go to Tokyo for college. So they helped out a lot. They were wealthy so they helped out a lot. So she went to the first, I think it was the first women's college. No, no, it was the first co-educational college in Tokyo. I forgot the name of it now but... and she graduated. She taught there and came back to the United States in her early twenties, something like that. And, she went to San Pedro... I think they lived around San Pedro at that time. She taught Japanese school in Terminal Island. So anyways, she had a college degree from Japan. You know, she couldn't teach here. So she taught Japanese school in Terminal Island. And then after she got married they moved to Gardena. They used to be called Moneta, M-O-N-E-T-A. and then that incorporated into the town of Gardena. Now, it's all Gardena now. But it was there, 169th and Western, before the war. And she taught Japanese school there, at the one at that Moneta Gakuen, Moneta Japanese school, 'til the war.

RP: So also very unique because, you know, being a woman, being very highly educated...

HM: Yes, it was.

RP: In another country.

HM: For those days that was pretty good to be so educated.

RP: Did she ever talk about her first impressions or first years in the United States?

HM: No not really because since she went back from fifth grade, she never got the accent either. She speaks regular, without that accent a lot of the Kibeis have, it's like you or me. And, in fact, a lot of times my friends would call me and say, "I didn't know you had a sister." I'd say, "That was my mom." But you know. 'Cause she had no accent. She just always, even learning Japanese you know in Japan and all that, it didn't affect her as far as speaking English. She has trouble spelling 'cause she spelled phonetically when she wrote letters.

RP: So she was away from her family for quite some time in Japan.

HM: The family in Japan?

RP: No, when she was taken to Japan when she was in fifth grade?

HM: Oh, oh, uh-huh.

RP: And then she stayed there, right?

HM: They, the family stayed in Japan.

RP: The whole family stayed in Japan?

HM: Whole family. Yeah. And I think about the time my mother came back the seventh child was a son. Hallelujah, you know. After six girls. I'm sure they celebrated. And so he was spoiled. But he came to, came back to the United States about the same time, or near around that time. But the rest of them stayed in Japan, all of them. The oldest sister came to visit once or twice, just to visit. But the rest of the kids and everybody stayed in Japan. The one brother, we went, you know, Japanese style, you go hakamairi when you visit? You visit the grave, pay your respects? And I saw one in, a gravestone and my uncle said, "Oh, that's Masato," the seventh, eighth child, was a son. And on the side it said he passed away at twenty-six, twenty-five or twenty-six. And I thought he died at Burma, but it was Philippines. He was a Japanese soldier in the Philippines. And it was a month before the war ended. And I've seen films about what they went through. They starved to death. Japan knew they were losing way before that but they just kept trudging along with no supplies, no food, no nothing. They starved to death, basically. And I think he was one of 'em because it was a month before the war ended.