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RP: Just a few more questions before we enter into Manzanar.

KK: Okay.

RP: How would you characterize your upbringing? Was it a balance of Japanese and American cultures?

KK: As a young child before I left for, I mean, entered school, I think a lot of the conversation was Japanese. Well, my dad always spoke to me in Japanese but a good part of it was... I think there was both because my mother spoke to us in English. I don't think we had difficulty when we went to... I didn't have difficulty when I went to school understanding the teachers so, you know, I think I had a fairly good smattering of English.

RP: How about holidays, were Japanese holidays celebrated, for example Girl's Day?

KK: Girl's Day, because I was born on the 7th of January and I was the oldest child, my father we bought me an entire set of Japanese Girl's Day dolls. But that was burned, they burned that amongst all the books and things, you know, when we had to go to camp. That's something that makes me kind of sad and regretful that they weren't able to save that. Because many, many people saved theirs, I think, you know.

RP: How many dolls would be in a set?

KK: Well, it started with the emperor and the empress at the top and then musicians and courtiers and all of that and little serving things for sweets and that sort of thing. But I remember it being set up, you know, on Girl's Day. I remember there was a picture of the emperor and the empress in our kitchen but that was quickly removed when the war started.

RP: You said those items were burned.

KK: They burned, my father had a pit in the backyard and a lot of things were burned. I don't know whether they were told to do that or whether it was done in fear of, you know, retaliation or I'm not sure but I do remember that.

RP: What do you remember about New Year's Day?

KK: New Year's Day, oshogatsu, we used to have a lot of... my mother prepared food and we had people coming through visiting, they would just come for a short time and, you know, with New Year's greetings and things. One thing I remember a lot was that we visited people in those days, you know, on Sundays, after Sunday school we'd go to visit friends in Culver City and then occasionally to downtown, you know, Boyle Heights, because my parents had friends. And then they would come over to our house and stay for dinner and things. There was a lot of that.

RP: Traditional.

KK: The one thing I do remember is that as an adult, I don't feel I had as much of the culture as many of my friends whose parents were older because my mother was in her late twenties at this time and my dad had come over as a young teenager and so I'm not sure how much of the culture was handed down to us. Although they had older friends and my mother lived with old family friends who taught her how to cook and, you know, before she got married. But I don't think it was quite as traditional as most Japanese families and I didn't have grandparents. Many grandparents lived with the families, and I didn't have that because my mother had been orphaned and my father's parents were still in Japan. But I think my father's parents died by the time... were both gone by the time I was six so, you know, in essence I didn't really have grandparents.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.