<Begin Segment 8>

MK: After a while, you got married. When was it?

CE: 19...24.

MK: In 1924. How did you meet him?

CE: He was staying with us. My uncle was living in Mexico. He was in Mexico, and my husband went there and brought him back. [Laughs] They were from the same region, Miyagi Prefecture, pretty close to where we were from. My uncle worked with us as a farmer.

MK: Was he a farmer in Mexico?

CE: No, no. In here.

MK: Your uncle was brought over here.

CE: Yes.

MK: Why did he go to Mexico?

CE: My uncle told me that he got married into a family. It was a Shinto priest family. He realized that he could not possibly serve as a priest and fled to Mexico. [Laughs] He stayed in Mexico, but the condition there was not really desirable, I guess. That's why my husband went over there to bring him here.

MK: That is your uncle.

CE: Yes. He is my uncle.

MK: Your uncle.

CE: Yes.

MK: That's who you married?

CE: No. no. My uncle got married in Japan. He wasn't able to work as a priest and went over to Mexico.

MK: How about your husband?

CE: My husband got into an elementary school when he was small. He was discharged when he was in the second grade because he got pleuritis. [Laughs] He entered a middle school later and worked on a deep-sea fishing boat after he graduated from the school. He gave that up and came over to the States.

MK: Was he born in Fukushima Prefecture?

CE: No, in Miyagi Prefecture in Sendai City. He was in Sendai, but he made a lot of money working as a farmer in Tacoma. He went back to Japan and got married. I heard that the wife was very nice, but he couldn't bring her over with him. He left her behind, and his father, I don't know why, maybe the wife did something wrong. His father decided that she was not a suitable wife and arranged a divorce without consulting with him. My husband was furious. [Laughs] He and his father were not writing to each other. Meanwhile, his father finalized the divorce without his agreement. His father did not think the wife was right for the family. [Laughs]

MK: Not right for the family?

CE: [Laughs] I heard she was a very nice wife.

MK: Then he had arranged marriage and married you later?

CE: No. When we came over, my husband brought my uncle from Mexico. They worked together as farmers. That's how. [Laughs]

MK: Your husband was much older than you are, wasn't he?

CE: He was. He was much older, but my father did not want to have a stranger in the family. I heard that he told my mother that it is such a reckless idea to send a daughter to the States. If you do it, consider her as gone. [Laughs] My father and mother decided to keep my husband around. They asked him to go to Mexico to bring my uncle, and they owed him a favor. [Laughs]

MK: Oh, so your husband brought your uncle from Miyagi Prefecture. He brought your uncle to Mexico then.

CE: No, no. Not from Miyagi Prefecture. He brought my uncle over here from Mexico. My father paid dues to the Japanese Association as he was expecting my husband to bring my uncle here. [Laughs]

MK: What made you decide to marry him?

CE: I don't know.

MK: No? You thought he would be good, didn't you?

CE: I just got married. The ceremony was at the house of our white boss. I had a priest from Gladstone and hosted a very nice ceremony.

MK: Did you were a wedding dress?

CE: No, I didn't wear a wedding dress. [Laughs]

MK: What was a wedding like then? Did you have a lot of guests?

CE: We had a lot of guests at the wedding reception.

MK: Did you all cook?

CE: No, we had it at a restaurant.

MK: Which restaurant was it?

CE: It must have been the current Fanfa Low.

MK: Was that a Chinese restaurant?

CE: Yes, it was Chinese.

MK: You lived in the States, in Portland in Oregon. Did you experience any discrimination?

CE: No, I didn't. Everyone was very nice. We saw Japanese people detained after we moved to Milwaukie, but people offered their basement for us to stay. Everyone in Milwaukie was so nice. I didn't encounter any discrimination.

MK: You didn't speak English, but you could tell that they are very nice people.

CE: Everyone was so nice to us in Milwaukie.

MK: Did your children go to public schools?

CE: They went to public schools.

MK: They were not bullied, weren't they?

CE: They were not. They were so nice to the kids. Teachers brought them home from school for a while as we did not have a car in those days. They were all very nice. [Laughs]

MK: How many children do you have?

CE: I have six.

MK: That many. That must have been hard work.

CE: It has been sixty-one years since my husband passed away.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.