<Begin Segment 1>

SG: Today, we're, on May 1, 2003, we're here with Mrs. Atami Ueno. Mrs. Ueno, can you tell me where you were born?

AU: I was born in a little town called Ola'a, and they had changed the name to Kea'au now. It's on the Big Island of Hawaii about nine miles from Hilo towards the volcano.

SG: What year were you born?

AU: 1927. I was born there, and as I was growing up, my mother used to run a little barber shop. She had a little barber shop. And as I can remember, she always had some ladies there that she was training when they get out of high school and wanted to be a barber, so we always had young girls staying at our house. And then Mother would train them for a year or two, and then they would go elsewhere to work. And so when I was little, because in those days, they never closed shop at five o'clock or whatever. So from early in the morning, she used to have the shop open until about eight, nine o'clock at night so that people after work can come, whatever. So she couldn't keep me around as a baby, so she had a Japanese old lady, I remember her name was Mrs. Ogata that used to take care of me. She used to take her to her house, and she'd keep me there during the week, and then she'd bring me home on Saturday mornings, and then my mother would have me for the weekend. And then on Sunday evening, then she'd take me back again until, I don't know, probably as I can remember, maybe, for about three years or so until I, you know, that she didn't have to be by my side constantly. And so I can remember her, and she was a very nice lady. That's where I was born. And then of course, I went to school in Ola'a, they used to call it the Ola'a School. And we had, if I don't speak very much pidgin, it's because I had a very good teacher who used to make us speak English. And every time you use a pidgin English, we had to put a nickel in the jar. And unlike these days, whenever, she made us be responsible for everything. And I remember one time that there was some kid that did something wrong and when she asked who had done that, nobody confessed to it, so we all had to take responsibility. The whole class were kept after school. So I think it was a good way of, you know, teaching that whatever you do, you had to be responsible for it or there will be a consequence.

And at that time, we did have a Japanese school that was separate from the English school. And there was a class every day, Monday through Saturday that, after the regular class, after the regular school, then from about 3 o'clock or so for an hour each day during the day, Monday through Friday. And then on Saturday, we had a Japanese class in the morning, and it was attached to the Japanese Buddhist Church, and we had teachers from Japan that were there teaching. And we had, if I can remember, there were about five or six teachers that were there that were teaching different classes. And besides reading and writing, we used to have a class called shuushin which taught you morals and things like that and how you should be respectful to others, how you have to be respectful to your parents, and how you should behave yourself in the community and all those things. Then it was called shuushin, and that's how we were kind of brought up. And because my mother was busy at, working all day and even through the evening, that it was always my father that used to put me to bed. And he always used to read me stories, Japanese stories, and he used to tell us stories. So when I first started going to the Japanese school which is in kindergarten and the summer school that I remember one day the teacher, we had an assembly and the principal said, "Well, who can, you know, tell us a story, who wants to come up here and tell us a story?" And I raised my right hand and I went in front and I told the story about Momotaro-san, you know, the Peach Boy, and I told exactly like my father told me. And my sister, who is seven years older than I am, was so embarrassed. [Laughs] She was so embarrassed because everybody was teasing her, "Oh, is that your sister?" But that's how we grew up, and it was a very nice community. And in Hawaii, we did not experience any discrimination or things like that even in those days, the old days, so it really didn't register in my mind about discrimination until much later after I went to Japan. And when I was in high school and there were some girls that came back from the States and when they were talking about, well, how they could not teach in public schools and obtain a government job and things like that, I just couldn't understand at first because in Hawaii, we were like everybody else. We were treated, you know, you can go as far as you want to if you were capable. So in that sense, I think I was very fortunate that we never experienced that.

SG: You mentioned shuushin, learning. Do you remember some specific things you learned about how to --

AU: Yes. There is a Japanese saying like "Nara no kannin, suru ga kannin," meaning even if it's hard, you feel you can forgive a person, that you should forgive that person, and by doing so, that you would be a greater person, things like that, and how that you should treat your parents, elderly, not to talk back to them, you know, you be obedient. And there's another saying that says, "Makeru ga kachi," to lose is to win. And always that sometimes you think that if you push further that you can win, but you should always be able to understand and forgive that person, and that person will understand, and that's your real victory, and you've won. You did not lose the fight. And there are very interesting things in which probably has helped me as I grew and, you know, became an adult, and little things like that would have helped me. And of course, those sayings were kind of taught at home too.

SG: It really had an impact, affected how you, what kind of person you became.

AU: Yes, uh-huh. You'd be more forgiving. You are more patient and maybe that would, this had help me in the later years. But of course with the work I had, with working with the immigration service where you were in a position to be listening to people's problems and trying to help them, and people always used to say how patient I was. But then I think listening was part of the, great part of the communication that's helped me, I think, from my childhood days as you're, we're kind of educated in that way.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

SG: You talked about your parents' work and how did, and going to school. How did you get to school from your home?

AU: I walked to school. It wasn't that far. So it was probably about half a mile, and we walk to school every day. And then from the English school to the Japanese school after the regular school, we walked again.

SG: With all your friends?

AU: Yes. Because going to Japanese school, they weren't, usually, the Japanese, you know, children went to school. The Japanese school usually, when you get to about high school, because we didn't have a high school in our little town that we had to go to Hilo to go to Hilo High, so then you would be going by bus. And so they didn't, by the time they were done with school and came home on the bus, that it was too late for school. So usually when they started high school, they kind of dropped out of the Japanese school. And it was kind of a, you know, it's a pity because I think we could have continued it would have been fine. But I notice even with that and I thought I was pretty good in Japanese then. But when I went to Japan, when I was about twelve years old, that's when my family decided, well, my dad wanted to return back to Japan, so he decided he was going to take his whole family back and had put me in school there, in Japan. And this school in Japan suggested maybe that I would take some other, some classes in high school, but my father didn't want me to do that. He said, well, he wanted me to go to the sixth grade for one year. I didn't quite go one year because school had already started then, and he wanted me to take an entrance exam to high school in Japan. You have to take an entrance exam to be able to be accepted in the high school. So I went there and I thought my Japanese was pretty good, but the teacher kept on saying, "You have an English accent." [Laughs] But we had to study after the class usually when school was over. After dinner we'd go home, after dinner, and then he would get all these students in his class that were going to take the entrance exam to high school, come over to his home again, and then he would drill us again until about 11 o'clock at night, and then we used to go home. But I sit back now and think, in a way it was very, well, it was fun although it wasn't, you know, when you try to take an exam and especially me, when I, in Hawaii, you don't have a Japanese history and all those that you have to study in order to be able to take the exam. It was hard for me. And in the beginning, I used to cry because it was so difficult. And I can remember the first test that I had when I went to Japan was they had a test, the Japanese anthem, Kimigayo. And it said, write the whole anthem and explain what it says, what it really means, and that was very difficult for me. And then of course, when I went to high school, when I took the entrance exam to high school, my mother, I think, was more nervous than I was because she was there with me, and she was watching from the side. Besides the oral examination, then they also had, they also tested for your physical endurance and so forth, I guess, and they made you run on the balance beam. They made me cross the balance beam, and then they, I had to do the broad jump too. And I almost lost the balance on the balance beam, and I could hear my mother just gasping, but I made it.

I got into high school, and it was called the Shiritsuchigushi Toshikoto Gakuen which was a private school. But the last time when I went to Japan and my girlfriend, her husband was teaching at that high school for quite a while, and she was telling me this. She made me realize that that is the, now considered the best high school in Fukuoka. She said, "Don't you know, you went to the top school?" But after high school, you know, in those days, it was a girls' high school and boys, we did not have co-education then because it was during the war. And I knew when I was going to school that, yes, that was a good high school besides their education being good that I used to see some of these girls that came from a very good family, and they used to have their maids bring their lunches, so forth, come to school. They used to come in cars, you know, where we used to take the streetcar or the bus to school. So they were very, girls from prominent homes like Idemitsu. That's the, their daughter was there. I think they have a great oil company. And girls like Kaijima who was, who owns the great coal mine, you know, and those people, but it was nice. And then we had people from the States that during the war that the Niseis that came home was, and they were there, so we had all kinds of mixture of people which was very nice.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

AU: Then after high school, then I wanted to further pursue my education, and my father gave me a choice. He set me down one day in high school and he says, "Now, I don't have money just send you to higher education and then give you with, shower with you all the luxuries. So you have a choice, do you want all the things, you know, the luxuries, or would you rather have that money put to your education?" and I chose education. So he said, "All right, then you can go to whatever school that you choose." And I wanted to go to the Tsuda English Institute that's in Tokyo. That's one of the best women's university in English, and I was prepared to take an exam for that school, and I had been studying. But at the last minute, my father said, "No, you're not going to Tokyo because things were so bad." The war was bad, and everybody was starving. They didn't have enough food, and he said that he would not send me to school when he knew that I would get sick and not have enough food. And so he couldn't, they couldn't be coming to Tokyo all the time, so he said, "Well, you have to go to school which is somewhere closer to home so you can finish school without getting ill or without starvation." So then I, there was a school in Nagasaki called Kasui Women's College, and this college, in Japan, they call it the Mission School because it was originally funded by the Christian missionaries, and they had American teachers. The teachers that came from United States that were teaching in there, and their English department was very good, so I chose to go to that college, and I was accepted there. And so, but then, when I went there, my mother used to come now and then and bring me food. She would leave early in the morning so that she would get there before I went to school, and then she would just go home on the train. And it took a few hours at that time, probably about three or four hours on the train.

During the first year, you know, when you go to college and you go to somewhere that you don't know anybody at all and when I first sat in class, everybody looked so smart, especially people with glasses on. Gosh, I thought, I don't know if I can ever compete with these people. But after a week, the first week, I got so homesick, and Saturday, we had school on Saturday, too, for half a day. So as soon as the school was over, and I saw some people that came from a nearby area that were going home, and I was so homesick, and I got on the train, and I went home. When I got home there in the late afternoon, my father was so upset with me. He told me that he did not send me to school so that I can just come home whenever I wished. "I sent you there to study, and you're not coming home until your summer vacation." And so he told my mother, well, you know, "Feed her dinner. She can stay for dinner, but then you're going to take her right down to the train depot, and you're going to put her on the train and send her back to school," so that's what she did. I know in her heart, she was crying. But then, so I didn't come home until summer vacation. But after a while, you know, you get used to, and then you have fun in school.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

AU: But things were pretty rough then, and we, even the food was getting scarce, but we had one place that we could go and that was Chinatown in Nagasaki. And the Chinese people, you know, got all their food from China, so they bought all these things and shipped it there. And we knew that when we go there, we can have all the Chinese food. So that's where we used to go all the time, every day. And Nagasaki is, as you know, a village where there had been a lot of western influence. And when I first went to school even at that, I used to see a lot of Caucasians, and so, you know, it was different. If you see the houses are mostly built western style. And because the teachers were from the States, a lot of the teachers were from the United States or they had studied in the United States, so my education there was very good. We had, another reason that it was nice for the school was that in the earlier days, if you graduated at the top of your class, that they, they were sending the students to the United States to study for their advanced degree. And of course, under one condition, after you obtain your degree then you were to go back and teach in that college for a couple years, that was the payback, you know. So that's another reason that kind of attracted me to that college too. But, and then you did get the teacher's teaching certificate when you got out of college provided that you maintained certain grade. Every three years, there would be a representative from the Ministry of Education that came and gave the whole graduating, that graduating class a national examination. And if that class, graduating class passed, then for the next two years, the graduates that with a certain degree, I think it was eighty or more, would automatically get the teaching certificate to be able to teach English in the Japanese high school. But then when I was going, about the first year, after the first year, then the war got worse and worse. And because we were English majors that we were drafted to work in factories. We were not allowed to study. The only students that were allowed to study were the medical students because they could not give up their study and, you know, because we needed doctors. So because we were English majors and all the other colleges all were sent, all were drafted, and we had to go to work and --

SG: Was this just the women or men also?

AU: Men also, everybody, all the students, they had to go to work and go through your college students. We were, I was sent, we were sent to a Mitsubishi, it's one of those where you make all those torpedoes. And when we got... well, because it was in Nagasaki that we could commute every day to go to work. And when I, when we got there to work and we saw all these college students from all over from all of other prefectures that were there, there were people, Kagoshima, from Kumamoto, and even from Osaka, the college and university students were there, and we've never operated these things. We don't know any, those things have to be so precise, so I don't know if there were any torpedoes that went off. I mean, because it had to be so precise, and we could never do that because we never had any experience running those machines, and they were, it was not an automatic deal where, they didn't have all this computers and things like that that you can make it precise. It was all done by hand. But anyway, we were there until, of course, the war ended.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

SG: How did you feel about having to quit school and work in the factories?

AU: It was devastating, but everybody had no choice. Unlike this country, you couldn't protest. You just do as you're told, and especially English, it's a language of an enemy country. And by then, of course, all the American teachers came back to the States. They had, they couldn't stay there, so they all came back to the States. Of course, during that time when we were working then, of course, the bomb, the nuclear bomb was dropped in Nagasaki after Hiroshima, and I was there then. Fortunately, I was working on the night shift. And after my work when I had come back, can return back to the dormitories -- school dormitory, that's when the bomb fell. But because Nagasaki unlike Hiroshima is a very hilly city and from what I understand, it was not a complete successful explosion in Nagasaki. So because I was on the other, opposite side of the hill, that I was fortunate and that's because, and I was in a building, came back to the dorm and was in the building that I was not affected that much. But of course, you know, after I got home, after a few weeks when this train started moving again and I returned home, by then my family was in the country because our home in Fukuoka was also bombed, and we had lost our house. And so they had to move to the countryside where my parents had their friends, and so we stayed over at their place. So when I went, war was over, and then I was able to return home. And that's where my mother said that she was ready to come to Nagasaki to see if she could find my body. But then she was so surprised when she saw me get off the train and come home.

SG: Was the factory destroyed?

AU: Yes. And if, had I been at the factory at that time, I probably would not have survived either because I've lost half of my classmates at that time in that bomb. And even if they, you know, survived with just the, you know, the scars and the, they had the effect later on. And I have lost some friends that way too instead of directly at that time, months later.

SG: So these are classmates and coworkers?

AU: Yeah. But my classmates, when we first, when I first started college, our class was students of forty. They usually take forty, and no, it was forty-one because they take one extra person because they figure somebody is going to drop out during the, you know, year. So we started out forty-one. When we graduated, just half, only about twenty-five had graduated. The others were all gone.

SG: I was just going to ask about working in the factory and, can you describe what it was like to work there?

AU: It was terrible. It was terrible. It was hell.

SG: Why was that?

AU: Because, well, of course, working, I'm not doing something that you're not used to endure. You can't, you've never done something like that. And then, I have seen people being treated over there, somebody made a mistake, and they lined -- this was not the students but the regular factory workers -- and somehow the thing, the component that he had made was not quite right or something, and they lined him, all the workers up there, the others, and they put him, they brought him up front, and they hit him so hard time after time, and this is the first time I had seen a face swell so hard and change, you know. His face completely changed. It was because so swollen, everything. And I looked at this, and I just could not believe that somebody could do that to someone. This is how they treated these people, and I thought that was horrible. But things, yes, things that I could not even imagine.

SG: Were there other incidents in the factory or other conditions somewhere?

AU: There were other conditions. When you were, you know, we're college kids, and we do talk. We like to talk and be, you know. And as I guess a means of punishment, they separated you, and so they, instead of making you work at the same time whatever, they separated you in morning shift and the night shift or whatever so that you can't work together. And I guess that was fortunate for me because they put me to a night shift, and I worked until about midnight, then I kind of slept there. They make you sleep until morning until the streetcars started moving again, and then I got, and I used to get on the street car and come back to the dormitory. And because it was, you know, the bomb was dropped during the day, and I was back in dormitory then. And of course, I was safe, and that, maybe that was a blessing.

SG: So many of your classmates and friends were working in the factory during the day when the bomb was dropped?

AU: Yes.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

SG: And what was it like following, what was the feeling and the atmosphere following the dropping of the atomic bomb?

AU: Well, because we were on the other side of the hill and the school had a huge air raid shelter dug in the hill, right in the hill, and the people that were downtown, most of them, practically everybody was, you know, were affected by the bomb, and they were all coming up the hill, and we were told to take them and, you know, have them stay with us in the shelter. And you could see all their, the skin was peeling on everybody. People that had looked up when it fell, all of the front, you can see the skin just hanging down, and people who were looking down, then the back of the, you know, the skin on the back was all peeled and was hanging down, and they were all burnt, and they were all moaning and groaning, and it was terrible. And they wanted water, and I wanted to give them water, but I was told not to because I think when you're burnt very badly and if you give them water, they were going to die. And so they said, "Don't give them water even if they ask you for water." And then the next few days, then the family were looking for the rest of the family. And because there were no place to cremate them, they were cremating their own family. They would gather all the, you know, whatever was left of the house or whatever and then put them, and they would burn these bodies, and that awful, awful smell went all over town.

SG: What were you doing --

AU: And it was in the summer, in August. We were, well, we were in the school shelter. And then, because the school had, had all this, you know... they had, usually the school dormitory buys rice and things like that in quantity for the whole year for all the students, whatever, we had all this extra, so we cooked all this rice and stuff and then fed to all these people that were coming. And until the time when they said that the war was over, and then the train had started moving, and we could go home. And then, of course, they couldn't start school anyway, so they, the school told us that we would go home to our own homes, and then they would notify us when they were ready to open school. And so that is what happened. And then of course, when school opened in several months later, then we went back to school again, and then the American teachers came back again.

SG: Did you, getting back to the atomic bomb, did you feel it or hear it or --

AU: Yes. When I was in the dorm, just as I got in, and there's a hallway right in the middle of the dorm and then there's, you know, rooms on both sides. And so I was right in the hallway, and then there was a window before me, and I could see the light, just like a lightning coming, and then you could see just like a lightning that was coming right through the window, and then you hear this big sonic boom sound. And I guess I must have been out for just a second or so because when I came to it, I heard somebody yelling. He says, "Are you all right?" you know, and I guess it was somebody in the dormitory that was yelling at me. And then I said, "I can't hear." My ear was like it was plugged, and I kept on saying, "I can't hear you," but I heard her asking me if, and so then she said, "Well, go right into the air raid shelter." And so that's the extent, yes.

SG: And there's some, no damage to the dorm?

AU: No. There wasn't any damage to the dorm.

SG: It just knocked you down?

AU: Yes.

SG: How far away was the dorm from where the bomb hit?

AU: It must have been maybe about four miles or so.

SG: And after the bomb hit and you came out of the shelter, were you allowed to go downtown to see?

AU: No. I didn't go down. We were told, well, don't because things were so hectic anyway, and everybody, you know, everybody was trying to find their families' body and so forth. They says that we weren't to go and you know, and we would just to stay there and then help the people that were coming up from --

SG: So the first time you saw it was when you took the train back to see your parents in Fukuoka?

AU: Yes.

SG: What did it look like when you saw it for the first time?

AU: Well, everything was kind of, all the houses were just flattened, you know, and no streetcars. Whenever you walk to the train station and, but it was not very much there.

SG: Did you have any, do you remember what your thoughts and feelings were when you saw the devastation?

AU: I just wanted to get out of there.

SG: And to go back to Fukuoka?

AU: Yes.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

SG: So when you went back to Fukuoka to be with your family, did they talk about their experiences in the bombing in Fukuoka, what happened?

AU: Yes. Because... well, it was at night, and of course by then, no matter where you were, every night, there was to be, you'd hear the siren, air raid siren. So I guess at that night, too, about, excuse me, 8 o'clock or so, I guess, that the siren rang, and I guess they all ran into the air raid shelter. The next thing they knew our house was bombed and the flame just came up.

SG: So your family lost everything?

AU: Yes.

SG: And where did you go after that?

AU: Oh, they went to, see, my father's hometown was, is in Fukuoka but it is near, it's near the Kokura where there was this headquarters for the army, some army headquarters, so they didn't want to go there, you know. It was, so my mother's friends lived in a different area, where, in the country, Kaho. And where there is, it's just farmers, farmland and so, because they knew them well and they said, "Well, why don't you come over?" And I think, the couple I think at one time had been in Hawaii or somewhere, a long time ago. So that's where we went, I mean, they were there. And in the meantime, my brother-in-law was drafted into the military, the Japanese military too, so he was gone. So my father, my mother and my sister.

SG: You mind if I ask what kind, what did your, what kind of work did your parents do in Fukuoka?

AU: They did not work at all. They retired very early. [Laughs] Well, see, when my, when my parents, when we were all in Hawaii and what I think a lot of, even the Isseis over here used to do, I guess, I think all the, they would save money, and then they would send it over to Japan and have them, have it put in the bank over there in Japan. And because my uncles were in Japan that, they were in Fukuoka City. And now and then, they would find a property or whatever, and they would, they would tell my father. He says, "Why don't you invest into this property?" and then I think he ill-yield also. They had, they had houses and properties that they were renting out. So when we went back to Japan, and they had income from all these properties coming in, and I guess they were able to make a living out of that because I remember I had to go around get, collect money right from all these houses, people that were renting these houses, you know.

SG: So they lost, did they lose all their property in the process?

AU: No, not, not the property, just the house that we were living in because that was a part away from, you know, our properties. And the properties that we had, one was in the, where the, I don't know if you know Japan, but where Hakata train depot is in that they had property over there too in that area. So after, later on, they sold all the property.

SG: After the war, they sold all their property?

AU: Yes.

SG: Do you know when they first, when they first decided, the reason why they decided to leave Kyushu in the first place and go to Hawaii?

AU: Well, my father, see, my father first went to Hawaii when he was still single. And he was, he said that because, by the time they had the draft system in Japan too, and he didn't quite make it. And so he decided well, because he was not the first son, not the oldest son. And in Japan, if you're the oldest son, you take after the family. But if you're a second or third, then, you know, you don't get all that family asset. So he decided, well, he was going to immigrate, I guess. Then he went to Hawaii. And then after, in the later years, after he got there, he befriended my uncle, my mother's older brother, which was, who was in Hawaii at that time, so they became friends. And at that time that they could have their brothers and sisters, especially for the brothers, no, for their parents, but they could not get their brothers and sisters over there. So what my uncle did was he called his mother which is my grandmother over to Hawaii, and then she came, went to Hawaii, and she turned around and then called her two children which is my mother and then her younger brother which is another uncle that was in Honolulu, and that's how they got there. And then my grandmother, after, then my mother, then my father married my mother in Hawaii because my uncle, which is the older one, knew my father. They were friends. So then when his sister came, and then my father said, you know, he said, well, he wanted to get married to her, so they got married. And then because my grandmother had some other children back in Japan, that she decided to go back to Japan to take care of the other kids because by then her husband had passed away, and he, so she didn't want to leave the other kids there, so she went back to Japan.

SG: It's very interesting.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

SG: I'm trying to think. If you don't mind if I'm asking a little bit more about what your life was like when you're in Hawaii, growing up in Hawaii, if you had memories of what it was like living there when you were younger?

AU: Well, it was nice. I mean Hawaii, it's like I was telling you, there really isn't that much discrimination at all, and I was, I was taught to, you know, be whatever I wanted to be. And of course, my father always had me study Japanese also. And I remember when I was kid that he had bought a blackboard about that size and the chalk and the blackboard, eraser. And every week, I had to fill that blackboard with the Japanese kanji. He made me do that every week, and that's how I learned my kanji. And things were so... well, you know, so nice then. My mother, in Hawaii, there were a lot of Issei men from Japan that were bachelors. They came, you know, like all the immigrants did. A lot of them came to work. They never got married because they were some, my mother used to tell me that they would have what they call a, like the picture bride. They would call, you know, the girls, and she used to laugh and tell me there were some men that was sent somebody else's, handsome men's picture over, and the woman would look at that picture and think well, this is a man I'm going to marry, and she would come. When she got off the boat, and she would see an entirely different man, you know, and not a handsome man, and the bride would run away, and she used to tell me those funny stories.

But it was a little town that I lived in. And there was a church just above, a couple blocks from my house up and a little Christian church, and I remember I, they used to have, on Christmas, they used to have this Santa Claus, and they would say you come over for Christmas because we're going to have Santa Claus, and he's going to bring you presents and candies and stuff, and I wanted to go, but I was kind of afraid of the Santa Claus. You see that man in beard, but I remember that the reverend there was, I forgot what his name was. What was his name? Anyway, and one day we were talking about that, and this gentleman was from Hawaii also, and he, when I said I came from the Big Island, and he said, "Oh, I'm from, I was there too." We talked and I said, well, Reverend Shishido. And I said, "There used to be a minister, a Reverend Shishido," and he says, "That's me." And he's, I think he, if he's already retired, then he used to be a professor at Pacific University in Forest Grove. And I thought, wow, it's a small world. And then, there used to be a Chinese meat market right next, close to the church, and I remember going down, and there's a bakery down the street, three blocks down the street, and they would bake bread at night. And my mother would say, you know, just about the time the bread is done, she says, "You want to go buy bread?" And she'd give me a dime, and I would walk down to the bakery, and it's, bread has just come out of the oven, you know. And I remember thinking, and that's why to this day, I like to eat those hot breads right out of the oven, that's so nice.

Yes, but my mother, going back to the bachelor, the Issei bachelors, because they were bachelors and they used to work with my dad, a lot of them. And Dad used, I guess my father was a very generous person, you know. He would, then when they would get sick or something, he'd say, "You come over to my house," and he would bring them home and expects my mother to take care of them, so they would stay. And so I used to remember, and I guess that kind of instilled that instinct on me, and I'd still have that feeling that well, when you see somebody in need that you want to kind of take care of these people and take care of the older people. But it was nice. People were very good to each other.

SG: What kind of work did your father do?

AU: He worked over there in the, in the Big Island, there was a lot of this sugar, sugar cane plantation, so he was working there. And he, they used to have to build those roads in, you know, in the cane fields, and he used to contract those, I mean, they would hire, he was hired by the plantation, but then he would have his crew and work them to build these roads. And my mother, there was this little courthouse down the street, and every year or so that my mother had to have her license renewed, and the sheriff would come, and he used to come and have his hair cut and everything, and he'd say, "Mama-san, it's about time you got your license renewed." She didn't speak very much English. She said, "Okay. I go tomorrow. You take care of me, okay?" And he said, "Okay, okay." And there was a little, a theater down the street, and every, once a week, they would have a Japanese movie. And in the afternoon, they would come around with this car and they would bang on the taiko. They had this taiko, bang on, and they could just throw this paper, showing what kind of movie they were showing. And my father would say, you know, he said, it usually started about seven, so he says, about six o'clock, he says, "You go there and you reserve the seats for us. You get, reserve two seats for us." And so every Monday, I would go and get the ticket, and I would reserve the seats. I'd bring two extra zabutons, and I'd put it on the seat and reserve it for them so then when they come in later. But that was fun.

[Interruption]

SG: As a child, what other things did you for fun in Hawaii?

AU: We used to do dance, you know. We used to take these Japanese dance lessons. In Hawaii, they also have this Bon dance, so, and here you have it too. But over there, you go around all the different churches and have the dance. So, you know, it comes Bon, it's like every weekend, there is a dance somewhere, and everybody, and during the day, we had to all go and help, and we make all this onigiri, you know, and things like that, so that we then pass it out to all the dancers when they come, when the dancers get hungry. So it was kind of fun because you go to, you know that you're going to eat. But you go to all the different churches. So in the course of Obon for about a month every weekend, you're dancing somewhere. And we used to, well, to get a little kiss, you know. We used to like to go into the sugar cane fields and practice. But then the school used to say, "Now, I understand that there are some kids that are going into the sugar cane." [Laughs] And then when the sugar cane comes down the flume that we used to have some kids climb on that and pick the sugar cane out. So I used to tell my kids, you know, those sugar canes are so good. And so, well, the sugar cane open, that comes over here is quite different. In Hawaii, it looks like it's bigger, it's plumper, and it's juicier, and it's good. So one day, I bought sugar cane over here, I don't know, Safeway or somewhere. I told my kids, "Try this, it's good." Gosh, they didn't like it. They said, "What is this chewy stuff?" But it seems like we used to, somehow, the kids all used to get together because it was small town. It was very nice. When I went back afterwards, it's like everybody, it's so dead now because nobody raises sugar cane anymore. They're all out, and so all the young ones leave town. And I think, you know, either they, well, then, even Honolulu is getting so crowded that they can't find much jobs, so I think a lot of them come to the States.

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

<Begin Segment 9>

SG: Your parents, do you know why your parents decided to leave?

AU: No. My father all of a sudden one day, he says, "I think we're all going to go back to Japan." And he says, well, he says that Atami needs an education. Well, I think maybe this is a good time for her to go and go to school in Japan. And so, you know, I got my high school and my college education there. And after the school, I went back to Fukuoka because I went, by then, my sister was married, and my brother-in-law, because my sister is the older, you know, child in the family and because we had only two girls, in Japan, you just can't let the family name disappear, so she took her husband into our house which means, they call it the muko yoshi. You're kind of adopted into our family. And so he took the name of Yoshida which is my maiden name, and gave up his Takahashi and became a Yoshida. And because, he said that because he came into our family, that he was going to take care of my parents and that he felt that that was his duty. And so he, so then my father said, "All right." He said, "You don't have to do that now," you know, because he said, "I'm still young enough that we can take care of ourselves." But he says, "No. I might as well start now." And so he says, "Okay. And if so, then I will transfer all my assets to you." And my dad did that and turned it over to him. So my mother would say, "Don't do all that." My father did that because he says, "If you're going to take over the family, then this will go to you." So my brother-in-law became... well, he was what they call the, they used to have sort of a government bank called, they called the people's bank, Kokumin Kinkyoku which was established right after the war, I guess, to, in order to, for the, for the Japanese government to help the people set were repatriating from other countries. You know, there were people in Manchuria and Korea and all those places that were coming home to, coming back to Japan, and they, you know, they couldn't get jobs, and they wanted to start their own business. And so this national bank was created to initially finance these people, loan these people money so they can start their business, and then they would eventually return it back, you know, turn it back to the government. And so, he eventually became the president of the branch, you know, the general manager of this branch. And so then he would get a like, I guess, even the banks over here, they don't keep a person in the same spot for year after year after year. So every few years or so, he would transferred to another branch, and he traveled all over, but every time he would take my parents with him. I have elderly parents that I have to take. So the company always, the bank always arranged for my family and for my parents to be with him. So they did not send him to Hokkaido, somewhere where it's extremely cold, you know, because they said the elderly cannot stand that cold, whatever. So he kind of went around to nice places. But then eventually, he retired, and then of course, you know, they built their own house. Of course, my father built the house for him. And then of course, when he died, then my brother, my mother and then, my mother passed away, then my sister got it. But my brother-in-law had passed away since then, so I still have my sister there. And of course, she has her children, so they're all grown and have their own families.

SG: So your sister stayed in Japan?

AU: Yes. Yes. She's in Japan. She had a stroke a few years ago, but she's doing fine. She's, that's why she waits for me to come back and visit her now and then.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

SG: When you found out that you had to leave Hawaii when you were young, what were the feelings or thoughts going through your mind?

AU: Well, I hated, you know, I didn't want to leave my friends, and I didn't want to leave school. But then, when you're that young, when you get into a new place, and then eventually, you make new friends again. But I, after I went back, you know, after I graduated from college and I had been working with the, I got a job at the, for the U.S. military for the, at that time, it was the civil censorship detachment, and it was right after the war that they had, when the occupation forces were there that the United States government used to censor all their, the Japanese mail and the telegrams and everything, and so I worked for them. We had to translate letters and telegrams. I was mostly translating telegrams, again mostly looking for if there's Communist involvement in all that, and then you look for those things. And that's where all the, a lot of us Niseis were working, the Kibeis, you know, and all that were working. And one good deal was because it was after the war, and food was very scarce then in Japan. Everybody was rationing. And because we were Niseis, because we were U.S. citizens, they handled us differently. But they couldn't tell us not as civilians, as civil service because we were not hired as civil service. But because we were Americans or they called us foreign nationals because there were people from Canada, Canadians and elsewhere that's from Brazil and all that, but we were all considered foreign nationals. So we were on a different pay scale which was much higher than the Japanese nationals. And then we got quarters to live, and they took a hotel, and they, you know. If you wanted to, you could stay in the hotel. Then of course, they had the dining facilities. Well, I was living with my folks, so I could commute from home. And then I had a girlfriend that also, she was from San Jose, and she was married to a Japanese fellow and their family, so she was commuting from home too. But we would go to the dining room. We would go for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So at breakfast, what she and I would do is we would order hard boiled eggs because then we could take it home, see, to our families, and so we would order seconds of the hard boiled eggs. We would just wrap it up and take it with us. And of course, the other things like the fruits and stuff that we could, you know, we used to eat it there. But then in the evening like they would have all these cakes and stuff for dessert, and then we would order all this extras, and we, and when we visit Japan now, when I ask Jill to call and talk to her, we laugh about it. Remember how we used to take these things home because we knew that it was so hard to get these things at that time in Japan, so it was real nice.

SG: Everybody thought these Japanese girls eat, how can they eat so much?

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

SG: When you said, so this was after the war?

AU: Yes. And I worked there for a few years. And then, by then, I had an uncle in Honolulu, and this is my mother's younger brother. And he said, well, "If you'd like to come back to Hawaii," then he said that he would be willing to pay for, you know. So I thought, well, you know, it's kind of nice. You think about when you live somewhere, and you think, well, I'd like to, you know, go back. And so I took that up, and then I went back to Hawaii. And that's where I met my husband, Henry, on the way back. And I stayed there in Hawaii for about four or five years, and I got so homesick. Well, it's not like home, you know. And because the friends said, I mean that you knew, they're all grown up. They have families, and they're gone. Most of them are gone. And so, then you, I went back to my old town that, where I was because my cousin was still there. She was married, and she was there, so I went back. I went to stay with her, but things were not like the same. And the Issei ladies that I knew, well, they still, the Issei people still have the same feeling as, like the time that they left Japan. They expected me to act that way, and I had said, well, you know. I said, "They don't say that in Japan anymore." Even in Japan, they're not that old fashioned anymore. "But you're from Japan, you're not going to act like the girls over here." Anyway, I was getting like, oh, it was a little town anyway.

SG: Was it hard to --

AU: Everybody knows everything, whatever you do. You went out what time last night, and you came home what time last night, what were you doing, everything. And I was just getting the third degree on every move I make. And so anyway, I thought, well, I'd like to go back to Japan. And so in the meantime, I did go to business school for a while. I thought it was going to be a good time. I can take my shorthand and my typing, that would help.

SG: In Hawaii?

AU: Yes, in Hawaii. Then I went back to Japan, back to my folks. Then fortunately, I did get a job with the U.S. Air Force over there in Itazuki, the base commander's secretary there. So I got a civil service job, at an overseas salary. And then I got to work for the, after the base commander left, then I worked for the director for operations who used to be the executive officer, and then he became the director of operations, and I worked for him. But I must say, I had the nicest bosses. They were all so nice. It was very nice working for them. They kind of, I guess I was very fortunate. Everybody that I worked with or worked for, they all looked after me. Maybe I look so vulnerable that they had felt like they had to take care of me, but they were so very nice. They all protected me from everything. I remember going into the meeting where they had the staff meeting, and I went in there to take the minutes and whatever, and the base commander, now and then, you know, in the military and even if they're all officers and then, now and then some language would come out. The commander would say, "Now, now gentlemen, there's a lady present, watch your language." [Laughs]

But I learned quite a bit there; whereas, we, there was a slot, a Japanese national slot there for our clerk. But we did have a janitor, and that the, you know, the airmen had to do the job. They had to kind of, you know, sweep and mop the floor, and they were complaining about it. So the commander says, "We have a slot there for a clerk, a position, don't we? Let's get a janitor and put him in that position." So we hired a Japanese janitor, and he was working for them. Well, he had to go to an orientation. He came back from the orientation. He was awful... he came to me and he said, "They asked me how many words I can type, and I'm in, what are they talking about?" I had to call the civilian personnel office and tell them what the... and so it was okay. We had a janitor for a clerical position, but everybody was very kind to me.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

AU: And then later on, after I came back to the States and after we were married and I not having any family over here, and I thought, "Well, I'd like to go out and work." And because I had my civil service status and I was on a conditional career at that time, that I didn't have to start from all over. So I went to the, you know, the personnel office and submitted my application form, and right then, they said, "Do you know that immigration is looking for a girl like you?" I said... well, they wanted some, they're looking for somebody who can speak bilingual, was bilingual. And they said, "Why don't you go and talk to them." So I went and they were right upstairs on the third floor in that old, it's the U.S. Court House there on Broadway and Main, Fifth and Main. So the civil service office was downstairs on the first floor, and so I went up on the third floor, and I talked, another district director talked to me, but I didn't hear anything from him for a few weeks. And in the meantime, civil service office was sending me to different places also, you know, for interview. And so then, these, one day, the immigration, the district director says, well, you know, he says, "We sent out this inquiry to your former boss, and we haven't heard from him." And so by then, what they're trying to do is contact him at, in Japan, at the air base in Japan. But he was, he was then lieutenant general, and he was in Pentagon. So I told him he was in Pentagon, and they called him, I guess, by telephone. And they called, immigration called me right away, and he says, "Can you come down?" So then, I talked to district director. He says, "I talked to your boss and he said, 'If you don't hire her, you're stupid."" And so he says, "Can you come to work on Monday?"

But his, so then I was working for immigration. And I guess I couldn't have found a better job because I think it was meant for me, not only by being able to speak and then be able to understand both cultures that I think I was able to help more people. And of course, you know, there were a lot of Isseis and then the people from Japan that came through. And the Japanese consulate started sending people down, and people would come and ask, he says, "Is Mrs. Ueno here?" you know, and then I would say, "Oh, yes." I would say, "Yes I am." "Oh, you are, I need help." And I would look at them, I don't know who they are, and I says, "How do you know me?" "Oh, the Japanese consul said, 'Go, go see Mrs. Ueno, ask her, she'll help you.'" [Laughs] But it was nice because I felt like, well, you know, at least, this is my payback time. I'm paying back people who need help if I can do, you know, anything, and I think I crossed through a lot of paths with a lot of people that really, people that I would never have met had I not worked there. And all the people that come there are coming because they have problems.

SG: Are there any specific experiences that kind of stand out for you in terms of the kind of work or help you did?

AU: Well, yeah. Well, there's so many things and so many funny things too, you know, like people say, "Why don't you write a book?" and it's so funny. But there's some people even, I know that there was, there's some old people that, people are afraid to come to Immigration. They feel like, I guess the Issei people especially, they feel like they're going somewhere like they're going to a court or something. They are so afraid, and I said, "Don't be afraid, come in," you know. And of course, a lot of things they don't understand because it's very complicated. But there's things that when they ask us, gee, you can't do it that way, but there's a way of going around that and some, take some other law and take that into consideration, and then do it that way. So I would guide them to that way and say, "Why don't we do it this way? You can do it this way, you know, and let's do it this way." And then like the forms that they can't, it's hard for them to fill out, and I said, "Never mind, give it to me, and I'll do it for you." And so there were some other people said, "Well, you're not supposed to be standing there and doing it for them," you know. I know, I know. But it was nice. And like some old people come in like, sometimes, you get, oh, this fellow, and they tell you these stories like even this fellow from Switzerland, he used to be, he lived in Canada, but he couldn't be in Canada too long, but he was not a Canadian. He came to United States, and he, as a visitor, he liked it, and he stayed six months. But he's, he couldn't stay much longer, so he went back to Canada, then he would come down again, and after, and he would stay six months again. So then, you know, an extension. Says, well, you know, we'll give you an extension, and so we give an extension for another six months. And then he'd say, "I know I can't live here," but he says, "and I don't want to lie, but," you know, he says, "I don't want to stay in Canada, I don't want to live there. But what can I do?" Well, I said, "You have to go back." But I said, "If you're going to go back within thirty days because this is the maximum of your extension I can give you." But I says, "If you're going to go back within thirty days, I'll give you satisfactory departure. I'll give you additional thirty days without doing anything, just put it on." And then I said, "And then you can turn around and you'd stay there for a week or two, whatever, and then come in again, okay, and it's going to be all new." You know, there's even, they're so honest and, I said, "What harm can they do?" you know, this is elderly people.

But, and I was involved with foreign students, so I had, I was the, in charge of all the foreign students in the United States, yes, in the United States, but for the Portland office. I was a foreign student officer, so we used to have a seminar with all the college foreign student advisers. And if you had gone to Portland State University for any topic, you'd probably know Dr. Zunuzi. We're very good friends because we're both involved very much in foreign students and because any time there is a seminar, he said, "Well, I want you to be on the board, and I want you to come," and we used to go. And one time when I couldn't, they said, "Well, no you can't, we'll send somebody else," and Dr. Zunuzi and the rest of the foreign student advisers of the colleges said, "We don't want anybody else but Mrs. Ueno." You can send three inspectors, and we would say, no. So you can talk to him, and he can tell you that we still communicate with each other. But I used to always tell them, you know, whatever I can do as long as I, we don't break the law. We don't want to break the law, but there's always a way to go around. But don't come to me after you had done something wrong and say please fix it, you know. Before you do something, come and talk to me, and we'll try to solve it the best we can. And he says, I used to tell them, my square is not just a square, you know. It has little curves in it. But I enjoyed dealing with foreign students, although sometimes I used to scold them when they come to, you know, especially, I would say, "Well, you know, you're here to study. You're not here to fool around and have good time." You know that lot of Japanese students and they have, they used to come, they didn't lack money, I guess. They used to run around in cars and have a good time, but, and then they used to kind of flunk in their grades, and then they would come to me, and they would say, so they used to get some scolding from me. [Laughs] But it was nice. I think I was able to help them.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

AU: After I retired, I worked with immigration for about thirty-eight years, and then I retired about seven years ago. And after one year, they had a special project going for citizenship, and they called me back, and they wanted me to help them for about six months giving citizenship tests and so forth, and so I agreed to go back for six months. Ended up being there for two and a half years, so I said that's enough. But it was emotionally getting to me because I'm giving the citizenship test. Of course, you know, normally you have to be able to read and write and speak English. Well, there's a provision where, say if you're sixty years old or older and you have more than twenty years permanent residency here in the United States, you may use an interpreter, so you don't have to be able to read or write. Well, a lot of those refugees that came in from Cambodia and Vietnam and so forth, the elderly people don't have the twenty years. They may be old, you know, they may be over sixty , you know, seventy years old, but they don't have the twenty years' residency, and they wanted citizenship. And I try, you know, you try to make them understand. You try to make it easy for them, but there is a certain amount that they have to at least be able to write a simple sentence like, you know, "it is a nice day," or something like that. And I think they have one sentence that they had practiced like, "my name is Fong," or something like that. And then I say, "Can you write, 'The sky is gray'?" And then they would write, "My name is Fong." I said, "No, no. I'm sorry, you have a second chance. You come back again." Well, they cry and they plead with me, you know, and it was getting to me after a while because you feel so bad. You understand, I know, you want it, but you keep on saying, "You don't have to be a citizen to live here, you know. You got permanent resident. You can live here for the rest of your life and not be a citizen. She wants the citizenship." And when you, when you, you know, come to that, and then of course, the children come in, and they jump on me and say, "Why don't you give it to her?" I say, you know, you tell them, but they say, "Well, she understands." Well, she really doesn't understand. But anyway, it was, it was getting to me, and I finally said, "No, I think I have to leave, "because it was taking an emotional toll on me. But in many, I was able to help.

One funny story is that, you've heard of those pen, not pen pals, those people that you correspond with overseas to get girlfriends and so forth, right, lonely hearts club like. Okay. There's a lot of like people from Philippines or something, very young girls, and you know, eighteen, twenty years old, and here's this man over here who's an American man, eighty-some years, almost ninety years old, and he comes, he comes to me and said he wants to marry this girl. He's in love with this girl. She's in love with him, and you say, "No. I don't think so. Are you sure?" And the kid, his kids are coming to me, said, "Please don't approve this thing," you know. And so anyway, we talked to him and say, I talked to him. I says, "Look. You know why she's doing this to you. It's not because she really loves you. Her whole purpose is to come to the United States, and you're being used for it. Don't you understand?" And he says, "No." So he goes to Philippines. He marries her, and he files a petition to bring her over here. All right, they're legally married, so what can do you? So he comes over, he says, "You know, I went over there, I got married to her, and she's coming over here as my wife," and I says, "Fine." So she comes over here. She's not going to stay with him. The next thing, he comes in. He says, "You know, you were right." He said, "She's running around with this young guy, and she's left me." And the immigration, they're helping her. They're not helping me. I said, "No. But according to the law, you're legally married to her, and she's got residence here, so we can't do anything," you know. And I said, "I told you before, you wouldn't listen to me." He said, "You were right," but that was after. But it's funny stories like that. And then much later, he used to come in the office when I went, then he would look at me and say, "Remember me?" And I says, "Yes, I remember you." But we had funny, all kinds of funny stories.

SG: Was the immigration job the first job you had when you came to the United States?

AU: The first and only job. So I've been with the immigration over forty years.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

SG: What was, you said the first time you came back to the United States it was difficult to adjust to American life when you came back to Hawaii. How was it for you when you came to Portland?

AU: Yes. See that's another good thing that I got a job right away because in the beginning, well, although Henry had friends, they were new to me, and I didn't know them at all, and because, this was my first time in Portland, in the States. I mean, all the people here have been here for long time, and they know each other. They know about Portland, and they talk about, you know, oh, that person, that person, this person and that time. To me, that's nothing because I don't know them. I don't know how they were, you know, and it was kind of lonely. So right after we're married, I went to work, right, and so I just got in with the people at work and then really made friends with them, and it was like, it was getting into our family. And because at that time, immigration office was so small that it was like a family. And from the district director all the way down, everybody was treated like a family. And when I had my children, the district director would come and see the kid, you know, see the children, and we were invited to their homes, and they would come over and visit. And it was like everybody was like a family, and everybody worried about everybody and everybody's family. "How's your family?" was the first thing, "How's Henry, how's the kids?" you know. That's how it was with the office. So it was nice, and I just got into it, so I didn't feel like because I'm Kibei Nisei, or whatever, that I feel a little different. I didn't feel that way because they just accepted me. They took me in right, like anybody else.

SG: Was there anything in terms of difficulty with American culture for you to adjust?

AU: No. I guess I must have been open. [Laughs] I just took into it, yes.

SG: Anything about leaving Japan that was difficult for you?

AU: Well, yes. It was because my family was all there, you know, when I came, and I was leaving everybody. Besides, my boss over there said, "Are you sure you want to go? You haven't seen this guy for ten years. How do you know?" he kept on saying that, but yeah. It was, when I got married, when I got married, because my mother cried before I left. She says, "I can't even come to your wedding." And so, you know, the only thing was that my father made me promise that I would go back there to visit him every five years, about every five years. Well, you know, before you know, you have your family, and priorities are changed. You think about your children and your family first, and then so I never got to go until it was kind of too late. When we went, the first time when we went to Japan was when my daughter was about ten and my son was about five years old, and Henry said, "Well, we better take the kids back to Japan to see the grandparents before it's too late," because his mother wasn't getting any younger. She was in her eighties, and my mother was, you know, wasn't getting any younger either. So we went back to Japan, and it was like somebody up there had told, "You better go." Because just as we got there, we got, you know, to Tokyo, we got word that his mother had taken a fall, and she was bedridden. And then when we got to Osaka that they told, they called us in Osaka, and they said, you know, she doesn't, she's losing her conscious or whatever. So we just hurried back to his hometown, his house, and she died. She passed away then. It was like she was waiting for us to come back, you know. And so it was a good thing. And then when we went down over to my mother's, then before we left, my aunt took me aside, said, "Have your mother visit, get her over there to visit you," and she said, "Don't wait too long because, you know, she's not getting any younger," and I said, "Yeah." So Henry had worked hard on it too.

And after our visit, after three years, we had her over here. We told her, "Your ticket is ready. We're sending it, getting your ticket. Don't need to have any money, just come, and then we'll take care of everything, so just get on the plane and come over." And that was her first plane ride. And so she said, "Well, you know, my first plane ride," and all the way from Fukuoka to, you know, to Seattle, she was coming in because we didn't have a direct flight then. So she says, well, she wanted to bring her granddaughter which is my niece, so fine. So she brought her, my niece together with her. And she's, then the district director says, "Tell her she can stay here for a while. And if she needs any time, extra time," he says, "we'll figure that out." And so, but, then he called SeaTac, the inspectors over there, and then he said that she was coming, and she was my mother. So when we went to Seattle to pick her up, and they said, "Oh, point out your mother for me," and I told them which, and he just took her to the side and, you know, worked on it, so she didn't have to wait in line to go through the inspectors. Then he took us down together to the customs, to clear the customs, and he told her, "This is..." and so the customs guy didn't even check anything, "Go." My mother says, "Oh, if I had known that that's how I was going to pass through the customs, I would have brought more things." [Laughs]

But she stayed here for about three months. And she, you know, she enjoyed, she enjoys life. My mother is a woman that had enjoyed her life, and I think she kind of passed it on to me because, and I feel I'm real optimistic about everything. And when something goes wrong, I think, "There must be a reason for this," you know. And she used to laugh a lot, and my, I remember when I was growing up, even when I was working in immigration when I first started there, and the district director, I think he could hear my laughing over us. And then he was not in the next room but about two rooms down the hall, and I guess he used to hear my laughing, you know. And so once in a while, he won't hear anything, and he would ask, "Is anything wrong with the Atami today? She's not laughing. I don't hear her laughing." And people used to say, "You know, when you laugh, you sound just like your mother." Well I guess, but she really, because even Henry says, "Your mother really enjoys living, and you take her anywhere." So we took her to Reno, and she enjoyed it over there. She has fun. I think that's the key, you know. You have to enjoy that and all the things. She was, she was very strong, very brave. I think braver than my father. And that's why she was able, what she told me when she first started the barber shop, she had no, she had no knowledge of hair cutting, nothing, nothing, and she went to visit this friend of hers who owned that barber shop when she first came from Japan, and they said, "Why don't you buy this barber?" She says, "I want to get rid of it," you know. She says, "I don't want to work anymore. Why don't you buy this?" And she says, "I've never cut people's hair." She says, "That's okay. I'll teach you." And she said, she taught her for one week. She was there learning how to cut, and then she bought that barber shop, and she operated that thing. And she said, you know, in the beginning, people used to come, the Americans used to come and the owners of the sugar plantation or whatever, they used to come, and then she, they'd tell her, cut here, this way, cut here, cut this way. They would cut, they'd say, "Mama-san, how come you're a barber, and you don't know how to do my hair?" But they came back to her every time, and they would tell her how to do it, and that's how she learned. And she said, "People was so good to me, everybody was so good to me," and you know, she got to where she was teaching people how to haircut. But I could never learn. I could never learn, but I tried on Henry one day when he asked me, and I did such a bad job that he had to have his cap on for a week or so. [Laughs]

But like I said, I've gone through a lot of things, but then I think I'm a survivor, you know. And I have a girlfriend, one of my classmates that's in Maryland. She married this fellow in Japan, and she's here, and her husband, she lost her husband several years ago, and she's alone now. But the other day, we were talking, and she also said, "You know, we're survivors. We survived through the atomic bomb. We survived through everything." So she says she's not afraid. She says, "I'm a survivor." I says, "Yeah, we survived it." And the best compliment to me is when my daughter said, "You know, Mom," she says, "you did it. If you can do it, I can do it too," you know, and I think it was such a compliment. So she feels like she's got a good, she told me she has a good example in front of her, so she can do it.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.