<Begin Segment 10>

DF: When you were in Tokyo, did you ever hear stories from Japanese nationals about the wartime experiences?

AT: No, we didn't. We had, my father's brother lived in Japan, but he lived in Hokkaido. And it was very hard, but he really didn't feel it until they moved to Tokyo. They did move to Tokyo after the war. But he was a president of a ship building company, and so he did very well. He rode around in a, I think it was a Rolls Royce, so he did very well. But when we first moved there, my dad would always take food to them because we could get the food from the commissaries, the military bases, and we were able to share with our family, things that they could never have gotten on the open market.

DF: How often do you go back to Japan now?

AT: We've only been back once. We went back once, oh, about twenty years ago, and my mom and dad took us, and they, I can still remember. We went to Hiroshima because we wanted to see the memorial there. But Mom and Dad had already been there, so they decided to stay at the train station to wait for us. So he told us, I said, "How are we going to get there?" He says, "Well, you tell the cab driver exactly what I tell you," so I did. I got into the cab and I told him exactly what my father had said in the very best Japanese that I knew. And as the cab driver was driving away from the train station, I could see him looking at me through the mirror, rear view mirror. Then he'd drive and then he'd look at me again. And then he finally said, "You look Japanese," in Japanese. He says, "You look Japanese, but what are you?" because obviously I had an accent that made me not Japanese. He didn't know what I was, but he knew I wasn't Japanese. I also had the same thing happen to me at the Noh play. Jim and I went to the Noh play alone. I was speaking to one of the ticket takers or someone there, and I was just chattering away in my Japanese. He finally said, "What are you? Are you Chinese?" I said, "No." [Laughs] I do my best. But my father has always said, "Don't speak Japanese." Don't speak, speak English. I don't care what. Speak English because your Japanese is so terrible that it's an embarrassment, so I've always spoke English. I never speak Japanese unless I'm absolutely forced to.

DF: How did it feel being asked, "What are you?"

AT: I realize that I was not Japanese. I realize that I was an American.

DF: So what did you say to the cab driver?

AT: I said, "Amerikajin desu."

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.