<Begin Segment 11>

SG: When did you get, when were you, when did you get married?

GA: Well, we got married later, 1943, after we were evacuated.

SG: So you were married in the internment camps?

GA: Well, it was during that time, although we were actually married in Twin Falls, Idaho, not in the camp, but, and I had already left the camp. My wife was still in the camp. But we got married outside of the camp if that makes sense.

SG: Do you remember where you got married at, what type of --

GA: A church, Presbyterian church in Twin Falls, Idaho.

SG: Were you raised as Presbyterian?

GA: No. I was raised a Methodist, yeah, Methodist. I don't know why we selected this church, but we did. I don't remember.

SG: So your parents, they converted to the Methodist church after they came to the United States?

GA: Yes. After several years, they converted from Buddhism to Methodist.

SG: Do you have any idea why they did that?

GA: I think the biggest reason is that his boyhood friend Kagawa became a Christian. He became a great leader in Christianity in Japan, and he visited Portland one time. I'm sure he's the one that converted my father.

SG: Was that unusual for a Japanese family to go to Methodist church?

GA: Yes, yes. In those days, very few were out of the Buddhist religion; although, our Methodist church here in Portland got started in 1893 with a very small membership, but it did get started in 1893.

SG: And that's where you and your family went?

GA: That's where we go now.

SG: So you've been going to that, the same church for --

GA: Well, I've been going there since 1937.

SG: That's amazing. So you mentioned you were working at your parents' grocery store when the war broke out, and at that time, you said Japan was committing atrocities. How did you feel about what was happening, what Japan was doing?

GA: Well, I thought it was very bad, very bad. I was very disgusted with the Japanese, of course, a lot of this is propaganda. But still, you know, what you read is, made me feel very bad.

SG: Do you think it affected you differently being a Japanese American?

GA: Oh, I think so, yes.

SG: In what way do you think it was different?

GA: Well, just the fact that there's Japanese, I was Japanese, of Japanese ancestry, I just felt very disgusted really.

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