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RN: But my parents, my father worked at business probably about two, three years. He became bored and moved on, so we moved away. But she was very well known. About, I think it must have been five years ago, she died. She still taught at the school, one of the better known teachers there. And I thought about how pretty she was, and I know that she probably would have aged like Miss Sherman. I felt very sad and, but that's the way life is. So I had very nice teachers and some, probably a couple of them that I didn't like like Miss Brown. Another one I forgot her name. She thought I had taken a pencil from somebody which I never did because my mother had trained us when we were real taller never to steal. If you do, you disgrace me that I haven't taught you anything. That's what she told me. So if you really love me, don't do anything shameful. That brings disgrace upon the family. She told us that. I think the Japanese families say that.

Well, getting back to the schools and to the internment, I left there and came back to Portland. So my mother saved money from the, money that my two brothers sent her. She was their dependent. So every monthly, both of them sent her money which she never asked, but they did it on their own. She frugally saved it until she saved two thousand. And when University Home closed, she said, "I intend to buy a house." So my older brother George found a house where we are now, and she put the two thousand dollars. At that time, two thousand was quite a bit of money because it was about fifty-four years ago. And both of my brothers and my mother liked the house, but I didn't. I didn't like the location. So I thought to myself, if it was in a better location, there would be more, be more easily sold. I thought about that. But I never said anything because three of them were so happy. At least you have something to come home to that's really there, so I kept my mouth shut.

It was hard for them to adjust because when they got out of the service, my two brothers looked for a job. My job was at the nursery school, and my brother finally found employment at the VA Hospital for George because George was partially deaf. Then he himself start looking for employment. He became an auditor accountant for the City of Portland. I think he's the first Japanese American ever to work for the city. Prior to that, we have menial jobs, and the girls became housemaids. That's the only thing that was open to them. And my, George was the first one to work at the VA Hospital. So that way, they could buy this, pay for this modest house. George is a veteran, so he applied for a GI loan. They came and looked at the house. They found something wrong with the furnace, something wrong with this and that because they were biased. They didn't want him to have a loan, so we decided we don't need it. So we paid six percent and went ahead on our own. And when my cousin in the service bought his house, he received the loan because at that time the discrimination had receded, but I thought it was unfair. But it didn't matter because the house is completely paid for. That's what I'm trying to sell now. [Laughs] But it has given us shelter all these years. My mother made friends with the neighbor right away. I was very aloof because of the camp experience really hurt me. I think it hurt me more than some of the others, or others may followed the same but never voiced it. But my mother made friends right away even when she was at University Home. She'd come home with fruits and some vegetables that the neighbors had given her, and it was the same way in this house. She made friends right away. She's very open. And I think the reason was because she was in business for so long that she know how to communicate with people naturally, and she was small. She was smaller than I. She wasn't even five feet tall. But she made friends right away, and so I let her be the one to make friends. I stayed behind and did, kept the house neat, scrubbing and all that. Finally my, her brother passed away. He, his son gave us shrubs to plant, so I plant the shrubs all around there. So since it's forty or more years, they're huge, so they have to be trimmed annually.

But all these hardships that we have is not really negative. It helps us to survive in the life that we have to live. And like in art or the merit scholarship. I received top grades. The teachers were nice. But there were some students that's competitive. I worked on a cup for ceramics. I worked it very carefully because I intended to surprise my mother for Mother's Day. But somebody put three dots in it, ruined it, so I never gave it to her. Then I have design on a cloth, [inaudible], and I kept wondering to myself who had done that. Finally, she was a, I finally knew who have done that to me. But Miss Kennedy asked me to major in ceramics for her. I wasn't interested in ceramics at all. I was interested more in painting, so I just smiled at her. I didn't answer. I didn't want to tell her I don't care for ceramic. I didn't want to hurt her feeling. So my interest is in painting. And I have a first painting teacher who was really skeptical of me because I'm an internee. I may have chips on my shoulder, he thought, but he found out that I was very serious, very interested in art, picked up things right away what he had told me. So to this day, he had more influence than any other instructors I had in my painting or anything. But he always talked about one artist that he favored, his friend, but life of me, I can't recall his name. But you could see the influence in my work. He's a dots, it was freedom from painting academically, anyway. And in art, it was always wonderful for me because I could escape into my own world, shut the whole world out, just concentrate and focus on it. So it gave me a sense of peace, and I'm glad I tried so hard to have it and have so many obstacle in my path. But finally, I achieved it and got my degree. And my mother says "You're obsessed with it." She said, "It's much better to find a husband and have someone to protect you in your life and have children." Well, I didn't want that. I wanted what I wanted, so I persisted anyway. But when I got my degree, it was harder, so I went to my mother's grave and told her, "Mom, I made it." I told her. I don't know whether she heard me or not, but I think there is the other world that we do not know of. I'm sure she did.

My father himself was proud that I have talent, but he also wanted me to get married, have a lot of kids. But they separated. But when he was, time came for him to leave this world, I think he was about eighty-three. Yoneko's husband, they knew him. So Yoneko's husband asked me, "What are you, what message do you have for your father?" I said, "Tell him I have become an artist," and I'm glad, I'm sure he must have been happy. That's the message I gave him. But the art that I do is, I'm not doing it for any monetary gain, fame or nothing like that. It's what's inside of me. So even when there are times when I had to leave it for a certain reason, no matter what I did later on, the thought persisted in my mind. It wouldn't let go, so I return. And so I finally did it. I opened a studio, did my work in there. I enjoyed it, the quiet and the peace. But at the same time, my brother had become totally deaf, service gone active. He suffered the stroke, and so I have to look after him because it's so long ago. And I know if I didn't look after him, the caretakers would neglect him. So there was one time I went every other day, checked him. When I went to my studio coming back, nobody knew that I have the responsibility like that even at school because it was none of their business. I'm keeping the two worlds separate. But my brother died about two years ago. Well, I did help him for twenty-five years.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.