Densho Digital Archive - George Iseri Interview (denshovh-igeorge

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AC: This is an interview with George Iseri, a Nisei man eighty-four years old, and this interview is happening in Ontario, Oregon, on December 5, 2004. The interviewer is Alton Chung for the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center's Oral History Project 2004. I want to thank you for taking the time in speaking with us today and all your wonderful hospitality. I just want to start off very simply saying, where were you born and when were you born?

GI: A place called Thomas, Washington, between Kent and Auburn, which is near Seattle, on April the 23, 1920.

AC: And what was, how many brothers and sisters did you have?

GI: I'm about in the middle of twelve kids.

AC: What were the names of these kids?

GI: What's that?

AC: You were in the middle so how many sons, how many daughters?

GI: Six above me and five below me.

AC: And what were the names of your parents?

GI: What was that?

AC: What were the names of your parents?

GI: My dad's name was Matahichi, and my mother's maiden name was Okuna. Her first name was Kisa.

AC: What were the names of all your siblings?

GI: Oldest is Tadamitsu, and his English name was Tom, Thomas. Next was Mitsuo, and his name was Mike. The next one was Manabu; no English name, but he was known as Mun all his life. Masato only has Japanese name. Next was sister Yoneko; her name was Alice. I have a sister living yet that's name is Sadako, and her name is Mae. Then I come in there. I have no middle name. Then Daniel, Daisuke, next to me, younger than me. And Kengo, his name was William. Akiyo was next, and he's been known all his life as Oscar. Kiyoharu, his name is Carl, and my youngest brother's name was Suehiro, William.

AC: So you had both Japanese names and some of them had English names. In the family, you referred to each other as with the Japanese names or a mixture of both?

GI: Yes, even many Sanseis today have Japanese names. In fact, my children, two of them have anyway, and that's about that time it disappeared. They don't use it any, Japanese names anymore.

AC: So is it your parents, your parents had gave them the English names or were they nicknames or --

GI: Most of them, no. I won't say most of them because in our case, it's a little different. But among the Japanese, most of them only had Japanese names, and they picked up nicknames. You know, they shortened their Japanese names, things like that. Our family, I think that Tom, Tadamitsu got his name, I think in his birth certificate is Tadamitsu, and I think my next brother Mitsuo is only Japanese name on his birth certificate. But they picked it up by hakujin friends and English speaking people. It's kind of hard to say some of those names, you know. But mine is unusual in that in Japanese, I go by Jyoji. And actually, that's the way they would pronounce George, so I never have used it as a middle name. And every family had a George. I knew a couple of families had two Georges because I guess they expected a lot out of that child to be another George Washington.

AC: So did you have to legally change, when they had the English names, did you legally change the names?

GI: I don't think they did. I think that, to my knowledge, they got through with their, just changing the names to what they were known by all their lives. And we've had a number of occasions when we help people get their passports, and we told them to, even if it's not the legal name on your pass, birth certificate, we're going to put it on your passport. We made it a lot easier for you, so we included their English names on the passports, and that never caused us any problem. It helped matters, in fact.