<Begin Segment 3>

TI: Let's talk a little bit about your mother. How did your mother and father meet? You mentioned they came from the same village. Tell me how they met.

KO: I don't know if he ever really met her before he was married to her, but they certainly knew each other, I mean, the families knew each other. Because when I visited Okayama, the Onishi house was just across the field from the Suyama house by cutting through the fields, if I went by the road, then I would go up the road an eighth of a mile and then less of an eighth of a mile to the Onishi house. But my father was thirteen years older than my mother.

TI: Okay, and he left when he was twenty-one, so your mother would only have been, like, eight years old.

KO: That's right, yeah. And the story is my father was now thirty years old, and at the time, the Portland community was still quite young, but he was recognized as an up and coming leader in the community. And someone said, "To be respectable, you've got to be a married man. A bachelor doesn't really have much status." So the fellow said, "You should get married, and the Suyama woman, girl, is now growing up. She's eighteen years old, and if you want me to, I'll put in a good word with the Suyama family for you. And so my father said, "Well, you can go for it then," and that's the way it was. The marriage was arranged, my mother was married when she was eighteen or nineteen by proxy. My father never returned to Japan.

TI: Going back to the person who first approached your father saying he could sort of make this arrangement, so do you know if that was common in Portland? Was there, like, a person who did this, or was this just a friend of the family that did that?

KO: I think that was a general practice. The word the Japanese have for that go-between or that matchmaker or whatever it's called is a baishakunin. They introduced families to each other and speak about, "How about your daughter marrying this man because I, could I arrange a meeting of the two?"

TI: And then you said "by proxy," so explain that. How do you get married by proxy?

KO: I don't really know what the, how the Japanese got married, but by proxy would be a fellow would stand in as the husband if they had to appear before the magistrate or the courthouse or whatever it is. Because she can't just go by herself and saying, "I'm going to get married." There's got to be a body, and the proxy is that body.

TI: Now, did you ever ask your mother how she felt about this? Because she had, maybe she did or maybe she didn't even know who this man was, and she would be leaving your village to go across the ocean to a new country. What did she say about that?

KO: I think it's just the duty of a young woman to, if the mother and her parents say, think it's a good idea that you do this, then there wasn't much to say about it. Although I know there are others who would say, "Well, I'm not going," but most dutiful women would say, "Oh, if you say so."

TI: Did she ever talk about whether she was fearful or excited? Did she just have the sense it was just going to be an adventure for her, or was it really just, "I just have to do this"?

KO: She was really an outstanding woman. I mean, she was very independent in the sense that, "I'm my own person and I know how to handle all these kind of things." I was trying to think of words to describe my mother and my father both, but words don't do it. They were just outstanding people.

TI: For your mother, where was she in the birth order?

KO: She had two older brothers and she was the only daughter.

TI: Did she ever talk about, or did you ever notice, did the age difference ever matter to your parents?

KO: I don't think so. I know in counseling me about marriage, she would say, "You should be certainly older than your, whoever you choose." And not only older, but you should be six or seven years older even.

TI: Because she's thinking that the marriage should be more patriarchal in terms of the man older and I guess more established, more senior to the woman?

KO: I don't think she'd ever say "senior," but I think what she's saying is the man should be more mature if he's gonna marry. And it takes a, I guess, a boy to mature, a little bit longer.

TI: Okay, so not even in terms of senior, but it just takes men longer to reach that stage.

KO: Uh-huh.

TI: Okay, that makes sense.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.