<Begin Segment 6>

LT: Your family attended Japanese community events when you were growing up, and you had a number of events as part of the Hiroshima Kenjinkai, and that was the group of people who came from Hiroshima?

MN: Uh-huh.

LT: Can you tell us about the picnics that you had?

MN: Well, we used to go down to Redondo Beach, and the Hiroshima group would have their own and then the community would have another one. We went quite a few times to Redondo, and the kids, they had a skating rink there, so we skated. Besides playing all those races and things for prizes.

LT: What kinds of races did you have?

MN: Sack races and two person tied with your legs together, and running, I don't know. That's about all I can remember.

LT: And what kinds of prizes did they give?

MN: I can't remember that either.

LT: Okay. What about the food? What did you eat there?

MN: They brought bento. Everybody brought rice balls and okazu and whatever.

LT: Sounds like a festive occasion. So as you were growing up, what did you learn about Japanese culture from your family and your community?

MN: Japanese culture? They made me do odori and okoto and shamisen, I don't know, all the things that girls are supposed to know.

LT: Okay, can you help us understand what koto and shamisen and odori are?

MN: Well, odori we performed when we had yearly programs.

LT: And those were dances?

MN: Yeah, uh-huh. And then we had Obon dance, too, you know. And koto was a long instrument, and shamisen is... I just started learning that before we evacuated, so I don't know how to do that very well.

LT: So there was a part of you that was attending public school and learning American ways, and then you were also learning Japanese culture and music and dance and the arts.

MN: Well, being a girl, that's what they expect, I think.

LT: What did you think about all that?

MN: Just do it.

LT: Was it hard balancing learning American culture as well as Japanese arts?

MN: No, it's just our daily life.

LT: You figured it all out.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.