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RB: And then the other question I had about your father, in terms of his journey to the United States, do you know how and why he decided to come to the U.S.?

MN: Well, I actually know very little about it. And what little I now know is that as a result of the fact that he was he was born and raised in Kagoshima on the island of Kyushu. He had a family, two children. He was, I mean, this is this is now information supplied by family links that I didn't know I had until maybe about ten years ago. It was, I think, rare in that it was a romantic, I mean, I think probably pretty rare, for at least my understanding of Japanese culture, it's a romantic marriage. And at some point, I think he connected with his in-laws in such a way that he went, I think with some kind of, some capital, I don't know how much, not too much. But in 1929, he went to the United States to increase the fortune. And that period is mired in darkness, frankly. [Laughs] In other words, I know, next to nothing. I mean, first of all, one question that would be raised to me would be, how did he get into the United States? Because 1929, the immigration laws restricting immigration, certainly immigration of Asians was in full force as of 1924. So how did he get in? That's one thing Two, how did he stay? And, you know, then there were other little snippets that we discovered, I mean, his wife never remarried. His family, his in-laws' family apparently pressed his wife to divorce him. And, of course, she having the usual autonomy that Japanese women did have, which is to say none, they were divorced. He came to the United States in 1929, as I said, which is also a pretty lousy time to come to the United States to make a fortune of any sort. The crash was soon to come. So during the '30s, and up to the war, he was, I think, essentially a single man with a family in Japan.

We were to discover -- I was to discover, along with my younger sister -- that the family, as I was saying, his wife never remarried. They had two children, one who died during World War II, though not, I think, out of the war itself, but I think might have been some sickness or illness contracted perhaps during the war. And his daughter, who lived up until maybe seven or eight years ago, the story that they told was, let's see, as I recall this, that, well, I think when they were notified, I mean, when she was notified, his ex-wife or his former wife, I'm not sure what the status is here, his non-wife. [Laughs] Died, or I think as she was dying, her last words were something like, "Now I will see." Which I thought kind of a poignant comment and probably an indication of this romantic kind of aspect of the relationship. Which seemed to me not your stereotype of Japanese marriage. Well, or whether it was still a marriage... well, they were formally divorced. And he was in Los Angeles, and here again, is a speculation, I think he was doing some small business thing, you know. I think there was some bad blood with his in-laws. He might have been given a stake and blown it, you know, and for all I know, he might have blown it at the track or something. I mean, I don't know, apparently there was some sense that he did wrong by them. So I think that accounted for the pressure to divorce. But as with others of Japanese descent, when the war came, he was rounded up, he won't have been posting in there, he met my mother. So that was one phase.

Now, the difficulty here is because my father died almost fifty years ago now, and my mother has been gone for about twelve years now. So, my goal at one point, and after I retired, which was like seventeen or eighteen years ago, was to get more background, more information about this. And unfortunately, my retirement and my mother's demise, I mean, she had gone through some dementia, and her short term memory was pretty close to nonexistent by the time. So my, you know, we talked a little bit about some of the stories related to growing up, her growing up. But I'd never, that's sort of an unfulfilled mission. And I'm not sure,  there's probably almost no way to retrieve it. There is very little written, and people who could verify stories or tell stories, are pretty much gone. When my mother died, this was in 2011, I think there were only two of her contemporaries who were at the service. And I think neither, basically, were in a position to speak. So there's this huge gap, because it has very much to do with this whole, the camp life, relocation, and the resettlement in South Jersey.

RB: So did your parents talk about camp when you were growing up?

MN: No, no. So in other words, my parents were typical, I think, of most JA families. There were very broad details that came out, like how rough the weather was, it was very hot and dusty. The housing was uninsulated, so it also got very cold. Facilities, toilet facilities and washing facilities were communal. And I think the food, I mean, I don't think they got into it in great detail about the food, but from all other reports, it was pretty lousy and certainly not what they were accustomed to eating. Probably, you know, must have been U.S. Army surplus or whatever, was handed to out the other camps as well. So that's... to the extent that any information was important about Poston or camp life in general, that was that was kind of it, at least in my recollection.

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