<Begin Segment 1>

LG: We are here today on May 8, 2023, at Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My name is Lauren Griffin, I am the interviewer, and if you could go ahead and introduce yourself.

TM: My name is Teresa Maebori.

LG: And is that your full name? Do you have a middle name?

TM: Well, that's interesting. I do now have a middle name, but when I was born, my mother did not give me a middle name, or my parents did not give me a middle name. And it's sort of traditional that the middle name is Japanese. And I was born in 1945, February, my mother did not want someone to look down a list and see my name and know that I was Japanese. So she did not give me, or they did not give me a middle name. Because it's traditional to give children a Japanese middle name, and so she said she'd wait until I got to an age, maybe twelve or something, I think it was around that time, when I could select my own name. Which was kind of funny because there's not much that goes with Theresa, so it's Teresa Ann Maebori.

LG: And you picked "Ann" yourself?

TM: Uh-huh.

LG: Why Ann?

TM: Just the sound of it more than anything else.

LG: At that time, did you not want to pick a Japanese name?

TM: At that time, I did not want to have a Japanese middle name. I was born in February 13, 1945, the war was still going on, and my parents were incarcerated. Plus, at the time that I was born, I was born in a labor camp in Caldwell, Idaho, and so it was a, you know, very harsh existence for a citizen of the United States. And I think all -- not all, but many Nikkei, Japanese Americans, could not, were not proud of their ancestry. And, you know, their houses were... if you were a Japanese language teacher, if you were a priest, if you were a leader in the community, you were rounded up right away and taken off to prison. So they tried to get rid of everything that was Japanese. And so, definitely, name was part of that. It's interesting, though, my older brother was born in to Tule Lake concentration camp, but he got a Japanese middle name. And I don't know, I think it's also traditional that males, the firstborn, I think it has more traditional kinds of, I don't know what you call it, they feel much more traditional about that. So he did have a Japanese middle name. Both of my sisters were born after the war in '52, and '54, '55, had anglicized middle names, but the two boys had Japanese middle names.

LG: So you have four siblings?

TM: Siblings, although my two brothers have died.

LG: And where are you in the birth order?

TM: I'm second. So my brother was born in Tule Lake, as I said, in 1943, and I was born in 1945, and the other three were born in Auburn Washington.

[Interruption]

TM: Okay. In terms of birth order, I'm second born. My brother, Stan, was born in 1943, in Tule Lake concentration camp. So he was born in January, and I was born in February of 1945, two years later, but at that point in time, my parents weren't in a labor camp. And then when they got out, at the end of 1945, as near as I can remember, or as near as I can figure out, they went back to Auburn, Washington, in 1946. And my other three siblings, my brother, and my two sisters, were born in Auburn, Washington.

LG: And what generation are you?

TM: I'm Sansei, my parents are Nisei, and my grandparents are Issei.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

LG: So what's the story of how your grandparents came to the United States?

TM: My grandparents, I have two sets, and so my grandparents, maternal grandparents, my grandfather came, I think he must have come before 1900, I don't know the exact year. And he was married in Japan, and he had a wife and daughter. And he, according to my aunt, who was born in Japan, she said he wasn't able to send for his wife until seventeen years later. So my father was born seventeen years later in Pendleton, Oregon. So they came from an area near Kyoto near Lake Biwa. My maternal grandparents came probably in early 1900, they came from Fukushima. My grandfather came because he was the second son, and when you're not the first son, you don't inherit everything. And also Japan was going through a famine at that time, and so Japan had just opened, so he left to seek his fortune in America, and he wasn't married. What I know, according to my grandparents, he had been a principal in a school. After I don't know how many years, I would say within five years, he sent back to Japan for his family to find him a wife. So my grandmother was a "picture bride," and I don't know if you know about what "pictures brides" are, but the family that's, the families, and he was sent an array of pictures and he chose my grandmother. She also came from that area and was a teacher, and she sailed across the ocean, and they met in Seattle and got married. And as far as I can tell, they moved then to an area called Wapato, Washington, which is south central, and I learned after doing some research that Wapato, Washington, was the second largest city of Japanese Americans, Seattle being the first. And I'm assuming that what happens is that once a few families come, then they recommend other people, why don't you come here, there's opportunity here? So I think that's probably what happened. So my father was, he had two siblings, his older sister was born in Japan, and was seventeen years older, and then he had a younger sister who was about two years younger. My mother's family had, there were five children, my mother being the second oldest as well, and she lived until she was ninety-eight years old so she died in 2014.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

LG: What were your parents' names?

TM: My father's name was William Toshio Maebori, and my mother's name was Michiko Alice Takaki.

LG: And what sort of work did your father do?

TM: My father worked for his brother-in-law in Auburn, my uncle Tony owned a pottery, and so they made flower pots or clay containers, so he worked there for him.

LG: Was that something that he picked up in Washington, or was that something new?

TM: Well, I think he learned from his brother-in-law what to do. My father was very adept at knowing how things worked and how to operate things, so I imagine that he could do that quite well. My mother, on the other hand, was very well-educated, and she went on to graduate from the University of Washington, had a BA or a BS, I think, in clothing design, and one interesting bit of information was she said that when she went to the guidance counselor, the career counselor to find out about job opportunities, when she was about ready to graduate, the person told her, "I don't know why you got a degree, you'll never get a job," meaning that people of Japanese ancestry will not be hired. So she didn't, even though she had this degree, she didn't utilize it until after all of us were in school. She did dressmaking at home, and so she had lots of customers who came, and she altered clothes and she made wedding dresses and so forth, and she also taught at the high school in evening classes for adult evening school, so she taught.

LG: Do you know if she ever did face racism or discrimination, looking for work?

TM: If she did, she never talked about it, but I'm sure she did, just given the climate of the time. She was very good at dressmaking, and so some of the part-time jobs she got in the community were, she worked in a fabric store, and I was with her when she got that job which was very interesting because we were in a fabric store, and the clerk was kind of overwhelmed with all the customers. You have to realize at the time, many people did sewing. And so my mother just kind of stepped in and helped, and, I mean, she saw her opportunity and she took it, so they hired her.

LG: What sort of clothes did she make?

TM: She could make anything, she could make anything. I remember many people came to her, like I said, for wedding dresses and for bridesmaids' dresses and for special occasion, she did a lot of alterations as well. I can remember seeing her when a customer would come to the house, and she would be hemming their skirts, measuring the hemming, so they'd be standing up on a stool and then they'd be turning and turning and she'd be marking. So the interesting thing was at ninety-eight years old, she was still doing alterations. And she was legally blind at that point, but she had a huge amount of magnifying glasses all around the house. And I think just by the feel of things, she lived in a retirement community, and when she died, she had a pile of clothes by her sewing machine. And so we said, "We don't know who these belong to," so we had to take them up to the reception desk and say, "We don't know who these belong to, could you make an announcement that my mother couldn't get to them?" So they found out very quickly that that was something she could do very easily. And she made all of us clothes, and I remember one time when a neighbor friend, their little girl, she made her a dress. And we didn't have a lot of money, there were a lot of us kids. And I said, "Why did you do that?" Because we were barely in clothes. She said, "Well, it's just nice," just a thing that she thought she could do, and easily do, so she made a dress for one of my sisters' friends, just as a nice gesture. So it's something you remember as an example of, I guess, neighborliness or friendship.

But later on, when we were all in school, the government services, general services administration, the government, came to town and we were all in school, so she got a job in their what they call testing and development. Because she had a university degree and she had taken courses in chemistry, she qualified to be in that lab testing different materials that the government would buy. So she worked for the government for seventeen years, and that was good because the government work, you get pensions, and it was good for her.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

LG: How did your parents meet?

TM: My parents met near where my mother lived. She lived in, her family lived in Burlington, Mount Vernon area, north of Seattle. And there Japanese and Japanese American associations. You have to understand, at that time, there was not much integration, and I think also there were anti-miscegenation laws at that time. So socially, young Japanese Americans would get together, and so she said they met at a basketball game, and it was in these little leagues that Nikkei or Japanese Americans had, so she met my father there.

[Interruption]

LG: Okay, so what was your parents' relationship like?

TM: Well I think it was a happy marriage. My father and mother were both quite busy and active. My father was probably more active in that he had a lot of interests. He liked to fish, he liked to bowl, and he coached Little League and so forth. And so that took him out of the house. My mother, of course, was very involved in sewing and taking care of the children, but I guess they all, parents all have their roles. But there wasn't tension in the family at all, and they were married in 1941. And when my father died, they were married for...

LG: And your parents were incarcerated?

TM: Yes, yes. My parents were incarcerated, which is an interesting story in that my parents were married on November 22, 1941, so Pearl Harbor was approximately two weeks later. And so their world completely changed. So I try to imagine what that must have been like, because when you get married, you think the future is all open to you but the future was not open to them. And I often tell the story that I asked them, "How did you feel, what happened?" and she said, well, they went to their parents, the Issei, and said, "Don't worry, we'll get you out," or, "We'll take care of you. Whatever happens, we'll take care of you." Well, they didn't realize they were citizens, but that meant no protection for them, so they were incarcerated as well. And the other fact is that my grandparents, even though they were immigrants, they could not become American citizens, naturalized citizens, and I think until 1952, the Walter-McCarran Act. So in some senses, it's a little false to say, "Oh, they're immigrants." Well, yeah, they're immigrants, but they'd like to have been naturalized citizens, but there were laws against that. Whereas my parents were citizens.

LG: What else do you know about this time for your parents?

TM: Well, first you went to what they called forced detention centers, and they went to Pinedale where they lived. I think not everyone, not all families were together, so my mother's family went to Pinedale and then Tule Lake. My father's family, I'm not sure they went to Pinedale, the detention center, but they went to Minidoka, so it was two different places. I only learned this recently in the last ten years, was that my grandfather, my paternal grandfather, who was disabled at that time, he had had a massive stroke, he had gone with the newlyweds to Tule Lake and to a detention center. And I had asked my mother, I said, "Oh, gosh, how did you take care of them?" And she said she didn't, that my dad did all the caretaking for my grandfather, because he was pretty disabled. And so when I think back about it, you start your married life, and you're in this 20x20 room with your father-in-law, who's disabled, and then my dad basically is caring for him.

LG: Did they talk to you much about their experiences?

TM: No, my parents did not talk about it. I only knew they went to camp, I think many Japanese Americans of my generation, the Sansei generation, know that their parents were in camp, but they don't know much about that because their parents didn't talk about it. And I remember someone said, "Well, it's like the Holocaust victims, they don't want to talk about it, they're embarrassed." And my mother said yes, they were embarrassed and ashamed. And they shouldn't have been, but you're basically imprisoned. And so when I learned most about it was when the hearings went around the country in the '80s, when people came out and talked. But until then, people didn't talk about it. They talked about, oh, we knew them in camp, or we'd get a lot of Christmas cards from people that I never knew. How did they know them? "Oh, we knew them in camp." But what is camp?

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

LG: So what happened after that?

TM: I think at the beginning of 1946, my parents left the labor camp in Caldwell, Idaho, and went back to Auburn, Washington. And when they left Auburn, Washington, in 1942, they were renting a house, and the landlord said, "Well, we'll keep the house for you until you return." And he was true to his word, so they were able to live there, and I guess they were able to store their wedding gifts in that house, and they were still there when they came back. My cousin, I was asking him about their experience because he was his father was the owner of a pottery... and they went to Minidoka. And I said, "So did your parents have to go to the labor camp?" he said, "No." He said, "My dad had a business," I said, "He had a business?" And he said yes, that a neighbor in Auburn had said to them, "We'll keep your trucks," because they had these big trucks to deliver the pots and to get the clay, et cetera. "We'll keep these until you are released." And so at some point, the neighbor brought the trucks to my uncle in Minidoka. And so my uncle started a business which was delivering produce et cetera, I think, to the canneries or to the factories that needed it so they didn't have to go to a labor camp because he had a business which was kind of interesting, I thought.

LG: So when your family returned to Washington, does that mean that the pottery business...

TM: No, the pottery business continued, it was still intact, so my dad went to work there and my parents lived in the house that they were renting from their landlord. It's interesting because I think a couple of years ago, one of our neighbors, who was our playmate who's probably now in her sixties if not seventies, she decided she would gather all the information about all the kids in the neighborhood and find out what they're doing now And she said there were fifty kids in that neighborhood, and we were the only Japanese Americans who lived in town. There were other Japanese Americans, but they kind of lived on the outskirts or on farms, and anyway, we were one family amongst all Caucasian families in this neighborhood. And we basically got along and played hard, et cetera. So we had a good, happy childhood.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

LG: So that's pretty interesting. When you were a child, were there ever moments where the events of the war were brought up to you, especially playing with the mostly white kids?

TM: Yes. I mean, I think my experiences, because it was 1946 when we came back, my experiences were very much shaped by the aftereffects. And I felt racism, it wasn't blatantly there, but I felt it I always knew I was different, just had to look in the mirror. I remember one instance very vividly, I'm sure I was under ten, and kids were always in and out of each others' homes, and I remember my dad was gardening out in the front of the house, and some of the kids came over and were watching him, and one of them called my father a "Jap." And I was kind of frozen. One of the things that really surprised me was my father didn't say anything back to that child, like, "Get out of our yard," or anything like that, he just continued gardening. And it was a moment in time that is frozen for me, because my father was a very, kind of strong personality, and you just sort of take it. It was kind of, it was demeaning, very demeaning. But in another instance, I think as children, we got along very well with our neighbors, and made friends easily. But I remember going back to my high school reunion maybe fifteen, twenty years after I graduated, coming from the East Coast. And talking to some of my friends, we'd gotten together, and I talked about how, on the West Coast, people are used to seeing Asians, and they don't ask you, "Where are you from?" because they understand that Asians have been on the West Coast for close to a hundred years. So I was telling my classmates, I said, "On the East Coast, I find the racism is right out there." I said, "I never felt that going to school." And one of my classmates since kindergarten said, "Oh, well, we protected you." And so I thought that was very interesting that they heard it. I knew it was there, and I was talking to my younger sister about it recently because they're ten and seven years younger. So that whole war experience was completely different. But my two brothers and I really faced it more, because it was more imminent or closer to us. And I know we couldn't date. We had friends, but when it came to having a boyfriend or girlfriend, you didn't have one of another race. And to me, I always kind of disliked it because it was like, in my high school class, there might have been, in a class of three hundred, there might have been less than ten of us Japanese Americans. And they always sort of pushed us together, and I always didn't like that, that I had to be with my "own kind," so to speak. I thought this is, I should be able to have free choice or whatever. So although it wasn't out there, it was there. You always knew you were different, and even today, you always know you're different, because Americans only think of America as either Black or white, not necessarily Asian or Latino. They think of Asians as early or late immigrants who came here within the last ten, maybe twenty years. But Asians have been in America for over a hundred, my family's been here over a hundred years.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

LG: So as a child, did you go to Japanese language school or were you or your family involved in Japanese American community?

TM: We were involved in the Japanese American Citizens League, but that basically was it. My mother grew up, when she grew up, her family were Methodists, so she wanted us to be Christian, so I can remember this, that they looked around at different churches to see which one they felt comfortable with. And there was a church down the street from us, which was an Episcopalian church, and they felt welcome there. So we grew up in that church, and so our lives kind of revolved around that church. So it was Christian, it wasn't Buddhist, we didn't have Japanese language school. There wasn't a critical mass of Japanese Americans, although the town had, before the war, had a huge population of Japanese Americans because there were many truck farmers in that area. But after the war, not all of them came back, but there was a Buddhist temple in town. So several of the Japanese American families were Buddhist, but my family was not. I knew very little Japanese, only occasional work. I didn't really hear Japanese because my grandparents didn't live with us. And when we went to visit them, my grandmother could speak some English, and so that's how we communicated. My grandparents, after they left Wapato, when my mother was growing up, they lived in Mt. Vernon and they owned a laundry, dry cleaning. So they were one of three Japanese families in town, so they were very assimilated into that population. And so my father grew up in Pendleton, Oregon, and I think that basically they felt as comfortable in a Caucasian or white community as they did the Japanese American community, although I think they knew that there were certain things, they felt more comfortable, the experience, they felt more comfortable, because so many of our Japanese American friends had been incarcerated.

LG: What about at home were there elements of Japanese culture, whether it be cooking or holidays?

TM: Most of the traditions, Japanese traditions were holidays, and basically holidays are usually religious. So the holiday that was dominant was New Year's. And so we had, we have a huge spread of food, and I think that's one custom that Japanese American families still hold. And all the family relatives get together and enjoy food, et cetera. I never really learned the traditions until I became a teacher, became a teacher here, and decided to do a teacher course on Japan. So then I looked behind the reasons for that holiday and why it was so important, but many of the holidays in Japan are associated with a religion, just as in America, Christmas, Easter, well, Thanksgiving is not... but that idea we would celebrate those, and in fact, I remember I had a friend from Hawaii who, when I lived in Washington, D.C., she came, she was studying here and she came to visit. And I said, "Oh, my uncle lives in Arlington, Virginia, he's invited me to Christmas, do you want to come?" She said yes, and so she came and it was a regular Christmas kind of celebration, and she said afterwards, "You know, I could have closed my eyes, and it was like any other American family. Because she was from Hawaii, it had more elements of Asia or Japan in it. So basically, we were very assimilated.

LG: What was that like doing the research years later? What was the reasoning behind these holidays?

TM: Well, it made me understand more about my ancestry. The other thing is, it made me very proud now. One of the thoughts I have had was that in doing, in having a Japan Studies program with third and fourth graders, was that I never learned this, I never learned Japanese folktales, I never learned why, for instance, there's the Boy's Day with samurai and the symbols for that. And I learned them by teaching it. And the children got, my students got very excited about it, and it was just, it made me proud that the culture was so rich. I think before, because I never saw a Japanese book, I never read a Japanese novel, come to find out that the first novelist was Lady Murasaki, The Tale of Genji, and it's remarkable that a culture that is so ancient, I was not made aware of, and was made to feel ashamed about, until I started teaching. And I can remember, I taught it with a little bit of trepidation, I think I started it in the late '80s, because I didn't know how the children would react. Because when I was growing up, products from Japan were thought of as cheap and unworthy. But by the time I was teaching my students there were cars that were better than American cars, and so it was interesting, when I presented some facts about Japan, one of the students says, "Oh, boy." I said, "Why do you say that?" and he said, "Oh, because they make such good movies and video games and toys." It was a complete reversal of the attitude about Japan when I was growing up to today. And unfortunately, I was exposed to feeling ashamed of Japan, and that it had nothing to offer. So in teaching it, I discovered that, yes, it has, many worthy elements to know about and to appreciate.

LG: When you were growing up, or even as an adult, would you ever make a trip to Japan?

TM: Uh-huh, I did. I made a trip to Japan. The first time, I was in the Peace Corps, and I was in the Peace Corps in Micronesia, which is not very far from Japan. So you served two years, and in between you have a little vacation. So I was so close to Japan, I thought, oh, this is my chance. So I was the first in my family to go to Japan. My grandparents had come, but none of my aunts or uncles had been there. One uncle had, but he married into the family. So at that time, my grandmother was still alive, my grandparents were still alive, and so she went a letter of introduction in Japanese. And so I went and, because I couldn't speak Japanese, and carried this little letter with me. And so I met my grandparents, the grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side, and then went to Kyoto, near Kyoto, Lake Biwa, and met my, I guess great aunts on my father's side. So it was a very wonderful trip, and it made me want to know more.

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<Begin Segment 8>

LG: Do you want to talk about your Peace Corps experience first? After you finished high school, did you go to college?

TM: Yes. After high school, I went to the University of Washington, and graduated with a B.A. in English history in education. And then I joined the Peace Corps.

LG: So coming from your high school experience, in a white community, what was college like?

TM: Well, the college experience was just really hectic in the sense that I lived in the dorms, and there wasn't any social, you made your own social arrangements. And my parents urged us, there was no question we would go to college, but we had to pay for it. So college was a lot of work, both to earn money to go there, and I took a lot of subjects. I'm this kind of person who liked a challenge, so I probably overdid it. But I think in the second year, I decided, okay, to save money, I'm going to live off campus. So I persuaded about three of my friends to join me, so we lived off campus, did our own cooking, et cetera. So we saved some money there.

LG: Did you have a job at this time?

TM: I did. I guess you would call it a work study, and I worked in the cafeteria of one of the dorms.

LG: Were you a part of any social groups, community groups, during college?

TM: No. It was 24/7 studying and working, and having a little bit of a social life.

LG: So you had experiences during college that you can remember that [inaudible]?

TM: Well, I think some of the courses that I took in English and some of the teachers I had in history, I enjoyed those. But it's interesting because I never took an Asian American course because it didn't exist. I graduated from high school in '63, went to college through '67. So at that time, there was no such thing. So my whole orientation of learning was Western Civilization. And I realized that I wanted to teach, and I wanted to teach secondary English, and I thought, "If I'm going to teach, I don't know anything in terms of life." So I decided that that's why I decided that I wanted to take a couple of years off and go into the Peace Corps and kind of get rooted, I think, in what life experience was.

LG: What made you want to teach secondary?

TM: Well, I guess in high school I had some really good teachers in high school, English. And I always liked reading and writing, I think I did quite well in those subjects. It's interesting because I belonged to a book group and we have discussions and I'd say, "How many of you were English majors?" and almost all of them were, it was kind of interesting.

LG: So how did you hear about the Peace Corps?

TM: Well, I graduated in 1963 and went to college in '63. '63 to '67, the war, the Vietnam War was raging. And the Peace Corps was a John F. Kennedy program, and we were all enamored of him. And many of male classmates were looking into it because it was an alternative way to serve and not go to war. So it intrigued me and I always liked the idea of, I always liked the stories of pioneers, of doing things that were simple, but difficult. And I thought, well, I can maybe for two years camp out. I think I can handle that. And so it was a little better than camping out, but not too much above that.

LG: What was your experience?

TM: When I went, there were many of us. We were in Micronesia, which was, at that time, a territory of the United States. And there were six little districts, island districts, that's why they called it Micronesia. And they had no common language, so they wanted English to be the lingua franca. And so in order to do that, they had to send English teachers, so that's what we did. Most of us, not all of us, but most of us taught English as a second language. So that's what I did, and it was a life changing experience because there were many things I realized that were important, and what was important was the relationships with other people and not material things, because you didn't have material things, you lived very simply. Of course, in Micronesia, we didn't have to worry about heat, we had to worry about being too hot, but we didn't have the modern conveniences, we had makeshift showers and toilets that were outside et cetera. So it was very basic living. But the people that I served with were wonderful, and to this day are some of my best friends. Plus the people that I taught and worked with there, were just so eager to learn, they really wanted to know us but they also wanted to know English. And here were teachers sort of infused in all these islands, but the other interesting thing about Saipan in the Marianas was that it had been taken over just before the war by Japan. So in fact, one of the houses that we were trained in was the Japanese House. It wasn't like this, I mean, it wasn't a traditional house, but you could tell there were, it had touches of the Japanese House. And I worried a bit about how would people accept me because when they look at me, they don't see American. And when I was walking through the village one day, one of the older gentlemen from the village came up to he and he was a little crazy, and he started speaking to me in Japanese. And I said, "I don't understand, I don't speak English." And he just got so angry and enraged, he said, "You do too." And he wanted to use the Japanese he learned when he went to Japanese school, because Japan is fairly close to Sapian, and they taught the inhabitants rigorously. So the United States being so far away, they were very neglectful. So if they got any education it was something. And in some senses, I think I had an easier entre into the village with the people because they saw me as different, and they identified with me a little bit closer because they didn't see me as white. So that's what I feel, I felt.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

LG: What was it like coming back to New York state?

TM: Well it was very stressful, it was very hard. And I think it was like, I always equate it to soldiers coming back from the war, I mean, not the fact that we were in a war situation, but when you come back, nobody really wants to hear about what you went through. You can talk to them for about ten minutes and that's about their attention span. There are a few people that are interested, but most not. And coming back, it was so materialistic. People just talked about what they had, what they wanted to get, money, money, money. And I realized while being in the Peace Corps that that necessarily will make you happy, it's the relationships that you develop with others. So it took a year at least, and other friends of mine, we'd call each other and complain about, oh, nobody understands, and it's really hard this and that. So there was an adjustment period, but again, we have reunions, and so we get together. Because there were about, on Saipan, I would say there were about fifty of us, and we got close, we were close, maybe twelve of us were really close. So we have reunions every once in a while, and so when we get together, we'd tell stories all the time. We said, "Did that really happen?"

Because when we were there, we had like seven typhoons, and we had one typhoon that completely leveled the island, and I thought I was going to die. Our house was a concrete house, but it was unfinished. So while we were in that house, the house didn't fall over, but the roof blew off. So the roof went completely, it was completely gone. And I remember my roommate and I went into the bathroom, which didn't work, but had four walls. Went in there, we took our mattresses and put it over our head and so we could look through the mattresses, and because the roof was gone, we could see palm trees, we could see plywood, we could see everything going over us. And then it was the eye, and then everything is completely stopped. So the typhoon was about a hundred and fifty miles an hour, so then it stops and then we kind of came out and thought, "What's going to happen?" We had, one of our friends was with us from the village, and he said, "Okay, we need to go to a better place." So we went to the village shelter, but when we came out of our house, basically the houses were not there anymore. There was just floors, and it looked like a war zone. When we went to the shelter, that wasn't too much better, but there were many people there. And, of course, the typhoon comes back, and he had, on the other side, the elders of the village were standing up against the walls, and the women were all crying and the babies were crying and the water was coming up. And so I thought, "I don't think I'm going to survive this." Fortunately, it passed, and we survived. So every time we get together, former volunteers, we talk about that. "Yes, that really did happen," and, "Yes, this era." But most people will only listen to a little bit of that.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

LG: So you had this period of getting readjusted to American culture and university life. What did you do after you graduated?

TM: So I went in the Peace Corps, but after the Peace Corps, you mean? What did I do?

LG: Yeah, did you still have some college to finish?

TM: No, no, I did four years. '63 to '67 was college. So '67 to '69 was Peace Corps.

LG: So what did you do after...

TM: So when I came back, I hadn't applied to graduate school, I was too late, and so one of my friends said, "Oh, there's a job here in Indiana, why don't you come?" And I had no other job offers, so I said, "Okay." So I went, and I stayed with her family, and I lived in a town called Nightstown outside of Indianapolis, and that was a totally different experience, because it was somewhat rural. And again, the Vietnamese war was still happening, and I don't think the people in that town had seen very many live Asian people. So I would go into a store or a restaurant, and everyone would turn around and stare. I'd walk down the street, people would turn around and stare. So I said, "Well, a year of this, I'm out of here." So I went to grad school in Washington, D.C. and got a masters, and it was a work study program, so I taught in DC schools, community schools right near the Hilton Hotels, and I did that for two years, and it was really rough, it was very difficult, because I had just been teaching in places where the children -- because by then I wasn't in secondary, had been teaching elementary -- the children who were like in fifth grade were very savvy, and psychologically, I think they were smarter than I was because they had to manipulate their environment. And I remembered that at the top of the hill was a 7-Eleven, and on that door of the 7-Eleven -- this was in '69 -- it said, "Only one person at a time, it'd be locked for kids." So only one kid could come in at a time, because the neighborhood was predominately Black. And so I realized that's what they face every morning, the suspicion and feeling rejected. And so in school, it was difficult. They knew how to manage adults, so it was tough teaching there. I taught with another grad student, and we were asked to teach this class mainly because the regular teacher, after two weeks, quit, because class was so unmanageable. And they say, "Will you take this over? Because you've got teaching experience." And so I said, "Yes, if my classmate will teach with me." So we taught together and we did some pretty unusual things. We taught through projects, we tried to get the kids really involved in their learning. We were taught a course on boxing, and set up the room with a boxing square and got the local police station to come in and do a pal thing with the kids and teach them that. It was interesting, it was really an interesting teaching experience, but it was rough. It was very, very hard. And then I taught children with learning differences for four years in D.C., and then I got a job offer here in Philadelphia at a Friends school. And so I taught there for thirty-six years.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

LG: You moved out to the East Coast, but the rest of your family stayed?

TM: Yeah, I was the only one on the East Coast

LG: Was that...

TM: Well, the wonderful thing about teaching is you get the summer off. So because my mother was, you know, lived until she was ninety-eight, I could always have a summer in Seattle, which was much nicer than the East Coast, because the weather was so much better. So I would spend at least two months out there. So, in a sense, I would say, even though my sisters lived there, I probably -- and with my mother -- much more than they are because I was constantly with her for, you know, that continuous period of time, whereas they might just visit each month, maybe a couple of times and for a short period of time. So, being a teacher, it allowed me to do that.

LG: So you moved to Philadelphia and started teaching in Germantown?

TM: At Germantown Friends School, I taught third and fourth grade. And at that time, it was a new class, in that they put two grades together. And so you taught them for two years. So, the third graders advanced to the fourth grade, and the fourth graders moved on. And at that time, I could develop... what was wonderful is I could develop curriculum. So the fourth grade curriculum was kind of sacrosanct, and it was ancient Greece. And the other alternate year was a little bit open. So I decided I would try to teach Japan Studies. And so I did that for at least, I would say, twenty-five years. And yet, probably of that twenty-five years, maybe ten of them, we decided, okay, we need to teach social studies that reflects the students in our class. So we hadn't taught anything about Africa or any African countries. So with Japan, half the year was Japan, and the other half was, I did Kenya, another teacher did Ghana, another did Nigeria, and a third did Egypt. So we did an African Studies using those four different countries. So it was pretty advanced in that time, but we taught it in a project way. So, you know, we taught reading through folktales. So when we did Japan, we read folktales from Japan, and history and with Africa, the same thing, folktales from Africa. And the culminating experience for Japan was what we know here is Oshogatsu. So we had a New Year's Day celebration, where I had worked with the parents and we made sushi, and other parents would make it, like teriyaki chicken and so forth at home. And then we'd have it and then a friend taught some Japanese dances, and the music department helped with songs. So we did that, and we invited the parents to come and it was fun. And then with Africa, what we did was we had each of the classes create crafts. And then we had a big marketplace, and they had to barter for all their goods. And the parents became the merchants, and so they had fun trying to bargain with the kids and the currency was cowrie shells, and so it was a lot of fun. We had, we also had drumming, we had African games, and we had songs. So it was an amazing event.

LG: What year did you come to Philadelphia?

TM: I came in 1976.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

LG: So, as a child, you said your parents were connected to JACL? How soon did you get connected to the Philadelphia chapter?

TM: Well, at Germantown Friends School, the woman who was in the development office, her name was Betty Endo. And Betty was one of these wonderful people who, you know, she welcomed me into the community, and she says, "Oh, you must come to JACL." Well, I knew JACL, I just hadn't been active since my family leaving Auburn. And so I knew it, and I thought, well, this is a good way to get connected. So probably in that first year, it must have been like 1977 by the time I got, was probably on the board, and I think the next year I was president or something like that, was a little quick.

LG: Yeah, that does seem quick.

TM: Yeah. But that's the process. [Laughs] You get fresh energy, right, and you put them to work.

LG: So what sort of work did you do?

TM: You mean in JACL? Well, at that time, what was big was called Folk Fair. And in the Civic Center here, they had what they called Folk Fair, and I think it was Nationalities Service Center. Japanese Americans, or JACL worked with Nationalities Service Center early in the time that many of them came to Philadelphia, and Folk Fair was all these different cultures getting together and selling their food and doing dance and songs, et cetera. It was kind of like what we were you doing in school, what my class was doing. So JACL was very involved in that, and so we did that. And we know there were always JACL things, like we had Eastern District Council, which we were involved in, so we had to host it once a year. We had a convention, and I was more active then, and in we had lots of activities in the JACL, so our calendar was very full.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

LG: So shifting a little bit just based off of time, when did you first hear about Shofuso?

TM: I think I first heard about Shofuso when they were organizing the Friends of the Japanese House and Garden. And I think I might have been president of JACL at that time, Philadelphia JACL, either that or EDC, Eastern District Council governor. So I was plugged in to the Japanese community at that point. So they invited me to come to talk about the start of Friends of the Japanese House and Garden. And I knew a little bit about it, but not a whole lot. One of the things that was happening, and the reason for the Friends group organizing, was the house had been vandalized. And it had been vandalized a few times, it wasn't just once. And since this was a gift from Japan, they really felt that they wanted to preserve it. And I think, during the '80s, there were a lot of Friends groups that started for different houses, historical houses in Fairmont Park, if I'm not mistaken. And so this was a way to, I think, highlight and value and preserve the house. So I'm not sure exactly when I first visited the house, and I'm fairly certain that I had been here before that group was organized, the Friends of the Japanese House and Garden was organized.

LG: Do you remember that first visit?

TM: I don't, I don't really. I remember the Friends group and how we washed down all the veranda and we washed it down with milk. I don't know if it's still done that way, but we'd get on our hands and knees and scrub it and we put a coating of milk on it, I guess it was to protect it, or for the sheen, and just ways to care for it. And I think the pond was really overgrown with weeds and invasive carp. So... and you probably still have that problem here. But that was a project that was being worked on, as well as just sort of maintaining the house and the tourism and what to do to bring in money and to make it a place that people would visit.

LG: Who were the people that would visit?

TM: Well, I think the people who I worked with, I think it was Joan Prudett, I don't know if that was her first name. She was the organizer, and I'm not sure if she was from the Art Museum. But then Mary Watanabe, and Mary came very early, because she was she was very interested in Japanese art, she had a lot of art in her home. And she was, to me, a very well-educated woman, she seemed a very elegant person. Plus, I knew of her through JACL as pretty much an activist that JACL often talked about, how they got Judge William Marutani elected. And it was really through getting all of the members of the Philadelphia chapter organized for his campaign, and they worked hard on getting, you know, like canvassing and getting signs out, et cetera, et cetera. And they always talked about how -- and I think Mary was one of the main pillars of that. But they always talked about, well, the word evangelist, because Judge William Marutani had a name that sounded Italian. And he had, I think he was first place on the ballot, and so those were all advantages, and he was elected. So that was that was a feather in the chapter's cap. And forget exactly... so Mary was definitely a person that I think she became president of this group. And she was a go-getter, she knew what to do. There were a few Nisei that were that way, that were very, very much activists. I'm trying to think of why it was so, but I think these Nisei knew that if anything was going to be done, it had to be done. My generation, Sansei and beyond, were becoming assimilated. But Nisei, their time in America, they were not assimilating, they couldn't assimilate, even though they were citizens. I mean, they were incarcerated, for heaven sakes. So they knew that if anyone had to stand up, it had to be them. They had to stand up for their rights. And, you know, just like my mother, they weren't well-educated, many of them had college degrees, which didn't necessarily mean they could get good jobs, but they were well educated.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

LG: So, how did you see this site? Was it a community space for Japanese Americans? Was it a space to teach Americans about Japan?

TM: I think the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, to me, was a place that is one of the finest pieces of Japanese architecture, and it was treasure. And if we didn't take care of it, we lose it. And it served me as a teacher, because when we studied Japan, we'd always come here. But I think, for the citizens of Philadelphia, it also gave them insight into what Japanese architecture was, what the aesthetics of, you know, what a Japanese garden was to be, what it was like, etcetera. And so, I think, as I said, it's a treasure, and it would be terrible if we lost it. So, I felt that other members who were on the Friends group understood that, too. I think, not only Mary and Warren Watanabe, but Louise Maehara. She came and did many things volunteer. And then there were the women who did lots of the arts, like the tea ceremony and koto, et cetera. And it's just a beautiful space, and the fact that Philadelphia accepted it from Japan, but also accepted it... after the New York Metropolitan, MoMA, yeah, modern art, they couldn't house it anymore and this was a perfect space for it. So it would be too bad if it deteriorated, but I think there was worry that it would deteriorate.

LG: So did you and the Friends group feel like it was your responsibility to make sure that it didn't?

TM: I think so. Yes, I think, you know, it's been in existence for, what, thirty-some years, thirty or forty years, the Friends group. And I think, over the years, it's been infused with different people who've come in to shore it up, so to speak. But I think at the beginning, it was a lot of Japanese American interest. But I've often heard, when I have a visitor from Japan, I say, well, let's go here, and they're pretty awestruck, because they think that, they don't often see something like this even in Japan.

LG: Do you remember any events from those years you were involved? Any memories that you have of being in the space, interacting with the Friends group?

TM: Well, I think it was, you know, they were the holidays like the moon viewing. Not holidays, but you know, special events like the moon viewing, Obon, the summer festival. I don't know if they had so much with Boy's Day or Girl's Day. I think they might have, but they were the big holidays. And it was usually during the summer because you couldn't, the house is not heated, so you couldn't bring people here, through here, usually in the winter.

LG: Right. Did you feel supported during this time in the work that you and the Friends group were doing? Did you think the city supported you, did you think �the people of Philadelphia supported what you were working for?

TM: Well, I think they were always fundraising, you know, and I don't remember them feeling disgust that the city wasn't supporting them, but I know they were always worried about where was the money going to come from? And I think, especially with security, that was an issue when they had to, you know, clean the pond and things like that, that were expensive. I think the support... I'm not sure people really felt that they were supported at with huge amounts of... it's kind of hard to say. I think because it has changed, that the sponsorship of this group has changed over the years.

LG: Did the vandalism ever feel targeted?

TM: No, I can't answer whether or not the vandalism was targeted. Certainly, because of the fact that it's in this neighborhood, and maybe people didn't understand what the purpose of the house or what the house was. I mean, it all goes back to education. If you don't understand something, it's easier to destroy it. And I think that's why efforts today to really educate and to get into the community are important.

LG: Okay.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

LG: So what's -- shifting a little bit again -- what different roles have you played in JACL?

TM: Well, I was chapter president, I was EDC, or Eastern District Council governor. When you're governor of a district council, you then serve on the national board, so I served on the National Board. And when I was there, one of the presidents, the first, actually, the first woman president, Ellen Kimura, when she was elected, she appointed me as education chair. So at that time, with the committee I worked with, we put together the first Asian American Experience curriculum, and started teacher training workshops, and went around the country to do some of those. And now I'm on the board of the local JACL, and I'm the recording secretary. So those have been my major contributions. But I think ever since I joined, you know, I've been in some capacity. And I was just thinking about the Japanese House and Garden, although I was in on the founding of the Friends group, because I was so involved with JACL, my attention really wasn't necessarily here. I did do work times, and I brought my classes here and visitors here et cetera, but it wasn't as involved. There were other people who were retired and volunteered.

LG: Were you involved in the redress effort?

TM: Yes. The redress effort was spearheaded by Grayce Uyehara, she became the lobbyist. She retired early from her job as a social worker, I think from Lower Merion School District, and decided that there needed to be someone who mounted the campaign to get redress, so she went and lived in Washington. And so this was a hub, Philadelphia chapter was the hub since she was so associated with it, and then Judge Marutani, he also was the only Japanese American on the presidential commission. So he, with the commission, went all around the country to hear the testimonies for a year. And so there are people like the Watanabes and the, there were so many, the Ikedas and the Endos and the Horikawas all these people really worked on redress. And went to, well, they told their stories, but also tried to get other congresspeople to support you.

And I think I was EDC governor at that time. So EDC was the hotbed of action then because the West Coast had senators and representatives, the East Coast did not. So they really wanted to make sure they had people on board to support the legislation, and Grayce worked really hard on that. And there was Grant Ujifusa, who was from New York but worked in D.C., I forget his exact title, but I think he put out a yearly congressional report, and so he knew all the players. So he worked with Grayce to get a lot of the East Coast senators and representatives on board. And so a lot of it was counting, you know, who do we have in our camp, how many votes do we have? And they got Representative Jim Wright, who I think was Speaker of the House at that point, because of his association with the "Lost Battalion" in France. And I think they worked on a person in Georgia, who... I think one of the either senators or representatives, his secretary was Japanese American, and so they were able to get him on board. So, you know, it was all those behind the scenes, you could see how they were working, and they were working. And as I think one book is titled, The Impossible Dream. People didn't think it could ever, would ever pass, but it did. I mean, they really work strategically on that.

LG: How did you feel when it did pass?

TM: Well, I think I was at convention, National Convention, when we were given the news. And you know, it was a glorious time, everyone was really excited that it did pass because it was, as I said, it was an impossible dream. And I remember talking to my mother about it, because my father had died by, at that point. And my mother, it wasn't the money for her, it was the apology. She said, "I never thought I would hear or get an apology from the government." So I think there was pretty much elation because people had really worked hard.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

LG: Have you ever participated in one of the pilgrimages?

TM: Not pilgrimages. I have been... I've done my own pilgrimage, I think, in 2017 when I was home with my sister -- in Seattle with my sisters, I said, "Let's go to Tule Lake." So we drove down and went to Tule Lake and took the tour and at least were able to see where my parents were, and what barracks they were in, because there was a big map, and there's a jail there because it was known as the resisters camp. But at the time that my parents, my family was there, it wasn't the resisters camp because at that point they had, at the end of '43, they had then gone to the labor camp, so they weren't in Tule Lake anymore. But you could see the remnants of the jail, where several of the more violent resisters were placed in, and it was just a very desolate place. I often speak about how going down there was very dry and sort of unforgiving. And there was a butte in the distance, and then if you moved maybe a half a mile away from that butte, you would see Mount Shasta. And, to me, it was kind of a metaphor, like the majesty and the promise of America is there, but not within our grasp. It's heavy, it's not for us be in. And got to see, that's where I got to see that my grandfather's name was in with my parents' name in the barracks. And I could also locate where my maternal grandparents were. Because my mother would say, "Oh, yes, Grandma used to come every day and make the trek because it was a big area where the barracks were, but this was her first grandchild, my brother, so she'd make the trek over to see him and my mother.

LG: How do you feel that the incarceration [inaudible] the generation?

TM: Well, it certainly inhibited the progress of having made it in America. I think it would have been a stronger, higher trajectory, had they not been in camp. And I always think about my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, whenever we went to visit, he always seemed a little quiet and withdrawn. I wonder how much he was depressed by the whole thing. My mother always spoke about him as being, you know, very vocal, et cetera. And when we visited him, he didn't seem to be at all. He loved his garden, so he was always working out there in his garden. But, you know, by the time they got out of camp, you know, he didn't have his laundry anymore, he was depending on his children. So yeah, I think, you know, I'm sure he probably thought, okay -- who knows -- but, "I'm responsible for them being incarcerated."

I think that my parents faced greater discrimination and racism than we did because at the times, people were not enlightened about, you know, America being diverse. It's only within what the last twenty-five years that that's become something that we want to strive for. And unfortunately, it seems like it's going backwards a little bit. You can't hear a lot of things, you can't read books now about diversity, you can't say certain words, et cetera. So you can't learn about it and your history. So in that sense, it's kind of coming back. But for my parents, it delayed their advancement. For me, I think, and my two brothers, we were really the after effects of the war. I think, again, we were facing that, but by ten years later, it was, you know, that wasn't the topic, World War II was not something that my classmates talked about, maybe their parents did. But then by the time we were in high school, then the Vietnam War came, so Asians are Asians in some in some places. So I don't know, I guess it's just the advancement, I guess, or the acceptance of who we are, was delayed. Although I must say, my sister, both my sisters and my younger brother out married, so their children, one of my sister's children do not look Asian at all. The other sisters have some Asian features, and my brother's daughter has Asian, she looks a little Asian. And then my older brother, he has two sons, and he married a Japanese American, and I'm single. So they've basically assimilated. And in fact, I'm the only one in the family that's involved in a civic way, in trying to do something to make it better in terms of how Japanese or Asian Americans are accepted.

LG: Why do you think that is? What drives you to pursue these activities?

TM: I don't know. I think I grew up at a time where there's a lot more activism, I mean, in my generation was Kennedy saying, "It's not what your country will do for you, but what you will do for your country," you know, not the exact quote, and it was right at the time of the Black movement, you know, there was a lot of activism there, and people really understood that until that happens, until people wake up a little bit and see that they get educated about what rights were denied, then it's never going to happen unless you out marry, and it all gets diluted.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

LG: So you have this pretty strong dedication to education.

TM: Yeah, yes, I do.

LG: What do you want people to learn from your experience, from your parents' experiences?

TM: I have often been asked that question when I have given talks on the incarceration, labor camps. I was talking with Rutgers University in Camden, and one of the graduate students said, "So what should we take away from this?" And I said, well, that people always come up to me and say, you know, with a puzzled look on their face, "You speak such good English, where are you from?" And so I say, "You may be curious about a person's heritage or ancestry, but don't ask that question. Just ask, 'What's your ancestry?' Not, you know, 'You speak such good English.'" Because I often ask them, "What is that assumption?" The assumption is that you're foreign. And although my past is foreign, certainly, my life is not foreign, it's very American. And in fact, I often, because I was able, I had a sabbatical in Japan for five months, and I've been in Japan several times, and what I always come away with thinking is, you know, it would be very hard for me to live in Japan. Because, well, first of all, I don't know the language, and I can't read the language. But the other thing that's very hard, is that I grew up in America in a white society, so I've learned my coping skills. I've learned how to cope in this setting. And I've also learned that you can, it can be an advantage to be different. It doesn't have to always be negative. But when I'm in Japan, I'm considered like everybody else, and I'm not like everybody else. So in that sense, I came to understand that being different doesn't necessarily have to be a negative. So I guess what I'd like people to understand is that, you know, America is diverse, but we can learn from each other, And that difference isn't bad. Right? It's not a negative.

LG: Sort of connected to that, in a way, what do you think of the model minority myth, and did you ever sort of come up against it?

TM: Well, I mean, the model minority is a myth, because there's such a diversity of Asian groups. And it sets a standard, which, you know, not everybody can attain. And it's like any group, you should judge them individually, and not, as a group, a herd. And I think being model minority, there are certain expectations that you're going to meet that those expectations and maybe you're not going to meet those expectations, or maybe you're going to exceed those expectations. So it's like anything that's a myth, it's often incorrect. And when people put you in these little boxes, that's when the thinking goes awry.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

LG: I guess one question that I didn't get a chance to ask you was, of course, you worked for Germantown Friends, and currently you are a vicar?

TM: Uh-huh, yes.

LG: Would you want to talk a little bit about how you sort of came into Quakerism?

TM: I became a Quaker mainly because I taught at Germantown Friends School for thirty-six years. But it's interesting, because I think my first exposure to Quakerism was when I was in the Peace Corps. The doctor, our Peace Corps doctor was a Quaker, and another one of our volunteers was Quaker. And I noticed that on Sundays, they would go and meet, and I didn't know what they were doing. And they said, oh, there have been a meeting, I didn't understand what that was all about. I never attended it. But they were good people, I mean, they were wonderful people. Then, when I came to work for, was hired at Germantown Friends, the principal, in his first interview, said, "Oh, did your family experience the incarceration?" He didn't use that word, it was the "internment." But, "Did your family experience that?" And I said, yes. That was the first time anybody had ever asked about that experience. Now, this was in 1976, so that was pretty early. And I didn't know how he had known about it.

But just recently, I've learned the Quakers were very instrumental in helping Japanese Americans who were incarcerated. And in fact, one of the women who was a member of our meeting, she has since died, but she had gone to Japan in, I think it was 1917 with a group of Quaker missionaries, and they had started a Quaker school for girls. And she, in 1940, in the 1940s, they were asked, the Quakers from America were asked to leave because it was getting too dangerous, the hostilities between the two countries. So she went to Los Angeles, she lived in Los Angeles, and a friend sent me a letter that she was translating from English to Japanese about what Esther Rhodes had written. And Esther Rhodes had written about how she saw the Japanese Americans being rounded up and taken off to detention centers. So she immediately went out and got other churches involved and brought coffee and sweets to, you know, morning Danishes or whatever, to the people who were leaving on the trains. And I thought back on that, and thought, you know, it's just a little thing, but at least it made people on the trains realize that not everybody hated them, that there was, you know, there were kind Americans that were not hating them. And so, I know, she was a member of our meeting, and then I had a sabbatical, I went to Japan for five months, as I said, and taught at that school. And then I became a Quaker because I attended Meeting for Worship for many years. And then I finally was asked to join. And it's interesting how Quakers, how you become a member is you have to write a letter to tell why you want to be a member. Whereas, you know, most Protestant churches, if you just show up and come a few times, they're really glad, and then they ask you to become a member, whereas Quakers, you, yourself, have to be convinced that this is the religion you want to join. So it took me a long time, someone said, why'd it take you so long? I don't know if it was a fear of rejection or what, but anyway, so I joined and now I'm very involved in a lot of the committees, and you had just interviewed at Ed Nakawatase, and he's also a member of our meeting.

LG: Can you think of anything I didn't ask you that you think it's important to share that you want to talk about?

TM: I don't think so, I think you've covered everything, pretty much.

LG: Well, I think that's all I have.

TM: Okay, that's fine.

LG: Quite a few questions, so I think that's it. Thank you so much.

TM: You're welcome, you're welcome.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.