<Begin Segment 1>

LG: All right, well, we can go ahead and get started.

MR: Okay.

LG: I'm the interviewer, my name is Lauren Griffin. We're here with Miki Rotman, it is May 15, 2023, and we're here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. So first question, when and where were you born?

MR: I was born in on Maui, Hawaii, in 1942.

LG: And what generation are you?

MR: I am Nisei. Second? Second generation.

LG: What was the full name given to you when you were born?

MR: It was Susan Miki Rotman. Susan Miki Maehara, and people used to call me Susie, or Susie Q. And Louise and several didn't like Suzie Q, so they decided to take Miki. My grandma gave me a Japanese name, Miki, so decided to call me Miki from then on.

LG: How old were you when they made the name switch?

MR: I have no idea, I was very small, I mean, I was a baby. [Laughs] I think "miki" is supposed to mean "trunk of a tree," but I'm not sure because I've talked to another Japanese person here, and it could be something else depending on the character. So I don't know, I have no idea what the character looked like. But my grandma always used to say it meant "trunk of the tree," meaning "first child."

LG: Do you have siblings?

MR: No. Because I think they met when they were in college and at the University of Hawaii, my dad Saburo and Louise, but my mom insisted on going to school, she wanted to work, she wanted to get her degree, her master's degree in social work. The other interesting thing about my mom is that my grandpa was a very traditional Japanese guy, and he did not believe that girls should go to college. But my mom was very, very insistent that she wanted to go to college, so she would go... the way it worked out is he would go to Grandma and get the money, right? And somehow my grandmother got the money from Grandpa. However, when they got married, Saburo and Louise, she got a bill. And she thinks the bill from Grandpa, she got a bill from Grandpa, which she thinks was for the money to go to college. I have no idea. [Laughs] But she had a, my mom had a younger sister, Nobu, I think that was her name. And by the time it was time for her to go to college, my grandpa had realized that all his friends were sending their daughters to college. So my younger sister had no problem, it was just my mom. But anyway, after college, I think my mom went to the School of Social Work here in Philadelphia and got her Master's. So it was like seven years before, when they first met, Saburo and Louise first met up and sort of were interested in each other, they had to wait, Saburo had to wait seven years before she got, Louise was willing to marry him at last. [Laughs]

LG: Was that because she was because she was...

MR: Because she was doing that master's degree in Philadelphia.

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

<Begin Segment 2>

LG: Could you walk me through a little bit how Louise and Saburo came to Hawaii?

MR: I know that both families came to Hawaii, say, at the beginning of the century. I don't know about Saburo's family so much. I know about my grandpa, right? He came to, I think, early in the 20th century, he was the second son, and the second son could not inherit the farm. So he decided to seek his fortune in Hawaii. So he came over to Hawaii, and sort of got settled. And, you know, once he was settled and making a living and everything, doing very well, he went to the local pastor or whoever and said, "I want to get married." And the pastor said, "Well, that's wonderful. I have three great candidates for you." So my grandpa selected one, and that was my grandma. She came over and they got married, and they lived together until they died, and that was how they got together.

So what were we talking about? How did they come? Now, I don't know how on Saburo's side... I know that, how exactly they came, I think they came at the turn of the century. They were in there in Puunene on Maui. Now, on Louisa's side, they originally were in, they lived in, were originally in Hale'iwa, which is north in Hawaii. And it was my grandma, who was Louise's mom, she wanted Louise to be able to go to college, or to go to a good high school, that would mean in Honolulu. So she was insistent, "We've got to move," to a place where the girls would get a good education. So reluctantly, I think, Grandpa moved to Honolulu so they could go to a good high school, the two girls. And I guess he still willing to have them go to college at that point, but I guess he changed his mind eventually because the other girl did go to college. So what are we talking about now? Oh, where did they come from? Okay. Now as far as I know, on Saburo's side, his dad, they were they were settled in Puunene, and his dad, I think it was Puunene or something like that, and his dad ran a Japanese language school. So I think I visited it, and at that time, after school, everyone, after school was done, you still had to go to Japanese school, so you had to learn Japanese. That's what my mom did also.

Now, one thing about my grandpa was, you know, in Hawaii in 1942 at the beginning of the war, you interned the Japanese, well, Japanese Americans. But they couldn't do it in Hawaii, because there are too many Japanese Americans. They did all the work, right? So they only... but on the night of Pearl Harbor, soldiers came to Grandpa's door, knocked on the door, and said, "You come with us, okay?" And he's said, "Okay, I have to get my shoes on," because they don't wear shoes in Hawaii too much. He went to get his shoes on, and when he came to the door, they had their guns drawn. And they took him under arrest to the county jail, so that's where he stayed. However, many of the people, sort of leaders in the community like my grandpa, and who ran the school with my dad and things like that, were in the county jail. So every day, the moms would make a bento and take it over to county jail. But eventually, he was, my grandpa was moved to Santa Fe prison in New Mexico. And one story is that -- my uncle tells me -- is that just before he went overseas, Saburo went to visit grandpa at Santa Fe, and that the soldiers were so upset that they had to salute the enemy and that they had to serve him, these two Japanese guys, in the cafeteria. I don't know. But they visited with Grandpa before he went overseas. But I remember that story is something I remember.

LG: How did you hear that story?

MR: I think my uncle told me. It's just a story that they tell, you know, this must be my uncle. And Grandma used to tell the story, too.

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

<Begin Segment 3>

LG: Okay, so both Louise and Saburo were born in Hawaii.

MR: Yes.

LG: Do you know where your family came from in Japan?

MR: No, but I don't exactly know the place. I know that Louise went back to the family farm. I don't know... you know? Oh, okay.

LG: So your grandfather had a Japanese language school?

MR: Yes. That's in Puunene, probably wherever they were.

LG: Do you know on Louise's side, what sort of work they did?

MR: Oh, my grandpa was a banker, the grandparents. And let's see, one funny thing about Grandpa was, being traditional, a traditional Japanese-type person, he didn't bother to make a will, because he figured everything goes to the son. The two daughters are married and, well, they're taken care of. However, I think his son, my uncle, said, "Wait a minute, Grandpa." So he finally managed to get Grandpa to a lawyer, and the lawyer said, "No, you've got to do something slightly different." [Laughs] So that's actually why I'm here at Watermark because I think he was a banker. He owned property in Honolulu and he had an apartment and he had apartment houses and he had money. So I think they made it a divvy, one half to the son, and between the two daughters one-third each or about half about half. Otherwise, I don't think, I wouldn't work... on my salary, I would not be able to afford living here. That was sort of just an accident.

Off camera: Well, Grandma also was very good at saving money.

MR: Yeah, she worked. And actually, whatever she got... oh, she got a pension from Saburo, so she didn't really live off that pension, she lived off her salary and put the pension away. And I think when this money came from my grandfather's estate or something, she also put that money away, so that those funds are available to me now. Because she didn't, I think she lived her off her salary, and the things she got from... I think, and also Saburo had an insurance policy, I think took out insurance policy. And I think on her, you know, when I would read her bank account, she got stuff from that and lived on her salary, and whatever social security. And since she lived, she didn't retire 'til quite a late age, she got pretty good social security and way back in the '50s, I think she got an insurance policy that I guess you're supposed to die at sixty-five or seventy or something like that. So from the age of seventy-five, she was getting money from this insurance policy fund regularly every month.

LG: Do you remember what your parents, well, was Louise like growing up? How was she as a mother, and what was her personality?

MR: I always thought she was a very smart lady, she seemed very smart. And always seemed to, well, she was very busy, she was always very busy. We always had conversations with, I would get taken to these little get-togethers or made dinner with her friends and things like that. So most of the socializing was with her friends and things like that. So when I was just growing up, what did I do when I was just growing up? I think for a while I might have been in a daycare center, vaguely remember that. Then when I went to, I may have had a caregiver briefly and then I was sort of on my own. I would go to Friends Select, Friends Select is a school very close to here, Quaker school, private school. And I think because she was a widow, she got a discount on the tuition, so for a while I went there. And I would back from Friends Select and sort of park myself in the apartment and listen to the radio until she came home and fixed my dinner. I don't remember helping her out with chores or anything of that sort. Let's see, what am I supposed to be remembering? Oh, dear, I remember visiting with friends and things like that.

Lucas Rotman: Didn't she also have people staying over?

MR: Oh, yes, that's right, that's right. When we first moved in to, when she first moved to Philadelphia, she lived in an apartment, a rather large apartment on Sixteenth around Spruce Street with about three other women, I think, or two other women. And then they moved out. And I think at some point, she may have also had people, students from Hawaii who came and were boarding with her also. And then I think in '52, she bought a house down in, near Fitler Square, down in the city of Philadelphia. And there, she also, she had two, maybe one, two, three students who were coming on the, spending on GI bill in Philadelphia, at University of Pennsylvania, probably, and they would stay there, that was kind of fun. [Laughs] I remember one night -- oh, they would all stand out, be in the backyard playing their ukuleles and singing, [inaudible]. And then they would have parties. One night, they had a party, and of course, they were up doing their party for quite a while. And then when I got up in the morning, I came downstairs, there was this big metal thing, a keg or something like that, sitting by the front door. Said, "Oh, gee, what's that?" and it's going buzz, buzz, buzz. "Oh, what's that?" And all of a sudden, whoosh, beer all over the place. [Laughs] So they all had to get up and clean up and everything. I think I went and hid or something. But I remember the whoosh. [Laughs] So she had fun, they sort of had all these guys. After a while, I don't think we had those guys anymore, I don't think. I don't remember them being around that much anymore, it was just me and her in this house in 2430 Pine Street. I was going to, where did I go? I went to high school, girl's high. But she was very busy, but I don't think I had to do too much work around the house. [Laughs] She would be very tolerant of the things that I was doing, like I think I was making, I would spread out a big table, I got interested in art or something, I was putting up, making Christmas cards, and there was this big mess, and she'd be okay with that for some reason. What other things happened?

Oh, do I remember things about the Japanese House? Because was involved with that from the 1950s, what I do remember is that there would be... she had a friend who was up in New York, a Japanese woman who had contacts, somehow, in Japan, and could order gifty things from Japan. So there's always these boxes and boxes of stuff spread out for some festival or something at the Japanese House, stuff all over the place. [Laughs] I remember those piles and piles of stuff. But that was sort of later, I guess, but I remember that she was very tolerant of me making a big mess and things of that sort. She sort of was interested in my activities, sort of encouraged them, if I was interested in painting and things of that sort.

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

<Begin Segment 4>

LG: Okay, we'll definitely talk about the house a little bit. You mentioned that your parents met when they were at the university?

MR: University of Hawaii, apparently.

LG: Did you ever hear...

MR: No, I don't think so. I remember him telling stories about, what was that about? What were they going to do when I was crying? I can't remember how that was resolved, there seemed to be a problem with making noise when I was a little baby, they had to resolve that, I don't know what they did. I'm sorry, I don't remember about their relationship. I don't know that she talked that much, that I have any stories about Saburo.

LG: Did she talk much about him or about what their relationship was like? You mentioned that he waited seven years before they could get married?

MR: Uh-huh, that's true. See, I don't have any conscious memories of Saburo really. You know those little pictures, those little letters, the letters, I do have memories, I must have been only about two. I have a memory of when he was killed, because we were living in a little apartment above Central Park. In your little thing, Saburo... what was your piece of paper saying? About something was not quite accurate, but where's my piece of paper? It's hidden away.

LR: You're sitting on it.

MR: I'm sitting on it.

MR: But you were saying at the beginning, at the beginning of this thing, okay, Louise moved to New York City after, she moved to New York City after, I guess it was maybe a year and a half or something, Saburo was training in Mississippi, down in wherever that is in Mississippi, Fort Shelby. Yeah, I think so. And we used to bring me to see him, so Louise got on a train. Somehow I got permission for her to come from Hawaii to Mississippi across the United States, she was coming across the United States in a train with an FBI escort. She had an FBI agent to escort her. When she went to the bathroom, he was there at the door until she came out. I don't know whether that was all the way through, but it was a good way. And then she went down to, she took me down to Mississippi, and when he shipped out, that's when she came up to New York and we were in this little apartment. Now, I remember, I must have been like a year and a half or something like that, I remember the day she got the telegram. I vaguely remember she got up or something, maybe she went to the little tiny apartment door, and then all of a sudden she was lying on the bed crying. And here I am, I didn't know what to do. So I'm trying to comfort her, and I'm hungry for breakfast. [Laughs] She finally got up and made breakfast and things like that. And what also I remember in that apartment, was there was this great big comfortable chair. And I would climb, she would read me the letters from Saburo, and she probably read me other things, but I know she always come in the chair and read these letters. And I would to have them read every day, so that if I have memories of Saburo, they're mainly from those letters, I think, because that's what I remember. And I guess that's after... and then after, of course, when Saburo died, she wanted to get back to Hawaii, but they wouldn't, she couldn't get back from Europe, and the war was going on in Japan, so she could not get passage. So then she came down, since she had contacts in Philadelphia, she came down and got herself employment in Philadelphia, and that's where we settled.

LG: So you know who his contacts were and how he had a connection?

MR: Who?

LG: You said Saburo had contacts.

MR: No it was Louise that had the contacts, because she'd gone to school, the School of Social Work here at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work.

LR: [Inaudible].

MR: Pardon?

LR: [Inaudible].

MR: Oh, a lot of guys went to Penn. That's where, all these boarders were all going to, most likely University of Pennsylvania, I think maybe some were going to medical school. I think Sam went to Horton, I think. But Sam and his family headed to Portland here in Philadelphia. I remember us going to dinners and things like that, and growing up with my cousin David, playing around with David. I think we would get dressed up or something like that, play around.

LG: So Louise went to University of Hawaii, got her bachelor's.

MR: Bachelor's, and then she got her master's. She worked for a while -- this is what, why it took so long for them to get married, because she had to work to get money to come down here and get her master's, I think that's what the story was.

LG: And then she returned to Hawaii?

MR: No, she never returned to Hawaii.

LG: Okay. So could you walk me through...

MR: She never got back to Hawaii. She went and got... no, no, she was back in Hawaii.

LR: She was back in Hawaii and got married.

MR: And then she got married and had me. It was when she came across, she brought me to see my dad.

LR: At Camp Shelby?

MR: At Camp Shelby, and then she got stuck after the war. And so she came down here and that's where she stayed.

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

<Begin Segment 5>

LG: Do you know much about how your father joined the military?

MR: He was in the ROTC, I think, I guess in his college age or whatever, he was in his earlier age, and he was demobilized in 1942 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And then they must have done something, and they formed the 442nd Regiment, and he joined up with that, which is when he got into that.

LR: He volunteered?

MR: I guess. Is that a volunteer thing? I guess it's a volunteer thing. Well, he had been in the reserves, so he switched over somehow. He had to do some maneuvering, I think, but finally he was allowed to serve.

LG: And so your parents were in Hawaii during Pearl Harbor?

MR: Yes, I think I remember stories of how I guess he was, they heard it on the radio, they heard it. She heard it, I guess. And one of his students, I think, was helping out at the house or something, and he turned on the radio and they were listening.

LG: Did your mother ever talk about what that was like?

MR: No, I don't think so, about Pearl Harbor? I don't recall.

LG: Do you know if it impacted other members of your family? Your parents, your grandparents?

MR: My grandpa, of course, was arrested, and he was sent to prison. I don't believe... I think my grandpa on my mom's side had his bags packed just in case, but they never took him. [Laughs] They didn't take him, they didn't take people because, as I said, in Hawaii, there were so many Japanese Americans, and they did all the work, so they only took a few people. I think Grandpa Maehara had been, would visit, would welcome visitors from Japan, go down to the boat and welcome visitors from Japan, so the FBI had him on their list, so that may be why. Or maybe because he was the... yeah, or because he ran a Japanese language school.

LG: So Saburo went to training in Mississippi.

MR: Yes.

LG: Did Louise tell you much about what happened to him or did you find that out in other ways? Did she talk about how he died and his time in the war?

MR: I don't think so, I don't think so, I don't remember. What I remember is the letters, that she would read these letters from Saburo. I don't remember her talking too much about him.

LG: I've seen these letters, but what were these letters like?

MR: They're lovely letters, they were little stories about the things he saw. It was for a little kid, a little child about the, how he was sleeping in a tent, and it was kind of cold, and they had a little rabbit and they were taking care of the rabbit. He would draw little pictures about all these things, what they were seeing and doing. And then I believe, the funny thing was, if you look at these little... have you seen the letters? Okay, someone has traced all around, someone has traced on the back, and I have a feeling it was me. That I drew, at some point, was drawing on the back, because these letters were very important to me, I guess, and also to my mom.

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

<Begin Segment 6>

LG: So your mother wasn't able to return to Hawaii. Did she talk about that growing up? Do you know if she missed it, being separated from her family in Hawaii?

MR: Oh, eventually we did, I think when I was eight or so, we went back, and did my mom go? And eventually she would go back to Hawaii frequently.

LR: Like every year.

MR: Was it every year she'd go back? That's right.

LR: She would go, she had a timeshare in Honolulu.

MR: Something like that, she would be back all the time. There was always communication, and people were coming from Hawaii all the time, whether they were students, whether they were other relatives, they were coming to visit, there was usually a lot of contact from people in Hawaii. And then she would, she sent me out there to spend summers at least twice. I would stay for, oh, for the whole summer, I think, with my uncle and grandpa and grandma. My uncle, her brother, lived with my grandma and grandpa, I think.

LR: Did they have the tea house then?

MR: Yeah, I know he had a tea house. Oh, my grandma would go to... oh, you know, I think they weren't allowed to become citizens until after the war, 1945 or something like that. My grandma refused to become a citizen. [Laughs] Yes. So she was always going to Japan to do more tea, do tea ceremony. And then he came back here, she would be sitting where the foreigners were sitting, because he wasn't a citizen, so she'd be sitting in there, they had to go pick her up in that area when they came back from Japan. They found that very annoying, they thought she was very silly, but she refused for whatever reason. Everyone else became citizens, all the other relatives, the elder relatives.

LG: So she was connected to the tea school?

MR: Is that a tea school or something, Urasenke? Yeah, she would go there a lot. And they had a house, and on the side, they had, rather like Shofuso, the house. There was a regular ranch type of house overlooking the bay.

LR: Chinese graveyard.

MR: Was it near the Chinese graveyard? But it was also overlooking the water, wasn't it? Overlooked the harbor? I thought so. I don't know, anyway, but on the back of it, there was also a tea house, and she would do tea ceremony. I think she taught the tea ceremony.

LG: This was the tea house on their property?

MR: Yes, a tea house on their property, rather like the one at Shofuso.

LR: Akaga Place.

MR: In Akaga Place, right. Is that where you stayed?

LR: That's where I stayed.

MR: When you slept over? [Laughs]

LG: So what was it like spending summers in Hawaii and then coming back to Philadelphia? What was the difference between these two spaces growing up for you?

MR: Well, I often found myself kind of bored over in Hawaii, nothing to do. [Laughs] I remember just reading comics all the time, they thought that was terrible. Because I guess my cousins a little younger than me, they'd be running up the hills, and they finally had me go to art classes, I think, at the Honolulu Art Museum, wherever they had classes. They had me doing things, but a lot of times I just didn't have anything to do, because they had younger children, busy with them, busy with their family life, but there wasn't always activities for me. So sometimes it was kind of, I don't know, kind of boring, but such a beautiful place that you couldn't... it was wonderful. But I had more fun, I think I had a cousin on Maui who was closer to my age, and that was kind of more fun to do things with. That was Gail. And is it Paul, her brother? She was a little bit older than me, so we could go around, and then she had this little brother, Paul Maehara, who was an awful pain in the neck. [Laughs] He was always pinching you or doing something like that, I remember he was terrible. But he's a real nice guy.

LR: Turned out all right.

MR: He's a nice guy.

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

<Begin Segment 7>

LG: Where did you go to elementary school in Philadelphia?

MR: At Friends Select for a while. I think Louise had some kind of a discount, because he was [inaudible], but then eventually they were, I think it got really too expensive, so I went to Girls High.

LG: What were your friends like in Philadelphia? Did you have Japanese American friends?

MR: No, they were just friends from the school, I guess, and they were all Caucasian.

LG: What was that like as a child? Were you aware of your Japanese American identity?

MR: Yeah I guess I was, I guess I was. I was aware that I was different, and of course, they were usually very nice about it, and I guess they were, I don't know, trying to... well, there's something about, did I try to do things more Japanese or something? I don't think so, unless there was some activities that I would try to bring out my Japanese heritage or anything.

LR: You didn't end up going to any school?

MR: I never went to Japanese language school or anything of that sort, no. I never learned Japanese. But it was Japanese, if Louise had activities with the JACL or some other Japanese group, I would be with other Asian people, but that's about it. She was always cooking things for JACL dinners, there were always dinners and things like that that we'd go to, I think, I remember that. But most of my playmates were not, were Caucasian.

LG: So growing up as a child, what sort of aspects of Japanese culture did she have in the home? Was it cooking, holidays, or was there a lot?

MR:� I guess she prepared, Louise prepared Japanese food. I think we always celebrated New Year's, and did something special for New Year's, all that kind of stuff. I guess she was pretty involved with Shofuso, so there would be activities there, and there may be things going on with JACL, I think there would be dinners for them and things like that, and we'd go there.

LG: Do you have any specific memories of those JACL events?

MR: No, not especially, nothing special. They were always kind of fun. I remember, I guess when they were smaller, you could run around and fool around. They were usually very pleasant events, there was something good to eat, Japanese food, enjoyed that.

LG: So you went to a Quaker school. Was your family Quaker or connected to the Quakers in any way?

MR: No. I think when you're talking about religion, I think one of the questions is, well, my mom, we had an Episcopalian church nearby, and my mom would send me there every Sunday so she could sleep late. [Laughs] I went to Sunday school there, and I was confirmed Episcopalian, that was kind of fun, singing in the choir and things like that.

LG: Are you still religious today?

MR: No, I'm not religious at all.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2023 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

LG: So you went, made trips to Hawaii growing up.

MR: A couple of trips, yes, just a couple.

LG: Did you ever make a trip to Japan?

MR: No, never did. I think Louise went to Japan quite a bit. I think she went to visit the old family farm at one point. I think there were some pictures around somewhere, I don't have them. Maybe he has them.

LG: Do you know what they grew on the farm?

MR: No, I have no idea. [Laughs] Right now there's a, it's a female that's running it now, I think.

LG: Have you been to Japan?

MR: Never been to Japan. One trip we made, my mom took me on a "battleground tour," that was interesting. We went to, and that was in Europe, they had the Japanese American Citizens League or somebody did a battleground tour of all the places that the 442nd had been, that was interesting.

LG: How old were you?

MR: Oh, that was not so long ago, I don't remember exactly when. I was thirties, forties, fifties, something like that.

LG: What was that trip like?

MR: It was very interesting. I got to see where, they would point out where exactly Saburo was killed, in that little town over there. We were with a lot of other veterans, like that, but that was pretty interesting.

LR: Were you received well by the people in this town?

MR: Oh, they were wonderful, absolutely. Because they were towns that had been liberated by the 442nd. So we were all wined and dined and treated very nicely. And they did that, it was sort of a tradition in the town. Except I think some of the, there were some old guys who would sit around and sit around outside, and say, "There they go again." [Laughs]

LR: They were saying there are streets named after the Japanese.

MR: I don't remember that.

LR: In these little French villages with the Japanese names, named after soldiers.

MR: Oh, okay, could be, could be. I guess that was also part of our tour.

LG: Did you go on that trip with Louise?

MR: What I remember is there was a great big hill, and the soldiers who had to climb up that hill because they were garrisoned, a bunch of Germans in the town, I was just imagining these guys climbing up the hill under fire.

LG: So I'm curious, you said Louise would travel back to Japan, but she never took you with her? Did you ever want to go?

MR: No, it's probably because I didn't particularly want to go.

LG: Why was that?

MR: I don't know, I guess I was busy with whatever I was doing here. I think at one point, Louise would travel to Hawaii every year, I think, you said she had a timeshare or something? So I think her friend that used to, she would just go with another friend, with a friend, her friend became so that she couldn't travel, so I went a couple of times, I think. By that time, my husband would, he had had a heart attack a few years ago, I think his health was having a little trouble. And he found that, he said, "I can't take it having you be away for so long, so I couldn't do that. After a certain period of time, I wasn't able to go. And think then she stopped going every year to Hawaii after that.

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

<Begin Segment 9>

LG: Okay. So you went to Girls High in Philadelphia. Do you have any memories of high school? Was it still sort of a Caucasian community in high school?

MR: I think so, pretty much. It was mixed, I guess. I spent a lot of my time in the art room, I used to like to do the art stuff. There was another incident where, I actually had a friend over there, I don't know who the friend was exactly, but what we liked to do is sneak out and have lunch at the local sandwich shop on the corner here, which I don't think you're supposed to do. [Laughs] You're not supposed to do that. They called my mom up. Yeah, they called my mom up and we had to go to the office, and I was told that I wasn't supposed to do that. My mom had to tell me, "Don't do that anymore," so I didn't. I just ate in the dining room from then on.

LG: What years were you in high school?

MR: I think I graduated in 1960, so from when I was in eighth grade, I guess, or something like that, the ninth grade.

LG: And so growing up in Philadelphia, your mother was a social worker?

MR: Uh-huh. She was a social worker all that time. She got to be kind of a senior level, I guess, she seemed to be directing people.

LG: So you were into art. Did you play any sports or were you involved in any other activities in high school?

MR: In high school, did we play sports? Not lacrosse. Oh, I know, in Friends Select, we played field hockey, I think. I don't think I did much sports at Girls High. I tried to sneak into the...

LR: What about swimming?

MR: I was? Did I do swimming? I don't know, I guess I did some swimming sometime. I think my main activity was doing art, I think, at Girls High.

LG: What kind of art did you do?

MR: I don't know, whatever, painting, sculpture.

LR: Woodblock prints?

MR: Woodblock prints, things like that.

LG: Did you have an art teacher that taught you how to do these things?

MR: Yes, I remember being very, I don't know her name anymore, but I was very fond of her, being in that art room a lot. I'd sneak in there whenever I could.

LG: Do you still do art? Have you continued?

MR: No. Well, actually, I sort of stopped doing it, after... I just stopped doing art stuff, I think. I worked as a drafter, I guess, which is related in a sense. I mean, you draw stuff. But since I've moved here, I think I didn't do, I haven't done any art for a long time. But when we moved here, I decided maybe I should try to pick this up again. And I've taken some drawing classes, and I even took a painting class. And I wasn't too happy with what I produced. The last one was oil painting, and I just sort of kind of gave up, and I said, "No, I don't think I'm happy with this." And then I think Lucas has sent me an article about how to prevent the progress of Alzheimer's and dementia, it's good to do art type activities. Okay, I have still been looking at, I went to the classes that are being offered at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and that's where I met, my husband went there. And I went there for a little bit. And I've been looking at their continuing education classes a lot. And there was one that was being offered just in a week or two, that is sculpture. And not sculpture in clay, just in, it's not with an armature, there's often a wire armature that gives the figure, put your figure on there. But you're just sort of supposed to squish out this clay into a figure of some kind. So I signed up for it, and I got the materials list and it said, "Twenty-five pounds of clay." I go to Blick's, the art store, and they only sell fifty pounds of clay. So, okay, I cancelled the class. But then I told Lucas, and Lucas says, "That's all right, I'll come down and get this clay." So I think last week, Lucas came down, and he hauled from, I think Blick's is at Thirteenth and Chestnut Street, so he hauled fifty pounds of clay all the way from there to here, Seventeenth and Vine Street. And I have to figure out whether I can... I think there's no problem. Fifty pounds is two hunks of twenty-five. I can probably get twenty-five pounds into my backpack and travel with it, bring it with me. I should have fun.

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

<Begin Segment 10>

LG: Yeah, so let's talk about university a little bit.

MR: About what?

LG: University.

MR: University.

LR: Art school?

MR: No. Not... well, college type stuff, okay. Well, I sort of didn't go to college. I got into the drafting, I guess. That's what I did. I didn't go to, I think finally... oh, and then...

Lucas: Did you take classes, I'm really talking about classes about mythology, Greek mythology.

MR: Yeah, maybe in the summer. Summer classes, summer classes, just after high school I took a couple summer classes at the University of Pennsylvania, but somehow I didn't do it anymore. Is it because I got married and had you? I think it's that. [Laughs]

LR: You've been in art, you did go to the academy? No, I'm sorry...

MR: I went to the Academy of Fine Arts, okay, that's where I met your dad. And I did some drawing and was having fun, and then every time I turned around, there was this guy, and there he was. Now, he was like the best painter there, actually, and they would have, every year they had a competition, and the best person that won the competition, the paintings, would get enough money to go to France, or to Europe, to travel to Europe. I think he got it once, and I think he was getting, maybe even twice. And when I was, he was in last year, and he got this thing again. But by that time, I think I moved in with him. [Laughs] And what he did was, he took the money and just sort of laid low and bought a house for Lucas and me and him. By that time, I was pregnant with Lucas.

LG: What's his name?

MR: Who?

LG: Your husband.

MR: Seymour, his name was Seymour. But he was the best painter at the academy at that time. So I sort of hooked up with him, I moved in with him, and eventually, I guess we got this house. Used the money for, instead of going to, used the money for, instead of going to Europe, he bought a house, and that's where Lucas, that's where we lived, that's where Lucas grew up.

LG: What was Seymour like, personality-wise?

MR: Seymour? He was a sweet guy. Let's see, what was he like? He was a very good painter. We were talking about when I went to college, but anyway... want to know more about that, or do you want to know about...

LG: Sure, yeah.

MR: College, college, college. So I didn't... at some point, I think people were still, the war was still going on in Vietnam, so they were training people. I was able to get into a class training for machine work. Why was I doing this? I don't know. It may have also been because it's so hard to remember right there. By that time, perhaps, I was dealing with Yellow Seeds, this organization down in Chinatown. And the other thing -- I'm back and forth -- the other thing that Louise did for us was that... this is not about, during the '60s, there were a lot of demonstrations against the war. And we would... Seymour and I would go down to these demonstrations. And one day we down to one, and we made it into sort of an outing, we'd go down and maybe stay overnight at a campground, and then go to do the demonstration. And one of them we went to, went to one. And at this time, people were running around the Pentagon. We were sort of back up the hill looking, and all of a sudden they started throwing tear gas, big clouds of tear gas coming up. So Seymour grabbed one, I grabbed the other hand, Lucas, and we went running, which is not very nice, not very good, because everyone else was running, right? So a big tall man stood with a, "Stop. Don't run, walk," so we walked him. And Lucas, I think you remember this, don't you? You said you had these dreams. [Laughs] He remembers.

LR: So when I was in college, I had a psychology class, and they were doing psychology of dreams, and they were asking people about their dreams. And my dream was flying through pink clouds, and, "Ooh, where did that come from?" [Laughs] And then I was talking to you and Dad about it one time." That's why I had this recurring dream of this pink cloud, flying through pink clouds. And I just said, "Oh, I'm working on this paper on this dream I keep having." And then you guys laughed, you just kind of cracked up and said, "Oh, I know where that dream comes from." It was literally the most literal dream.

MR: Absolutely, he was... we were carrying him, you're a little guy, right? Well, after that, there were some more, every few months there would be a demonstration, we always left Lucas with Grandma. We never took him along with us, so he stayed...

LR: Which made me very happy.

MR: He seemed to enjoy that. She would... what is it? She would let him sit in front of the television and eat dinner in front of the television.

LR: Yes, with a tray, and then I had teriyaki steak and white rice. That was good.

LG: This was while you and Seymour were off?

MR: We were off demonstrating somewhere. Probably, it would probably be if we were off in Washington. I guess there was a lot of things going on in Washington at that time.

LG: Yeah, what inspired you to get involved with all of that?

MR: Well, I think Seymour was kind of left... well, his background was what they call "Workman Circle Jew."

LR: Workman Circle.

MR: Yes. So he had a, they were sort of left. And then, I think I saw a picture in a magazine of a girl who had been [inaudible] as a child. So from then on, I would demonstrate whenever, and would go down to Washington. We did a lot of them, there were a lot of demonstrations.

LR: Didn't you... I remember you guys said that I was at the March on Washington, I had just been born or something like that? And you told me...

MR: You were at the... we took you down there?

LR: To the March on Washington. This is before the, before you guys got involved in the anti-Vietnam War marches.

MR: Really?

LR: Yeah, you and Dad told me that I was at the March on Washington and I was just born.

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

<Begin Segment 11>

MR: I don't remember that. [Laughs] Good heavens, it's probably true, but I don't remember. What were you doing?

LG: You mentioned the Yellow Seeds group?

MR: Oh, the Yellow Seeds, yes. Yellow Seeds, I think I sort of joined up with them, let's see...

LR: That would have been the late '60s.

MR: The late '60s. They were kind of, that was fun. There was a community organization in Chinatown, but they were also, tended to be rather left-ish. They were sort of real interested in Mao Tse Tung.

LR: Well, not in the beginning.

MR: Not in the beginning. They got that way.

LR: They got that way [inaudible].

MR: But mainly they were a community organization. And I remember, I think Lucas remembers this, too. They were going to be, Vine Street expressway was going to come through Chinatown, and they were going to tear down the local school, the elementary school. So the Yellow Seeds had climbed up on, were protesting and they climbed up on this big pile of rubble and put up signs and everything. I don't think I climbed up, I think Lucas climbed up and were protesting, demolishing the school. And they did just pick the school up and moved it. Now, if it's still there, I don't know.

LR: It is.

MR: Is it still there? Oh, okay, so it's still there.

LR: But it also saved, it also kept Chinatown from being demolished.

MR: Yes.

LR: It was very important, it was also, they galvanized the community in Chinatown to stand up and fight against it, despite the fact that there were many different factions, and this was a very left-wing kind of movement within the Chinese population of Chinatown, tended to be, you know, they tended to be... you know, many were Taiwanese, many were from Hong Kong, so their politics didn't necessarily, they didn't necessarily like Yellow Seed's politics, but they were able to galvanize the community nonetheless to totally fight this. And they say that they "saved Chinatown," saved Chinatown by being part of the, by organizing the folks on the ground.

MR: Now when you walk down in Chinatown, or as I walked to some places, doctors, and I see signs in Chinese. But what they're talking about is they want to build a stadium, and I noticed that was probably against, they're protesting against, well, these signs are probably "stop the stadium." And I notice even their own members, there's a church right as I head towards Trader Joe's, it's on... must be Broad and Arch, I guess, there's a big church there, big sign, "No stadium." "No displacement." So those issues continue. "No stadium," "No stadium."

LR: One of the memories that I have is you did a lot of community work, started with Yellow Seeds, and it was outreach. You guys did a lot of stuff, and one of the things that I remember is there were older Chinese men who had no families and were very poor, and you guys would go and visit them and take care of them. I remember visiting.

MR: Did we take you? Did I take you? Oh, my goodness.

LR: And I remember very old Chinese men sort of sick in bed in flophouses. Yeah, and these very kind of like single-room occupant kind of things that they had set up for folks, and I remember you guys would bring food to them, help them get their medical care and all that kind of stuff. So you did a lot of that kind of work as well. And I learned to play guitar.

MR: That's right.

LR: They also taught classes.

MR: And ping pong.

LR: They taught classes in mechanics [inaudible].

MR: What?

LR: Yeah, a good guy was a Black Panther, I can't remember...

MR: Oh, yeah, yeah.

LR: So they also made connections to other marginalized groups as well as those groups do. And I remember he used to, he was a really cool guy, he rode a motorcycle, I thought he was amazing because he was in a black motorcycle gang, and he would come over to Yellow Seeds, I think they teach all the young folks that had motorcycles how fix their motorcycles. And then David Toy, who was one of my favorite people, he started teaching guitar, and then Dad found a guitar in the trash.

MR: And then you learned to play guitar.

LR: Yeah, he found this guitar in the trash and he was always good with his hands and sort of revamped it so I could play it a little bit and then they taught local folks in the neighborhood how to play guitar. Ping pong tournaments, all this kind of stuff was going on.

LG: It sounds like a really great community [inaudible].

MR: Uh-huh. And it was that guy, I don't remember his name, the Black guy, you said? He was a machinist or something or other. Somehow, that's how I got myself, I got myself... because folks hadn't come back from Vietnam yet, so I was able to get training in machine work, and that's how I got into being a drill press operator out at Philadelphia Gear. [Laughs] Maybe cue the working class kind of thing? Whatever.

LG: Yes, it was.

MR: Yeah, I know it probably was, but anyway, wow, the pay was fantastic and it was also a lot of fun. It was very dirty work, but it was an awful lot of fun.

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

<Begin Segment 12>

LR: You were very involved in the union.

MR: And I was involved with the union, yeah, and I was, we had a half a dozen, a group of people running drill presses, big drill presses, and the drill press was like ten foot long or something, and ten feet high and maybe seven feet that way, and I was down, they thought it was really so funny because I was so small. Anyway, okay. So I would go to the meetings of the union, big union meetings and things like that, and I was pretty active. And then they were going to have a meeting for, there was going to be an election for union reps. I was running for the rep on our group, for our group, and the guy who was the present rep just retired, so the place was vacant, it was a vacant seat. So that guy came back from retirement and came back to work so that I couldn't run. [Laughs]

LR: See, this is an example of the racism that you say that you never...

MR: I guess it is. I never noticed it, I just assumed.

LR: She always says, "Oh, I've never experienced racism."

MR: It happened, and I just --

LR: But deep below the surface. So I was the one who was conscious of the racism, and she walked down the street and people were yelling things at her. People would make their eyes like this, people would shout horrible things, I didn't even know what it was, but I was very conscious of how she was treated.

MR: I was just so used to it. [Laughs] That's the way it is, but as long as they didn't really come after you, didn't have much of that.

LR: One of the memories that I have was of two big guys saying something to my mom, I don't remember what it was, and my mom getting up in their face and saying, "How dare you say that to my son?"

MR: That must have been when I was involved with Yellow Seeds. [Laughs]

LR: I don't know. I was scared, myself, but I was also sort of terribly proud at the same time. I was amazed at how you stood up to these folks, too. Yeah, so I have a lot of memories of being treated... I mean, you dealing with racism, literally daily racism.

MR: Probably. One thing about my experience in the drill press thing is, well, since I was in the union, and as people came back from Vietnam, I was laid off. But the union gave me a scholarship, a pretty good scholarship. So that's how I got, went back to college, because I was working, I think Saburo had an insurance policy or something or other, and there was something for me, or maybe it's just a government thing for people who were killed or something. I got some amount of money from the government, and then I got this scholarship, and that's what got me, that's what I used my tuition for college for at, I think I went to Temple.

LR: I think we graduated at the same time. [Laughs]

MR: Just about the same time, right.

LR: So embarrassing to have to see your mother on campus. I was so embarrassed.

MR: Yeah, because I was working the drill press in a gear company, I said, "Oh, I want to be a mechanical engineer." But you have to be very smart and good at math to do that. I wasn't very good in math, so I sort of worked to... oh, I could get something in civil engineering technology, which is not, you didn't have to do quite as much math. I think if I can quit, I think I took one of these math courses and said, I can't possibly manage this. But I could at a lower level, so the engineering technology did not require the math that mechanical engineering required. So I was able to do that, and of course, by then I had gotten myself back into drafting, which was civil engineering, civil drafting, highways and things like that. So I was able to, one way or another, finally get a four-year degree in civil engineering technology or whatever it was.

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

<Begin Segment 13>

LG: Backing up just a little bit...

MR: Yes.

LG: At this drill press...

MR: The drill press job.

LG: Who were your coworkers? Were there a lot of women in these positions?

MR: I think there were four women in the factory.

LR: But none of them [inaudible].

MR: No. The did much more complicated things. They ran a lathe, one of them ran a lathe, and they did some complicated things. Now, drill press is not that complicated. What's complicated is figuring out what size of the drill and things like that, but that was not quite... there were only about four women, I think.

LG: So what was that like, being one of the only women and Japanese American and unionizing?

MR: I guess I didn't notice that anyone was... probably it was like Lucas saying I just ignored it, or I expect people to say things, but usually things were okay. But it really came out when that guy came back, what they really felt came out when that guy came back from his retirement.

LG: One of the times that you were most aware of it was when you were in the position where you might be, where people felt as if you were taking something that belonged to them, then so many things changed, and you talk about being harassed.

MR: When was that? Was that the incident where you... there were other incidents like there could be --

LG: I just remember you would come home and you would be very upset about thigs that were said to you?

MR: Oh yeah? I don't remember.

LG: It sounded like people who'd been very friendly to you had decent relationships, but because you were sort of like in this position and maybe getting a super seniority and not getting laid off when their friends were getting laid off, but then suddenly...

MR: I think so. That could be, because --

LG: And I don't know how much of it was racial and how much it was gender-based.

MR: Both [Laughs]

LG: I do remember that was a very tense, I remember that being a tense time.

MR: Probably, probably. Yeah, they probably, people that were neutral or relatively friendly weren't friendly anymore, all those guys. I was kind of, it was kind of strange for me. But the other women were bigger, taller, and more skilled than I. I think the other four operators, there were three or four, and I think they're still there. They were still there when I left. I don't believe Philadelphia Gear Corp exists anymore. There may be a factory there, but I don't think it's Philadelphia Gear. There's a factory there, whatever...

LR: [Inaudible] His father worked there for years.

MR: Uh-huh.

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

<Begin Segment 14>

LG: So you went back to Temple, got your degree, and then what happened next?

MR: What happened next? I was just working as a drafter, and I think because I had worked in the gear factory and gotten paid so well. My salary was pretty good, so I just kept on going. There was a point where the other, some of the other drafters really hated me, because I got paid more. Just because they'd come out of, I don't think I did any better work than they did, they just had been in a technical school, so their salaries were below mine, and they really resented me quite a bit, I think. And then, oh, one time, there was one woman, a lady engineer, this other thing that made them, my fellow drafters sort of dislike me was that she had me go out to Kansas, wherever the company was working for there, they were based in Kansas, and I got to hang out in Kansas for some reason. [Laughs] Yeah, wow. I don't know what I did there, I was supposed to talk to the company or learn about the company or something like that, and I just remember staying in a hotel and things like that in Kansas. And I'd never been to Kansas before, it was amazing, so flat. But I know that the other young, two other young drafters were, didn't like that very much. [Laughs]

LG: Jealous that you got to go to Kansas?

MR: Yes. And also they had an idea that I was being paid more, and I said, "I'm sure I didn't do any better work than they did." That was sort of at the end, towards the end of my career, I think, in drafting. And eventually I kept getting, I got laid off, I guess, from that company. And I would go another, I went to another, I did some more drafting, I think, and eventually, I think I began to collect social security at an early age, age sixty-two, as soon as I could. I always liked being laid off because I could collect unemployment, it was nice to not work.

LG: So during this time, was Seymour a professional painter?

MR: He was painting most of the time, yes. And yeah, I think I was earning the income, I think, at that time. He would sell his works in Rittenhouse Square, and he did make a good bit of money, mainly because he didn't tell them how much he was making. He would only say, "I sold five paintings," or something like that, and he would sell a whole lot more than that. [Laughs] They never charged very much, so people really bought... what was it, that person that was just talking to you? You were on the phone? He probably bought that painting.

LR: "Oh, give me fifty dollars."

MR: Yeah, yeah, something like that.

LR: But he wouldn't take it back, he had to go back to a storefront and write down everything that was sold, and then maybe take a percentage.

MR: That's probably... they would take --

LR: That's right.

MR: Oh, that's why he never went back there, right, okay.

LG: What sort of stuff did he paint? Do you have some...

MR: Yes, they're in the other room if you look... oh, that's one of his turnips, and there are some nice portraits of Lucas around the corner.

LR: His big thing was cityscapes.

MR: Towards the end of his life, yes, he would walk around the city and sit down someplace or other, and paint what he saw. And many of these buildings in the old neighborhoods don't exist anymore. So that's another thing. People would come by and say that, architects or people like that, and come by and say, "Oh my gosh, I knew that place. It's not there anymore." [Laughs]

LR: So he grew up in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, the working class section, and so he was always drawn to those kind of communities, and he would literally sort of pack up. And I remember he would pack up in the morning, pretty early, and then just go off in the day and then come back with lots of stories and paintings. [Laughs] And again, he was attracted to those areas, especially loved to go along the river. I remember that, he used to go along the river.

MR: Uh-huh.

LR: He went straight up the river, and so all the abandoned Domino Sugar before they came, it's a... what do they call it now? Casino now. But back then it was just hunks of metal, and he was just attracted to the shapes of this post-industrial landscape as well. So he had a lot of paintings like that. And of old storefront churches...

MR: Sometimes people really nervous when he was in the neighborhood, because they didn't know, who is this guy? Is he police sitting there? They got very nervous about it. I think one time he was mugged out that way.

LR: Oh, he was there a few times when he was...

MR: He was mugged, attacked? I knew of one time. Yeah, yeah.

LR: Hours and hours.

MR: Hours?

LR: He called them, he was a Vietnam vet, he had some serious, he was very mentally unstable, and Dad would talk about how he had to talk to this guy, he just literally spent hours talking to this guy just so that he can get of this situation. Do you remember that?

MR: I don't remember that, all that. I know he was mugged.

LR: That's why he was by the train tracks.

MR: Yeah, he was by the train tracks. [Laughs]

LR: But he was there, and this guy caught him in there and he had him tracked, so he had to talk his way...

MR: Oh, I don't remember all that, okay. I know there was some incident like that, wow.

LR: But he had plenty of other stories when he would come back and talk about all these kids gathering around him wanting to learn how to draw, and he would show them how to draw superheroes and things like that. He had many more stories about having really good interactions with people than he did with having bad ones.

LG: So you have a son who keeps talking off the screen here. Was this your only child?

MR: Yes.

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

<Begin Segment 15>

LG: Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about Shofuso. Do you remember the first time you heard about the House?

MR: I've always known about Shofuso. [Laughs] My mother always had something to do with the Japanese American, about another Japanese house, I think, forever. I guess our neighbors, who were they? Watanabe?

LG: Henry Watanabe?

MR: Could be. They were the ones that lived, I forget...

LR: You mean the ones that owned the dry cleaning place?

MR: No, no, they were not... I think...

LR: I met Art [inaudible] from, I'm not sure if he's still around.

LG: So what do you remember from your mother working at the House? Did you go with her on cleaning days or when she was over there?

MR: I guess I went with her, as I say, I remember all these, the stuff around the house from Japan for whatever festival you're doing. I think I went with her on occasion, maybe to help out at a festival to help sell stuff. And Japanese House...

LR: Like summer festivals?

MR: I guess I probably went up there. She wanted me to, or she'd drag me along. [Laughs]

LG: Do you know if you went to that house before the Friends group organized in the 1950s?

MR: The Friends group?

LG: Yeah. So the House came to the park in...

MR: '57.

LG: '57, '58. Do you know if you went to the House as a child?

MR: I don't remember going to the House when I was... maybe. I know she's been on the board there for a long time since it came to Philadelphia, I guess, but I don't remember especially going there. I remember going, when there were festivals, when there were, she needed help with selling stuff and things like that, I think, something she's always involved with. And maybe there were some Friends in the neighborhood who were very, also on the board, so she had contacts with them and went to meet. When she stopped driving, I think she didn't go there very much anymore. I remember driving her up... when I was finally taking care of her, I think I drove her up once. And she sort of looked around, and she just wasn't that interested anymore, because she couldn't go up there and get herself into it. So I think that was the last time we visited. She looked around and everything, but --

LR: She also did the... they also honored her on at least three different occasions. Remember she had her eighty-eighth birthday there?

MR: That's right. Was it the eighty-eighth?

LR: The hundredth.

MR: I remember the hundredth birthday, that's right.

LR: And then they had something when she died.

MR: Yes, she --

LR: When they died, they had a beautiful ceremony for her.

MR: They had, it was a very nice... they had a whole big party for her hundredth. And I think you were singing, weren't you? [Laughs] Someone was singing. I think you and John Demick or something, you had some kind of... we all sat on the veranda.

LR: Yeah, and Taeko Sherman did the... didn't she do a tea ceremony or something?

MR: Yes, possibly, possibly. And Louise enjoyed it a lot, he had a great time, he had a great time, he had a great time. Had pictures of her. I think by then we had a caregiver in the house, but she really enjoyed it, she enjoyed things.

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

<Begin Segment 16>

LR: So Louise lived to be...

MR: A hundred and one. And I lived with her from, I guess, from her late '90s, I think. I think she had a caregiver, we had a caregiver, and I don't know when, in the last five years or so, really. And then it was usually daily, in the eight hours or so, in the daytime. And I think eventually we had one twenty-four hours, but that was at the very end.

LG: So I'm curious if she ever talked about the house. Did she see it as a Japanese American space or as a space of education to teach about Japanese culture? Do you know how she talked about the House or how she saw it?

MR: I still don't think she talked about it in quite that way, she would just talk about the things she was going to do, all the things that were going to go on, and what I should do to help her out, things like that was going on. I just know that she was always there, always wanted to do things there, doing whatever. There was always something going on with the Japanese House for Louise, absolutely.

LR: She was feeding [inaudible].

MR: I remember that, too.

LR: They were put in OT.

MR: Was that what it is? They were doing that.

LR: These are stories that I remember Grandma talking about, sort of like bringing food, bring [inaudible], things like that, feeding them. Because this was, I remember this being a big deal, sort of like bringing these people in from Japan, and they did highly specialized work, and so they wanted to make sure that they were treated really well, so Grandma [inaudible] for them and bringing out, I think we brought out food to them.

MR: Yeah, they did a lot of, the Japanese folks really went all out and cooking Japanese type stuff. And I know Louise was up there cooking away, taking stuff up, and did someone get ill? I think someone got sick. They had to worry about getting them to the hospital, remember? Something like that. Something like that. But she had a lot of fun with that, I think. They really cooked up a storm for these guys.

LG: Do you know if she ever experienced any racism or discrimination while working at the House? We've been researching how the city was operating it before the Friends group was started in the '80s.

MR: I hadn't heard about anything, any incidents when she was working at the House, or involved with the House at all. I don't remember anything. Have there been incidents? I guess, perhaps... have there? I don't know.

LR: Well, I can...

LG: We can talk about your experiences, yeah. How do you see the House as you've grown up into becoming an adult. Do you see it as a space for Japanese Americans, or what is the House to you?

MR: Let's see. Well, it's a place that was very important to my mom, and also I guess it's a place that's so nice because it's so Japanese, I guess, in the middle of Philadelphia. And it maintains that the culture of Japan, but it's very accessible to folks, to come and see. It's not really intimidating like a museum or anything like that, it's a place we could see how people lived in Japan. And I think it is, so it's the way things are, our Japanese residents and the teahouse, which is a good thing.

LG: Were you involved with JACL as an adult?

MR: I don't think so, not much. Except only things that my mom was wanting to do. [Laughs] Dinners and things like that, I don't think I took too much. I don't think I was involved in too many things unless I was being...

LR: Did you get your scholarship from the JACL?

MR: No, I got back --

LR: The scholarship?

MR: No, that came from the union.

LR: No, no, no, the art scholarship, when you went to, you got a scholarship to go to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art?

MR: Partly, I think, yeah, that came from...

LR: Do you remember if that came from JACL?

MR: No, I think I got some scholarship from, something about, or education, and I had something to do with Saburo, somehow, being a veteran, a deceased veteran. I got various things from various places. And I did get a scholarship from the Board of Education for art. So I collected all these little bits and pieces, and that got me to Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

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

<Begin Segment 17>

LG: How did your mother feel about your activism?

MR: Activism? Oh, with Yellow Seeds? Oh, she thought it was, she came to some of the events also. She and her friend would come to the dinners and things of that sort, and she thought it was okay, she thought it was fun.

LG: Would she go demonstrate with you?

MR: No. She took care of Lucas. [Laughs] But she tended to sympathize with what we were doing, she thought it was, she always thought it was okay. I don't remember her going and demonstrating or anything like that.

LR: I don't think she cared too much for when you went off the deep end into your...

MR: No, I don't think so. [Laughs] What?

LR: When you got, when you guys got a lot of... you guys got all into the Maoism and things like that.

MR: Oh, yes.

LR: Things that she was [inaudible].

MR: No, no.

LR: That wouldn't have been her cup of tea.

MR: Yeah, I stopped with the Yellow Seeds when they started going off and studying, they got weapons and doing practice, target practice or something like that, it got a little bit more, a little bit too militant for me. I don't think they --

LR: Greensboro, you know, the Greensboro, it was the Greensboro [inaudible].

MR: What?

LR: Yeah, where the... it was when they were going down to sort of like fight the Klan.

MR: We were? They were?

LR: [Inaudible] workers were, people were going to...

MR: Oh, the Workers Viewpoint.

LR: That was when you stopped.

MR: That's when I...

LR: You started talking about...

MR: That wasn't Yellow Seeds. Well, Workers Viewpoint... oh, all right, all right, these things morphed into different --

LR: It started, I guess, getting a little crazy, and that's when you stopped going.

MR: Yes, that is true, that is true. I don't think there was a Yellow Seeds anymore. Is there still a Workers Viewpoint? I don't think so.

LR: Oh yes, there is.

MR: Still a Workers Viewpoint?

LR: Well, they changed the name.

MR: Oh, okay, okay.

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

<Begin Segment 18>

LG: So how do you think your family's wartime experience had impacted you and your sense of being Japanese American or any events of your life? So the question...

MR: The wartime experiences?

LG: Yeah. The experience of your parents and your grandparents, family in Hawaii, D.C., its impact in your lives, how people treated you?

MR: Well, I guess arresting my grandpa and putting that, wow, finding out about that, well, racism is really, really something that's pretty strong in the United States. Something, one way or another, it's something that you can't avoid, and it's something that you should try to combat in any way you can. Okay, and my experience of my father, I guess, and in spite of his dad being incarcerated, he would still go. In other words, he would say, "That's bad, they were really rotten to do that, but the Nazis were worse." [Inaudible] So that's what he did. And that was quite true. It was more important that you had... so now, you can worry about the racism and the injustices here, but the Nazis were more dangerous. So he felt he had to go and fight, and that's what he did.

LG: Do you have connections with other folks who are connected to the 442nd Division? Was there a community surrounding either descendants or...

LR: [Inaudible] Hawaii, I remember when we went to the museum.

MR: Yes, we've gone to the museum. There's a museum there and we talked to people there. And I still receive their newsletter.

LR: And they've also taken the letters.

MR: Have they taken -- is that, they've taken the letters, and are they keeping them? Do they destroy them?

LR: No, no, we have them, but they did show them as part of the exhibit.

MR: Okay, all right. I remember them doing that.

LR: And I'm in contact with them as well.

MR: Okay.

LR: [Inaudible] about the letters.

MR: Oh, really? Oh, yeah, have some.

LG: Were you ever involved in the redress effort?

MR: I don't think so. Just reading about it, I guess.

LG: You've sort of already talked about it a little bit, but I'm going to ask it, I guess, more directly. But what values did your parents instill in you, have you maybe taken from them?

MR: I guess that would be Louise, what values? I don't know. [Laughs] Well, from Louise. Louise, Louise, Louise, Louise.

LG: Are there qualities that she had that you admired or took into your own work or life? Or if not from her, where have you gathered these qualities from, these values?

MR: I guess, well, I guess she may not have... she was aware of racism and things here, and I don't know what I can say. I think you're supposed to do the best you can, even though people may say bad things about you, but you just go on and do the best you can, that kind of thing. And I think you're supposed to work hard at whatever you tried to do, do the best you can with that. Pay attention to folks that matter to you, your family, and things like that. And don't go wandering off doing strange things. But sort of pay attention to what's important, what's important to do, because of things like that.

LG: Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think I should that you want to talk about, you think I'm missing?

MR: I don't think... I think we covered just about everything that, and thoughts that I had. There's my little notes and thoughts.

RB: A question that I have, I think I heard that Louise was quite involved in Judge Marutani's campaign as part of the JACL.

MR: Yeah, okay.

RB: I don't know if you guys know anything about that.

MR: No.

RB: Okay. Yeah, I've heard that Louise, along with Reiko Gaspar were two people that really helped Judge Marutani.

MR: Okay. I think everything, all the little thoughts I had, little things that I remember, gee, sort of hard to remember all these things.

LG: It's a lot of questions.

MR: It's hard to remember things way back there. I mean, way back. Okay. Yes, I think I've talked about all the things, the things that I remember.

LG: Did you have any other questions?

RB: I think that's it. I mean, I think, like you said, you covered pretty much all of the main topics.

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