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LG: So your grandparents, did they go back to Japan?

AN: Well, I never met either side grandparents. They had come, I think my father's mother and father came in 1900, and my father was born in 1906 in Watsonville, California. My mother's parents had migrated in 2010 or something like that, and my mother was born in 1920, and my uncle was born in 1922. And for different reasons, but mostly economic, my grandparents on both sides went back to Japan, especially after World War I, when there was a recession in the U.S., and farmworkers and stuff like that were very, hit hard. So on both sides, they migrated back to Japan and took my mother and my father as kids back to Japan to grow up and survive.

LG: And you mentioned Yamaguchi-ken, is that where they were?

AN: Yeah, Yamaguchi-ken, which is right next to Hiroshima-ken. So it's on the southern edge of Honshu, big island, and the village was only like a mile or so from the ocean. And so they used to see sea workers and sailors and stuff like that from Korea a lot. There were men there, and go to the village and eat and whatever. And so my mother used to share stories of encountering these visitors from Korea.

LG: Anything that you remember?

AN: Well, not specific. I mean, given the history of the relationship between Korea and Japan, Korea was a territory of Japan since 1905. And they were not treated very well, and so the antipathy that emerged over a few generations in Korea against Japanese has even in manifestations today, not as intense as before, but still there.

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