<Begin Segment 1>

LG: I'm the interviewer, my name is Lauren Griffin, we are already here with Darlene in Seabrook. The date is Monday, June 19, 2023. So to start off, could you introduce yourself, your name, and what generation you identify as?

DM: I am Darlene Sadayo Mitsui Mukoda, and I'm a Sansei. My parents were born in this country.

LG: Where were your parents born?

DM: My parents were born in Northern California. My grandfather had settled there, and I guess when they came to the States, they usually came alone. So they tend to gather in groups of people who came from the same area in Japan, I guess they felt a little more secure. So there was a small group of people who came from Yamaguchi-ken in Japan and they settled in Northern California.

LG: Do you know when your grandparents came over?

DM: You know, it was the early, early 1900s. Because my dad was born in 1911, and he wasn't the first child. So I know there were... my grandfather was of the group where you had to go to Hawaii first and then come to the United States. So he was in Hawaii for, I think they had to be there for like seven years or whatever, and then he came to the United States.

LG: Do you know much about your grandparents, what they did?

DM: Well, obviously my grandfather wasn't the first son. Because if he were the first son, he would have stayed in Japan. But I don't know what they did in Japan. When he came to this country, like a lot of the other Japanese, he did what he could, and I guess farming was about the easiest. You didn't need the education, you didn't need language skills. So he did start out as a farmer in California.

LG: So you said your father was born in 1911. What about your mother?

DM: My mother was born in 1917.

LG: And her parents?

DM: You know, it's interesting because evidently, my grandfather, my maternal grandfather was in the United States, but I don't know what the circumstances were. I don't know if my maternal grandmother was here, but I know my paternal grandfather was here, because we have a picture of him when he was in the States. And when he went back, I have no idea. And so a lot of things I wish I had asked, but a lot of things, because I didn't ask, remain a mystery. So that's one of the mysteries, why was my grandfather in the United States and why did he go back to Japan?

LG: So was your mother born in the United States?

DM: My mother was born in the United States as well.

LG: In Northern California?

DM: Yeah, in Northern California.

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

<Begin Segment 2>

LG: How did your parents meet?

DM: Oh, they lived in the same neighborhood. And probably, I suspect they probably met at church. Then went to the Loomis Methodist Church, and I imagine they met there. But from what I can gather, they fell in love and I think they were engaged first. She was still in high school, but I'm not sure. But what happened was, I know they were going together, and then my maternal grandfather was killed in an accident, and my mother was a senior in high school. And my dad, kindest soul that I ever knew, was trying to run both farms. They had like a fruit farm, I think they grew plums, and then my grandmother, when she lost her husband, had this vineyard. So my father was trying to work both farms, and you know, back then, it was work. So he was going over to her house, and what he told me just before he died, and I'm so glad he did, he said he was working the two farms and he said it didn't look right. So he told my mother, "We must get married so I can legitimatize my being here all the time," back then. I guess the moral code. So they got married before they planned to, because she said because her father died, she had to quit high school, and she wanted to graduate from high school, work a year, save money to get married. Well, all those plans were thrown by the wayside when my maternal grandfather died. So my parents got married, she was seventeen, he was six years older, so he was around twenty-three, so they got married, and that was young in our standards. My mother's name was Shigeyo Minakata, her maiden name. And her nickname was Sinky, so she Auntie Sinky to all my cousins. And then my father's name was Hajime Mitsui. And when he moved here, because they always called him Jim Hajime, they called him Jim. So he had his name legally changed to James Hajime Mitsui after we came to Seabrook, Jim.

LG: So your parents got married, do you have siblings?

DM: I am the middle child, and you know, they always talk about the middle child. I have an older sister, or had an older sister. She passed away in 2007 from pancreatic cancer. And I have a younger brother, he's eight years younger, he was born here in Seabrook. So my parents didn't want to have a child while they were incarcerated, I guess. So right after we came to Seabrook, we came in '44 and my brother was born in '46.

LG: And your siblings' names?

DM: My siblings' names? My sister's name is Marjorie. She was married to Kaz Hashimoto, and my brother's name is Jeffrey Masao Mitsui, and he is married to a Caucasian lady named Wendy, Wendy Jones.

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

<Begin Segment 3>

LG: And when were you born?

DM: I was born May 27, 1938, so that makes me eighty-five years old, or eighty-five years young, whatever way you want to look at it.

LG: You were born in California?

DM: Yes, in Loomis, California. And probably at home.

LG: Do you remember anything from when you were in California?

DM: You know, strangely enough, you do remember, you do remember. The most vivid thing I remember is my paternal grandmother, they lived in the age where you didn't have running water, you didn't have indoor plumbing, you had an outhouse, and you had to go to the pump to get your water. My paternal grandmother went to get water in a large jug to bring into the home. And she dropped it and she tried to grab it, and in that process, the jar broke and she cut her arm. And I don't know how long she suffered, but all I know is it became infected and she had to be hospitalized. And when they knew that she was not going to live, they took us all into the hospital to say goodbye. I think I was around two when that happened, and one of my cousins in the past five years or so, she told me that we all were gathered together and went to the hospital to say goodbye to my grandmother, and I remember that. I didn't know whether it was true, but when my cousin confirmed it, I said, "You know, Carol, I remember that." And being the younger and living with my grandmother, I know I had many pictures of her carrying me. So maybe I was so close to her that I sensed the sadness, and that's why I remember. I don't know, I don't know.

LG: Before we move on, I was curious, just if you could describe your parents, what their personalities were like?

DM: Well, my father was easygoing, but he was the man in the house. My mother was very strong. She was strong but she was weak. She had her, she was strong in that she always maintained the household immaculately, she cooked, she was a wonderful cook. As meager as our homes were, they were always immaculate, she was always scrubbing the floor and made sure that things were clean she would hang pictures and try to make it as homey as possible for us. So she was a good wife and a mother, she truly was. But she had that strong sense in her where it made her a little tough because she had to be from such a young age. And so my parents balanced themselves out. My father, he would give you, like they say, the shirt off his back. Well, my mother had that sternness in her. And she was strict, she had her priorities straight. We were her main interests, the family. And so she, I would say, was strict. That's how I would describe her. So as loving as my dad was, my mother had this sternness to her that she had to have. She went through so much. And she was the oldest in her family, so she felt responsible for her sibling because I think the youngest one was only three years old when his father died. So that impacted her, so it wasn't until later on in life that I appreciated her so much, because sometimes growing up you just don't understand why your parents are the way they are. But all I know is they loved each other. My dad, just before he died, he said... he had a can, and he was saving his pennies and nickels and dimes to get my mother a ring, an engagement ring. And when I saw the engagement ring, you could hardly see the diamond. [Laughs] It was there, but it was pretty little. But it was saving his money and buying it for, a two carat diamond couldn't be given with that much love.

LG: You said your mother was a good cook?

DM: Oh, she was a good cook. And her entire life until my grandfather passed away when he was in his nineties, he lived with them. And my grandfather would go to visit his daughters, he'd have to travel to California or to Michigan to see his daughters, he couldn't wait to get home because my mother was such an excellent cook. And it was always Jiichan was served first, my dad was served second, she was served last. And when you had a steak about this size, I think my mother always got the bone. We were so selfish that we just, as long as we got a piece, we didn't care what she ate. But I'm sure she ate the bone, I mean, or licked the bone. But that's how it was.

LG: Did you eat a lot of Japanese dishes?

DM: Oh, yes, all the time. And even my children did. Because when my husband and I were married, we lived right in Seabrook in one of the barracks. So we were not rich, we were rather poor. And so that's how I raised my four children. You know, in hindsight, I think to myself, "Why did we have four children?" I mean, many of my friends had one or two, but my husband wanted four, I wanted four, we took them one at a time and we had our four, two sons and two daughters. So what can you say? So we had okazu. [Laughs] Lots of it. This much meat, lots of vegetables. So this day, my kids say, "Okazu, okazu, okazu, that's all we ate." [Laughs] But of course, they're all married to Caucasians, so there's no more okazu. They call it stir-fry now, but it's not okazu.

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

<Begin Segment 4>

LG: All right. Shifting a little bit, your parents and your family were incarcerated?

DM: Yes, yes.

LG: Do you have memories of that time?

DM: All I remember, and I don't really remember this. Because by then I was four years old. I remember tension, I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what. And I just sort of went along with the process. I'm sure they had to act, they had to prepare themselves to leave their home, that I don't remember. That I don't remember. The first thing I remember is going to the assembly center and being put in the stalls where the horses had been, and the smell of manure. You know, it was just a small stall, and there had to be five of us in there. So I remember it was tight, and the most scary thing I remember is the outhouses. I thought the holes were like this, and I was so afraid I was going to fall in. And that is very vivid in my mind, being so afraid of falling in to the... I'll leave it at that. [Laughs] But those are the two things I vividly remember. And also I remember people lined up to go in to eat, I remember the long lines.

LG: Do you know which assembly center?

DM: You know, I wish I did, but I don't know. I don't know. But all I know, it was a racetrack, it was a racetrack.

LG: Which incarceration camp did was your family in?

DM: First we were taken to Tule Lake, and it seems as though we lived so long in Tule Lake, and of all the camps I went to, I think we were in Tule Lake the longest. But when they decided to separate the "no-nos" and the "yes-yeses," well, my parents were "yes-yeses." So we, of course, had to be taken from Tule Lake to another camp so that they could bring in the "no-nos." So I remember moving. I remember going on a train, and I remember... the nice thing I remember is they used to pass out sandwiches, which I thought was wonderful. And I remember the soldiers with their rifles, and you know, for some reason I thought it was the soldiers with the rifles who gave us the sandwiches, but I think I'm mistaken. I don't know who it was who gave us the sandwiches, but I thought it was great. Riding on a train and eating a sandwich when you're four years old, don't know where you're going on and what'll happen.

LG: Was it just your immediate family that was taken there, or were you --

DM: We tried, and I think we were successful in keeping my grandmother -- who was widowed -- and her children with us. So my dad was responsible for the two families. And as I recall, I remember my grandmother being in Amache or Rohwer with us. So I'm assuming that every time we moved, they moved with us as a combined family.

LG: Do you know where you moved to after Tule Lake?

DM: Yes, we went to Amache in Colorado. So you know, I didn't know this "no-no," "yes-yes" thing, but that's, now I realize that's why we left Tule Lake and went to Colorado. And so we were in Colorado, and the time I was there, I don't know... and these are questions I should have asked my parents, how long we were in Amache. Because when we were in Amache, my dad was interviewed to be drafted. He told me the story just before he passed away. He did a lot of talking just before he passed away, and he told me that... and I guess he was considered a draft resister because he told them, "No, I can't go into the service unless you let me take my family home and I know that they're safe." Now, he knew that was impossible. So the fellow who was interviewing him said, "I can't do that." And so my dad said, "Then I can't serve. I can't serve." And he says, "You'll have to put me in jail," because that's what they were doing to them. So I don't know who this fellow was, but he said to my dad, "There are people who are leaving camp and going to Jersey because there's a man there who is hiring people in New Jersey. So you try and get there, and if you get out of camp, you can take your family with you." My dad, in the meantime, had written to Georgia. Because he had been involved in fruit, he thought maybe he could get a job in Georgia, and you know, they were in need of help because the men were in the service. So he wrote to Georgia and asked them, but he was rejected, I think because he was Japanese and coming out of camp. But Mr. Seabrook took twenty-five hundred people of Japanese descent to work in Seabrook, and my father was one of the first to come here. When we came here, we had the pick of all the apartments in Seabrook, because there were five, six families at the most dotted around the village. So it was wonderful. Anyway, we were in Amache, my dad left to come to Seabrook, we had to move because they were going to close Amache, so we moved to Rohwer. So during that time my dad was away, my mom and my grandfather had to move us to Rohwer. So when my dad worked here for six months and established himself and was hired, he came back to Rohwer to get us.

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

<Begin Segment 5>

LG: When did you come to Seabrook?

DM: In, I think it was the spring of '44. So it was before the war ended, and it was before people were accepted back into California. And my father said the sentiment in California was so hostile, he said he was going to try the East Coast to see if we were welcomed here. And when he got here, he was called a "damn Jap," and he says, "Ooh, I guess there's hostility here, too." Well, the war involved the whole United States, so when you were of Japanese ancestry, you were going to feel that.

LG: And in 1944, how old were you?

DM: I was six. I was six, so when I came here, I entered the first grade. I started kindergarten in, I believe it was Rohwer, and my mother said I would run home every day, I would never stay in school. And I can remember, I remember that. She would take me, and before she could even get home, I would run home and I'd be there greeting her. She would get so frustrated, she was so angry, and then she would let my grandfather stay with me. But he had a job, I guess, in camp, so he couldn't stay with me all day, so he would sit behind the boiler and I would keep peeking to see if he was there. And this I remember vividly. If he was gone, I was gone, I would run home. So I don't know how much I got out of kindergarten, but I guess I got enough that they put me in first grade when I did move here.

LG: Do you have any other memories of Rohwer or growing up school, what your home was like?

DM: Well, when... actually, all my memories are from Seabrook after moving here. And so it was interesting because my dad chose an apartment very close to the school. And so my mother's first thought was, "Darlene is never going to go to school. She's going to run home every day." Why did he choose this apartment? Well, he chose it because he had two young daughters who had to walk to school, and he wanted to make it, it is most convenient for us. He didn't want us to have to walk all the way across the village. So of course he chose that apartment. So my mother, again, just before she passed away, she asked me, "Why didn't you run home from school when you started first grade. You know what I told her? I said our family was together again. I knew we were going to stay together again. When I was in camp and school, Dad was gone. I didn't know where he was, I didn't know what the circumstances were, all I know was our family was broken. I was afraid my mother was going to disappear, too, and that's why I was running home. That is my supposition. So when she asked me why I didn't run home from school here, I said, "Mom, our family was together again. Dad was with us and I knew I was safe." Because I was a daddy's girl. I was the younger, I was daddy's girl. So that's one of the things, the evils of war. When things like that have to happen, it affects you. It affects you, it affects kids no matter how small they are, it affects them.

LG: You had mentioned some [inaudible].

DM: Yes. Unfortunately, you know, they chose to go back. One of my uncles decided to settle in Michigan and he worked for what they call the Rose Farm, so he helped raise roses, he worked in a rose, where they raised roses, lots of roses. And my other in-laws chose to go back to... or not my in-laws, my other relatives chose to go back to California. So I had two uncles. See, all my mother's siblings came to Seabrook with us because my father's siblings, two went back to California and one settled in Michigan. So unfortunately, I never grew up, I grew up with my uncle and aunts that were my mother's siblings, but I never had a chance. Because back then, couldn't afford to travel. So I know my sister corresponded with my older cousin, but because I was younger, I didn't know, there was no one my age, and so I never had the luxury of corresponding with them, or getting to know them at all. It was only in my seventies that I became acquainted with them. So you missed out a little there. But then again, most people didn't have cousins. The parents came. I mean, I was fortunate to have parents who were Nisei. Most of my friends, their parents were Issei, and their parents came by themselves, so they had no relatives at all. So it wasn't until our generation grew up that our children were able to appreciate cousins and relatives and visit and vacation together, things like that. It was lonely for my parents and my grandparents especially. My cousin told me that her mother used to see our grandmother looking towards the east and with very sad eyes. And so she asked him, "Why do you always look to the east and are so sad?" She said, "Because I'm thinking about my sister and I'd love to see my sister." She never did. When she left Japan, that was it. She was the one that was, died of blood poisoning from the cut on her arm.

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

<Begin Segment 6>

So, you know, they had a lot of courage, but my grandfather, when he came here, like I said before, he wasn't the number one son, so he was getting nothing. He had an eye that was blind because he had gotten hit with a stick, and I guess the stick went into his eye. So it was a little cloudy and he had no vision. And then when he was in Hawaii working, he worked in a sawmill and cut off one of his thumbs, so he had a thumb that was missing and then this finger because the nerves were not attached. They can do miraculous things now, they probably could have sewed on his thumb. But because this was severed, and the nerves to this index finger were severed, this finger was stiff and he had feeling in it, but it was stiff and it was useless. When he came to America, he had some issues, he had some issues. So fir him to come here and never wanting to go back to Japan, he said his family is going to be raised here and become Americans. As opposed to my maternal grandmother, who was all ready to go back to Japan because they had amassed five thousand dollars. And unbeknownst to her, my grandfather went and bought this vineyard. My mother said her mother was so furious. She was so mad, she had gotten all kinds of, they call it omiyage when you take gifts. She had all these gifts bought to go back to Japan, and then my grandfather does this. And then he's the one that got killed, and then she was really alone. So it was not easy for either my paternal grandfather or my maternal grandmother, because they lost their spouses. Had to go it alone, but fortunately they had good children who looked after them, so they lived good lives. My paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother both lived into their nineties and saw the American Dream, saw the American Dream, their American Dream. Maybe not so much my maternal grandmother, but my paternal grandfather did. He used to carry my suitcase to the bus when I used to go back to nursing school. I told him, "Jiichan, you don't have to do this, you don't have to walk me to the bus, I can do it myself." But no, he insisted on taking, walking me to the bus to get back to nursing school, and I guess maybe that was his way of showing me his pride, perhaps. I never thought of it, but he was happy I was going on, getting educated. Who knows? He had his reasons.

LG: Do you know what happened to the vineyard?

DM: You know, I don't know. All I know is my... I don't know if they were, if they really owned it. They might have been buying it, so it might have just been repossessed. But my parents did own the property they had, and so they did eventually sell -- [coughs] excuse me -- sell it. And they got a little money for it. My mother being so tenacious about saving money, I'm sure that was put aside for their future to buy a home. So they did okay, they did okay.

[Interruption]

LG: I think you were in the middle of talking about your grandfather.

DM: Uh-huh, I'm trying to think what it was about. Well, my grandfather, he was a good Christian man. So I asked my father, "When did Jiichan become Christian?" and he says he always was. Well, you know, being raised in Japan, he was not always a Christian. So I was just curious as to whether missionaries had gone over there and he had converted to Christianity. And you know, in your wildest dreams, you think, hey, maybe he did convert to Christianity and he was ousted by his family. Because a lot of times families will do that for any reason. If you marry into the wrong family, they may throw you out. So I will never know, but all I know is when I asked my dad when Jiichan became Christian, he said he always was. And I know he helped build the Loomis Methodist Church. And when I went back there in... gee, it was around 2004, I was able to attend that church. And it was, you could see the Asian style in the landscaping, but it was mainly Caucasian at that point. That was special, that was special. So anyway, so my grandfather always attended the church in Seabrook, they had the Seabrook Christian church, and he was really, really a good guy. He came here never intending to go back. His was the American Dream for those who came after him.

When my parents built their home or bought a home, left Seabrook and bought a home about three miles from here, I think that's when he really, really felt like he had reached his American Dream, that his son was able to purchase a home, he had a room of his own, and he could have his vegetable garden right there in the yard, the only stain that I saw when my parents made that move was the people who sold the home to my parents were German immigrants. They had left Germany, they were the German displaced people, so they had come here. And when he sold his home to my parents, the neighbors said, "Why did you sell it to a Jap?" So even then, my father was hurt because he was moving into a neighborhood that he knew he wasn't welcome. But over the years, because my father was such a nice guy, so helpful, they kept up their property immaculately, kept their home immaculate, they were accepted. The neighbors came over, brought cakes, and one of the neighbors would come over and crochet with my mother. So they found out we weren't so bad. And that's an unfortunate thing, and that's why I am so committed with my life to overcome racism because I've lived it, it's ugly. People are people no matter what. And no one, no one, ever, ever should think you're better than anyone else. You're all human, you all have feelings, and no one should ever feel that they are inferior to anyone else, all men are created equal. So that's my goal in life, you know, right now. I don't know how many years I have left, but my goal in life is to make everyone feel that they are as good as anyone else. No matter what the color of their skin is, we all bleed red blood, and all of us underneath, once you cut that skin open, we're all the same color. I've seen it, it's ugly, and unless we get above that, we'll never have peace. We'll never have peace.

So anyway, getting back to my grandfather, he's the one that instilled these things in me, and my father, and my mother was a racist. Growing up, oh my gosh, guess who didn't like? The Chinese and the Filipinos. The Chinese were "opium smokers," "gamblers," and the Filipinos "robbed you blind." I said, "Mother..." and I was very stern with her. I said, "How, when you were so prejudiced against, how can you look down on anyone and lump them all together and say they are all opium smokers and gamblers and thieves?" I said, "People are individual, you can't lump them all together." I was really disappointed in her and her attitude. Oh my gosh, terrible. Terrible racist. And one time she told me, she said there was this big Black man at church, and she went to the Christian church here, and she says, "He wanted to hug me." She says, "I'm not going to hug a big Black man." I said, "Mom, he's a brother in Christ. He's your brother. There's nothing wrong with hugging him." She said, "Well, I didn't know him." What a disappointment. But anyway, I guess I had my hangups as my generation does or seems to. And my kids will probably have hangups, too, so I had to forgive her. [Laughs] But it's a disappointment when you hear that, when I didn't expect to hear that from her. But I guess growing up in California where there were Filipino people and Chinese people, they felt that way. And that's one thing.

You want me to tell another story, you know, about what Japan has done to Korea and China in the past? It's horrendous. They think they're the superior Asian race. Well, I've got news for them. Here again, and I don't know what religion you are, but many, many Koreans have converted to Christianity, wherein Japan it is tough selling, the Christian religion. When I was there, I asked, and it's less than one percent. And in this day and age where there was so much missionary work and everything, it's surprising, but this is where I've been told that if children convert to Christianity, the family might disown them. So they're tough to sell, but... and then when I talk to my children about religion, they say, "Oh, Mom, leave everyone alone, they can believe the way they want." And so what I tell them is, "I have my faith, I love my god. Jesus died because we are a sinful people, and I have a savior now because he went on that cross. And I want everyone to have that same assurance, and that's why I have to speak out," and I left it at that, and there was silence. So I'm hoping it's food for thought because my children are not as committed as I am. So we'll see, we'll see, I don't know. I just have to pray about it and hope someday they will have the same faith I do. That's why I think I am so calm about getting older, because I know where my destination is, and I know a lot of my friends who don't know where they're going after death, they agonized about it. So anyway, I totally, everyone has what they believe, they're entitled to that. And I can introduce my religion, but I will never force it on someone.

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

<Begin Segment 7>

LG: So both your parents were also Christian?

DM: Yes.

LG: So growing up, was the church a big part of your life?

DM: Yes. In fact, because my mother was so strict, but she allowed me, of course, to go to Sunday school and youth group, so that's where I had my freedom, going to youth group, and they would take us on trips, they would take us to the shore, and that was a lot of my socialization. So I grew up with healthy relationships, so for that, I'm really grateful for. But I was in the Girl Scouts, too, and we did things with the Brownies and the Girl Scouts, and that was healthy. And then we had social groups. It went all the way down from the older people all the way down to the youngest. And I think it was my generation, before we started socializing with Caucasians, most of our socialization was done within our group at Seabrook. So we had clubs. I was a member of the Debbies, my sister was a Koline, and then were co-eds and, oh, I can't remember all the names of the groups, but they had different names, and the guys had groups, too. And so in our groups we formed basketball teams and we played against each other, which was my passion, I loved basketball. So that's another story. I went to high school to play basketball. I wasn't particularly interested in learning, but I wanted to play basketball. Tried out my freshman year, tried out my sophomore year. Whoever tries out in their junior year? I figure if I come, I'm going to get on this team. I came to high school to play basketball. Tried out, made the team my junior year. My junior year, we lost one game or we would have been undefeated. My senior year we were undefeated. Then I did the same thing with the tennis team. We played with the Jewish girls, got lessons at the country club, we played on the school ground here with rocks, hit against the building, the school building, that's how we learned to play tennis, but I loved it. With tennis, made the team. It was second doubles, but I don't care, I made the team, second doubles. We were undefeated. We used to go up to the country club in Philadelphia to play. And talk about feeling out of place, it was the Kenwood country club. Our team would go up and there were about three of us on the team, Japanese American girls on the team. The boys did a lot better, they excelled very much so. They got beyond second doubles. [Laughs]

LG: Did you feel out of place because you were Japanese?

DM: Oh, yeah.

LG: Anything specific?

DM: No, just being with a bunch of white people, and knowing it was a country club, exclusive, from little old Seabrook? My goodness. But because we were unique, they took a picture of the three of us, put it in the Inquire, so we made the Inquire. [Laugh] Sometimes it's good to stand out, I guess.

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

<Begin Segment 8>

LG: All right. We're going to talk more about high school, but I want to go back a little bit to your move to Seabrook. Do you remember moving into your new home?

DM: Oh, do I. To me it was a palace. And you know that old saying, you feel like you died and went to heaven? Well, that's how I felt. We had a kitchen no smaller than this, it had a wood burning stove, but we had a kitchen. It had an ice box. Not a refrigerator, an ice box. It had a table and five chairs. We had a bathroom where I could close the door and have privacy. Not one of those open outdoor places or in the camps we had flush toilets but no doors, just hoppers lined up, and everyone watched as you went to the toilet and that was what I hated most. So when we got our own bathroom, hallelujah, life can't get any better. And then my sister and I had our own bedroom, my grandfather had his own bedroom, my parents had their own bedroom, and my dad had all the beds made up and he had a doll on my sister's bed and my bed. I remember the trip on the train, and someone met us at the airport and drove us to Seabrook. That was my beginning at Seabrook, bed on the doll and our family all together. Had a bathroom. [Laughs] A bathroom that flushed.

LG: You said you were one of the first?

DM: Yes, yes. So it was sort of lonely, I guess. But I had my sister so I never felt lonely. But when the other families, I mean, they used to send buses up to get people. I mean, twenty-five hundred, that's a lot of people, so that's a lot of families and a lot of kids. So when they started coming in, I guess I was happy, but you know, six years old, what do you think? You really don't think, "Oh, gee, now I have a whole bunch of friends to play with." All I knew was it was all people that looked like me, that was camp anyway. And this is the thing. When people came to Seabrook, some of the people... see, my parents were poor. Some people were rich, they lived in homes. My family lived in a home in Los Angeles, so when they came to Seabrook, to them, it was no better than camp except that it had no barbed wire fence around it. So a lot of them wanted to leave immediately, especially later on when so many people came, they had to put up barracks just like camp. It looked just like camp, so they were so disappointed when they came. I was happy because I was in an apartment, and this was much better than camp. And you know, I was oblivious to the barbed wire fence, so it didn't bother me. I mean, I didn't know that wasn't allowed to go out, be on the fences, I wasn't even aware of the fences. So when I came here, it made no difference to me, it was just like camp, except that the apartment was so much nicer.

LG: Do you know if your parents or older sister had the same [inaudible]?

DM: You know, my sister was older. She had friends in camp. She might have been a little lonely, I don't know. Because we were like two and a half years apart, and so I really wasn't a good playmate for her. So I think she appreciated it when she made friends. But you know, the apartments quickly filled up, and so she had neighbors to play with, I had neighbors to play with, so it became a very happy place for us.

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

<Begin Segment 9>

LG: So, yeah, I guess, what was it like growing up? Do you have specific memories of your time in --

DM: Oh, yeah. I know, number one, I didn't like school. But during the summers, we used to just, I used to play marbles, hopscotch, jump rope, Pick Up Stix, we had very few things to play with. So we did a lot of improvising, played Kick the Can, hopscotch, we just drew in the dirt. Then we used to play a game where it was Toss the Ball Over the House, and if you caught it, you ran around and tried to hit people with it before they got around to the other side. I mean, it was very simple games, not elaborate Legos or anything like that. I mean, Kick the Can, you had a can.

LG: Were you mostly friends with other Japanese Americans?

DM: That was it. We all lived in Seabrook, that was it. You were isolated. So when we went to school, we were with Caucasians and Blacks, but when we went home, there were no whites or Blacks to play with. You were just like, you were back in camp, except there was no fence around it. So you played with your Japanese friends. Of course, I was, in camp I was too little so I don't remember a single friend from camp, but I do from here.

LG: Did you grow up speaking Japanese?

DM: No, never. So my Japanese is very poor. My husband was a "no-no," so he went into Tule Lake, and so he went to just Japanese school. So he was fluent in speech and writing, and so when he came here, he had to adjust to American school. So what they did was they put him down behind two grades, and the same thing with the sister who became my good friend, they were put down two grades. And to the day he died, he said when he would multiply, he would multiply in Japanese and transfer it to, translate it to English. But that amazed me. He says, "I still multiply in Japanese." And then his parents spoke Japanese, so he... my parents didn't. They were fluent in English. They spoke Japanese, but they were fluent in English. That was their first language, actually. So they encouraged us -- you know, they discouraged us. They figured if we didn't speak Japanese, people would think we were white. Amazingly enough, it didn't work. [Laughs] So we should have learned to speak Japanese. I kick myself now for not learning Japanese. It's wonderful to be bilingual.

LG: Growing up in the home or in the community, did you go to, did you celebrate any Japanese holidays, did you have cultural events?

DM: You know, they did. But being Christian, and my mother thinking that a lot of the events were Buddhist, she sort of frowned upon us participating. So she wouldn't, she didn't tell me I couldn't go, because it was out in the field. So, you know, anyone could go. So I would go, but I didn't participate as much as my friends whose parents were Issei and they were, they had kimonos, we never had kimonos. They had kimonos, their mothers would dress them all up and they would dance during the Obon festival, whereas I never participated. Because number one, I didn't have a kimono, and number two, my mother didn't encourage it, so I didn't. But now, because I look at it as a cultural thing, and culturally I am Japanese. So I let my children participate, and my grandchildren, and they love it. And now it's my great-granddaughter, she goes out and she does the dance with me. So now it's... this is where I said my mother was sort of straight and narrow, she couldn't be flexible. So anyway...

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

<Begin Segment 10>

LG: Do you know... I know you mentioned when your father bought the house, the neighbor had made a comment, and even coming to Seabrook, maybe the reception of the community was not... do you have any memories of...

DM: Well, you know, as I say, racism lingers on. And in this day and age, it's like when a Black person comes in to live in your neighborhood. I have a friend who lives in my neighborhood, she's of Italian descent, and detests Black people. And Black people and Hispanic people and Turkish people are moving into my neighborhood. And I welcome them; she doesn't. It really aggravates me to have to listen to what she says about other races. I may say it in a Japanese way someday and try to get her to realize that this is not the way to be. You know, we're supposed to love everyone, and how can you as a human being -- if they can afford to move into your neighborhood, they're just as good as you are. How can you look down on them? And you know, you can live a lot more happily if you accept that and invite them over and know that we as Hispanics, as Blacks, as Asians, as white people, can live in a neighborhood and the neighborhood can thrive. That's what the world should be like in 2023. You know, people talk about, "Well, the slaves were emancipated in Lincoln's day." No they weren't. Why did they have "colored" fountains and "white fountains" in the South until what, 1960s? A hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Don't tell me the Blacks were freed by Lincoln. The Blacks still aren't freed by the white man and many other cultures, too. And it makes me really, really sad that we have to live in this day and age with so much racism and so much hate. Just think how much the world would be in a better place if we all learned to get along.

LG: Do you have any personal -- I'm sure you do -- but do you have any personal stories about racism you might have experienced directly?

DM: Yeah, yeah. You can't help but... and it might have been self imposed, a lot of it. I mean, I always felt like a second-class citizen. I never felt good enough, and I went to college in 1960, and it was unusual in that day. It's not like swarms of Asian students, I was the only... there was myself, Japanese descent, and I remember a fellow, I think he was Chinese, I think his name was something like Yang. And then there was this Esther Park, who was Korean, three of us on campus. I went to Upsala College which is no longer in existence, but it was a Swedish Lutheran college, and so there were a lot of Lutherans. But I stuck out like a sore thumb. In my nursing school class, I was the only Asian, so it's "that Asian nurse" who did this, or "that Asian nurse" who did that. And some people might like to draw attention to themselves. I didn't, and it just bugged me that I stood out like a sore thumb wherever I went. But it's there. And I felt it back then, and I still feel it.

You know what the funny thing is? We have some elderly women... I mean, I'm elderly, but I'm still capable of driving and taking people out to lunch and things like that. So when I take... one time in particular, I took this lady out to lunch, and she had a walker, and of course, I had to help her. And I got the impression that everyone thought I was her caregiver. And that was just my feeling, but from their reaction about the body language or whatever of the customers around us when I took her in, I felt the feeling that they thought I was her caregiver. And go figure. I mean, really, and it shouldn't bother me. Because yes, for that day, I was her caregiver, but it's just... and you know, I have to get over it, too. And my children, who are all married to Caucasians, so I call all my grandchildren "half-breeds." [Laughs] But one day when we were, I went up to Connecticut where she lives, because she was the chairperson for the Asian portion of the event that we're having. So they had people representing India and then they had Native Americans and they had Black people, Hispanics and everyone. So my daughter was in charge of the Asian portion of that. So we took one of my neighbors who was a taiko drummer, we took him up, he played the drums, and I made nigiris, rice balls, and made some ginger chicken, prepared that for the children. I think it was either third or fourth grade. So we were having a wonderful time, and this little boy, one of my daughter's classmates, runs up to my daughter and says, "Mrs. Dragon, I didn't know you were Japanese." I don't know what he thought. Kids, I guess, are color blind, and he was so overjoyed. "Mrs. Dragon," and it really tickled me so much that he was so excited that he didn't realize she was Japanese. So I don't know what he saw when he saw her, but obviously not an Asian woman. So you know, as the generations, yes, I felt prejudice back then, I still feel it now.

When I was in nursing school, we were in the subway, and I was there with three of my classmates, because we did our pediatric training in the Bronx. So we were riding the subway one day and this woman came at me and she was saying, "Them damn Japs with their swords cutting off heads." And so my friends gathered around me and they said, "We'll protect you." And so it was an older woman, I don't know if she was homeless or what, but she was obviously angry about something. So I felt like sitting down and saying, "I'm an American, I was born here. I'm not one of those damn Japs who cut off heads." And so I was telling my friends this later on, I said, I think that was the first time they realized what I had to face. So then they said to me, "Darlene, look at it this way, though. Maybe she had someone who was killed in the Second World War." And I said, "Oh, I never thought of it that way." And I was of the generation when I went away to school like that. My classmates' fathers were in the Second World War, and many of them were very prejudiced. So after my friend, they being Caucasian, looking at it from the woman's point of view and probably hearing anti-Japanese sentiment, but then again, befriending me, the only Japanese and our classmate. Because you can imagine how lonely it would have been if no one befriended me. But I had excellent friends and we're still in contact. We graduated in 1960, so sixty-three years later, we're still writing to each other and seeing each other when we can. So they're friends, and I had to look at it from another perspective.

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

<Begin Segment 11>

LG: We you always aware of your Japanese American identity?

DM: You know what? When you're a kid, you just think of yourself as a person. You don't think of yourself as a color. So no, at some point, and I think it was actually when I moved to Seabrook and I met people of different colors, I realized I was different. And then I realized, as I grew up, the animosity towards specifically Japanese Americans because of the Second World War. But when you see the Chinese that had to wear signs, "I am Chinese," so they wouldn't be abused or they didn't have to meet the... at night, you couldn't stay out after curfew, so they had to wear signs. You want to hear something silly? When I went to Japan with a group of friends, went on a tour, there was this other Asian couple on the tour with us. Stupid me goes up to them and says, "Were you incarcerated?" because they looked to be about our age. And he said, "No." I said, "Why?" he says, "We're Chinese." I was so embarrassed. But for some reason I thought, "Why would Chinese tour Japan when the Japanese were so mean to them? So I never -- and that's a flaw in my personality -- thinking a Chinese person would not tour Japan. In this day and age, that was ignorance on my part, and I'm truly embarrassed by it. I will never do that again. They have every right to tour Japan, but I didn't think they would.

LG: Was that your first trip to Japan?

DM: Yes, first and only.

LG: When was that?

DM: Two thousand and four. I had to wait until I retired from my school job, because back then, I could only go during the summer. Well, they say Japan is not the place to go in the summer, so I think we went in October.

LG: What was it like going to Japan?

DM: It was an eye-opener. I could see the pride in the Japanese people, not a piece of litter anywhere. Don't ever even think of dropping a cigarette butt on the sidewalk. They are the neatest people. I've been to Italy, but I haven't been traveling extensively except in the United States, we're a bunch of pigs. You eat at McDonald's? Throw it out the window, the wrapper out the window. Soda can? Out the window. You don't do that in Japan. They are so neat. And how can you fault neatness? You can't. But it also shows a certain... it shows pride, and pride can be good. Sometimes pride can be damaging, but that's the one thing I noticed. And they catered to the Caucasians. Because when we were on the tour, we were never approached as a group, but they would always gravitate to the Caucasians. The schoolchildren would ask the Caucasians to talk to them in English. And maybe that was because they probably thought we didn't speak English, I don't know. But it's a marvelous country and I admire the Japanese people a lot. They have a lot of good qualities. And I think things are getting better, things are getting better. Because I think... and I heard this on TV one day, they were interviewing this Japanese girl. And you know how that "one child" thing started in China, and you're allowed to have one male child, and you heard stories about female children being thrown out to the wolves and left in forests and things. Well, in Japan, number one son is so valuable. Well, this girl was saying, "Couples don't want number one son now, anymore," because number one son was supposed to take care of the family, the parents when they got old. Number one sons, because the number one daughter-in-law doesn't want to do that anymore, so many families are saying they want one number one daughter now, because number one daughter will take care of you. It's a funny thing, but I grew up number one son. My brother was ichiban. Middle child? Nothing. Older daughter, everything, but number one son got even more than everything.

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

<Begin Segment 12>

LG: I don't think I asked this. What did your father or parents do for work here in Seabrook?

DM: Oh. My father, when he was in camp, he used to work in the warehouse. So when he worked at Seabrook, he worked in what they call the cold storage where the packed items were stored. And then he was sort of like, not the boss, not the top boss, but he was responsible for making sure that if they wanted two thousand packages of this brand loaded into a truck, that he had to load that truck. He knew what had to be loaded on that truck and he had to make sure that the right product was loaded onto the truck. And then my mother, she didn't like to leave us alone. And for a short time, my grandfather worked, so she would take... she wasn't like most of the Japanese women who worked at the plant. She would take jobs that would leave her free, so we never came home to an empty house. We never had to go to the childcare center, and she was always there to make us our meals. So she was sort of an American housewife, and she was able to do it because she was frugal. My dad earned enough so that they didn't need the second income to survive, so she worked in the, as part of Mr. Seabrook's enterprises, he had a rose business. So she worked in the rose room for a while, and then when we were old enough, she went to work in a sewing factory.

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

<Begin Segment 13>

LG: Before we move on to your college experience, is there anything else about elementary school, high school, growing up here that you wanted to share?

DM: You know, during my era it was segregation. So we never really did anything like the basketball team. There were quite a few of us of Japanese descent on the team, but we never socialized. Some of them did. Some of the girls would invite the basketball team over to their house and they would go. But I think I had an inferiority complex back then and I never felt like I fit in. But my sister-in-law, who was on a team with me, she would go. And you know, she never felt inferior. But when I had my bout with depression, I could see why. With my personality, I was a prime target for depression because of this inferiority complex that I had my whole life. I just never felt like I fit in. So because of that, I was fortunate that I grew up in a place like this where I wasn't exposed to being the only Japanese in another world. So I grew up relatively normal then. My first cultural shock was when I went away to college.

LG: [Inaudible]

DM: Yes. It was a combination. I went to a college, Upsala College. They had a nursing program combined with Mountainside Hospital School of Nursing. So I went for four years and got my B.S. And that's another thing. I had to fight to go to college. I went all through high school, and like I say, I wasn't crazy about school, but I did okay. And I did well enough. I didn't get all As, wasn't a valedictorian, but I did make the honor society. So I wasn't a total loss. But I took the scientific course knowing I wanted to go to college. And when I was entering my senior year and I was talking about, with my parents, about going to college, they had no inkling that I wanted to go to college. My mother told me, "Be a secretary like your sister." Took no typing, took no shorthand, took biology, took chemistry, took physics, took algebra. I'm going to be a secretary? I don't think so. So I said I want to go to college. So fortunately, I had a good guidance counselor who showed me this program, which was not university standards. It was a college that was associated with the nursing school, so it was relatively cheap and I was able to get into that program. And so the guidance counselor said, "You can fill out these forms to get aid," and my father said no. He said, "No one has to know how much I make. No one is going to be privileged with that information," because he was proud, he had his pride. So they paid for my whole education. But, begrudgingly, because they were saving their money for number one son to go to college. So he went to Ursinus, and there was no talk about struggling to put him through college. He went to college.

LG: Do you have an significant college experiences?

DM: Well, you know, fortunately, I was in the nursing program, so the nurses stuck together. So I wasn't thrown into the entire population of the college, because we lived in a house, actually, broken up into apartments, and we lived with roommates as a group of nursing students. So we were sort of like isolated, so I had only this group to contend with. But in college, I was invited to join a sorority, which I did, which was the biggest mistake of my life, because it cost me so much money that I didn't have, and I discouraged my daughters and my granddaughters from joining sororities. [Laughs] Maybe that wasn't nice, but I did. And I didn't feel like I fit in the sorority at all. So it was maybe an ego trip that I was invited, who knows? Once I went over to the nursing home, I had nothing to do with the college, so that went my sorority days. So once I went over to the nursing home, then I was with my group of students who were going to get their degree, and we joined a group of students who were just getting their RN. So we were going to get our degree, but these students were going to just become RNs, and there was animosity between the two groups. Because they felt that we felt better than they were, but they were by far the better nurses. Because they were in that program for three complete years, we were in it only for two and a half. So they were excellent nurses, there was no difference, there was no difference. And so many of them went on to get their degrees in nursing. But the reason why I wanted to get my degree was greater flexibility. So that's why I insisted, and that's how I begrudgingly was afforded a college education, but it wasn't easy. And I knew I had to finish; there was no quitting.

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

<Begin Segment 14>

LG: So you mentioned your husband.

DM: Yes.

LG: What was his name?

DM: Robert. Robert Akihito, Akihiro. He was named after the emperor's son, only the emperor's son was Akihito.

LG: And how did you meet?

DM: We lived across the street in Seabrook, but it wasn't until 1960 that we started dating, and I was his sister's best friend, and I never ever thought I would marry him. But after I graduated from nursing school, we started dating and that was it.

LG: What did he do for a living?

DM: He was a, in printing, they call them strippers. They work with film, and to tell you the truth, all I know, it was very intricate and you couldn't make mistakes, and that's about all I know. He was in the printing business.

LG: What was his name?

DM: Huh?

LG: What was his name?

DM: Oh, typical male number one Japanese son. But we had fun. I was in sports, he didn't play sports, but he loved sports. So, I mean, baseball, basketball, and then his biggest passion was the Flyers. My biggest passion were the Eagles to this day. So that's, I mean, how many girls want to go to a 76ers basketball game on a date. How many girls want to go sit out in the heat and watch the Phillies? How many girls want to go out to watch the Eagles play when they're throwing snowballs at Santa Claus? [Laughs] So we were a good match.

LG: And do you have children?

DM: Yes, four. When we were courting and I asked him, "How many children do you want?" and he says, "Four." And I said, "Whoa, can we take them one at a time?" [Laughs] And as it worked out, it worked out fine. He had got his two boys first, and he said when our first son was born, he was the proudest man alive. Ichiban son. So he says he was... and then when the second one was born, he says, you know what he told me? He says, "Now you can have whatever you want." I said, "I'd like a couple of girls," and I got my couple of girls.

LG: What are your children's names?

DM: Well, my first one -- and we didn't give them Japanese names. When I went to college, my last name was so mutilated, I figured they're going to have enough trouble with "Mukoda." So I gave David Michael, my firstborn, Timothy James, my second-born, Patty Lynn, my third-born, and Stephanie Robyn, my fourth. And now they're Stephanie Robyn Dragin, and I have a son-in-law from Puerto Rico, and so Patty Lynn is Patty Lynn Reyes. So we're sort of an international family now.

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

<Begin Segment 15>

LG: When you were growing and getting older, did your parents share stories with you about their time...

DM: You know, just like every other Japanese parent, I don't know of anyone who shared, actually said, "Let's sit down and talk about camp." Little things would come up here and there, but most of all, you know what I remember when I was growing up, they would talk about their life before the war when they grew up in California, and they would mention all these names, Japanese names about the people who owned the store, the people who were the bankers. Because I was ignorant of the fact that I thought everyone grew up like me. No, they were wealthy fishermen, the men who owned the stores and the bankers, so they were quite wealthy people. So when they went into camp, they sacrificed a lot more monetarily than my parents did. Because my parents sold their crops, paid their bills, and then started paying, taking everything through seasonal credit until they sold their cops again, paid their debts, then went into debt again. That's how they lived. But there were other families who lost fishing boats, lost houses, lost businesses. So you know, they had a different attitude, you have a different attitude. So my parents used to talk about "back home." Because to them, those were their true friends, they went to church with, they socialized with, and they were like family to them. And then they went into camp with a bunch of strangers, and that wasn't their family. So I remember when we moved to New Jersey, my dad's friends tried to get him to go back to California, tried to entice him to go back, and he wouldn't. He says his family is settled here, he's going to raise them here.

LG: In raising your own children, were you open with them about that experience?

DM: We talk about it, but being so young, there isn't that much I can tell them, except I tell the little ones, "Where's Grandma's privacy when you want privacy while you're going to the toilet?" Because I said I had no privacy at four years old. So you know, little things like that. But as far as playing with friends, toys or anything, there was nothing.

LG: If your parents didn't really talk about what had happened, when did you begin to understand what they had gone through?

DM: Later on in life, my mother would tell me that... because she always sewed. She somehow got a sewing machine, I think she said someone loaned it to her. But there were Caucasians who worked in the camps, and they were very, very kind, and they would need clothes altered. And so my mother would alter the clothes for them, and she would say, "Give me fifty cents," or whatever, and they said, "No. We are going to pay you what the seamstresses would charge us in San Francisco." So she said she really was able to make a little bit of money, I mean, a dollar here, a dollar there. They weren't rich when they came out of camp, but at least they had someone. Because I don't know what the women did in camp, because I think, like my father-in-law worked in what they called the mess hall, he was one of the cooks, and I don't think my mother-in-law worked. So as little money as you could get.

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

<Begin Segment 16>

LG: So after graduating from college, what happened next?

DM: Well, I got a job in West Trenton. I had just started dating my husband, but I had a job in West Trenton at the School for the Deaf as a resident nurse, so I worked there for two years, and saved enough money so I could pay for a wedding. So I moved from my apartment in West Trenton to my apartment in Seabrook. And that's how my life here began, right back at Seabrook where I lived as a, arrived as a six-year-old child in one of those apartments.

LG: Did you see yourself staying in Seabrook? Did you want to settle here?

DM: You know, most of my friends hated it here. They said when they left here, they were never coming back, and a lot of them never did. I never had that attitude. So when I came back here, it didn't make any difference. I mean, I love my husband, I had to go where he went. So be it Seabrook, it was Seabrook. And I came back and I was happy. They had fixed up the apartments, so they were nicer. They weren't as drab. By now, we had a refrigerator, not an icebox. We had a regular range, not a wood stove. To me, I was again going to a second heaven. My first heaven was that first apartment. I was married, I was happy, and the apartment was nice.

LG: How have you seen the community change?

DM: Oh, well, I saw it changing as I was a school nurse. They still had the apartments there, but it was mainly Blacks and Hispanics. One or two Asians, Blacks, Hispanics and poor whites, is the way I would explain it when we eventually moved out. And then, of course, when they tore it down, because it's low-income housing, and low income housing is wonderful for people who can't afford a lot of rent. But sometimes landlords aren't looking out for their, the people who were renting from them, unfortunately. You know how you say your neighborhood's gone downhill? That's what I saw happening. The nicest thing is when they tore down all the dormitories and the barracks and built the individual, well, the town halls type things here, and that's still low rent. I don't know if it's a problem, but it is still subsidized housing. And working as a school nurse, I had to, I was involved in free lunches and things. So I knew what these landlords were getting for a drab old apartment, the barracks that they used to have, and it used to really anger me. The people may only pay five hundred dollars, but then the government would pay six hundred and fifty dollars, that it was not worth six hundred and fifty dollars; that angered me.

[Interruption]

LG: Yeah, I think we can move to some reflection questions. So I guess first, when did you become involved with the JACL?

DM: Well, you know, my father, back in 1950, I think, was the president. Then my sister was secretary for a number of years. But when I moved back here, we started our family immediately. So all those years I was raising my children, forget it. I was just raising my kids. So I was not involved. My husband, when we were... gee, probably in the 1980s, he came on, he was asked to be a board member. And then, later on, when they needed more board members, they asked me if I would be a board member. So I'm ashamed to say it's just in recent years that I've been able to become active. My priority was my family, and then once I started working, my priority was still my family, but then I had to think about educating them, too, so I had to work.

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

<Begin Segment 17>

LG: We had this question here about intergenerational trauma, and you'd mentioned you maybe wanted to talk a little about it?

DM: Yes, yes. As I said, I always had an inferiority complex. And I used to get anxiety attacks, and it wasn't until I went into my depression while I was working, and I'll you how that came about. I worked under a wonderful nurse. She had the three schools, and so she asked me if I would consider becoming a school nurse. This was back in, I would say, 1979. By then all my children were in school. So my husband being my husband, had told me he never wanted me to work, and if I ever wanted to work, he told me early on in our marriage, "There's the door, you can leave." So he was really against my working. Well, my children are getting into middle school, and I was seeing college. So when she asked me to work, I got on my hands and knees and said to my husband, "Grace Koch said, asked me if I would consider working as a school nurse." So what he said to me was -- which I took as a yes -- he said, "I don't care what you do." Being the male Japanese that he was, of his generation. So I hopped on it, I had to go back to college to get my certification in school nursing, had my parents come and watch the kids for me while I went back to college. And it was not easy, but I was determined, so I did it. Thanks be to my parents who were willing to watch my children. Put them to bed when Mommy was at college and Mommy was studying, but I managed. I only needed twenty-eight credits, so I got those twenty-eight credits, and then I was ready to go. So then they hired me on as part-time and so I worked part-time under this wonderful nurse. And you know how you hear horror stories about sometimes the boss doesn't want you to know everything because he's afraid you'll take his job. She was not like that at all; she shared everything with me.

So I was fine until she told me she was retiring. I panicked. I said, "I can't do this job without her, I'm a second banana." I don't want the top job. If I was going to stay on, I had to take the top job. So I panicked, and that was the first time I had what you'd call a nervous breakdown. I struggled, but I was hospitalized, and I did go back to work, because I had my secretary, another wonderful person. She was my backbone, she was going to retire a few years later. That's when I really panicked, and I was so depressed at that time, I tried to take my life. Because Darlene Mukoda is not fit to be the top banana. She's a wonderful second banana, but not good enough to be the top banana. That's how I felt about myself. No way to get out of it, just leave the serve. So I took two containers of pills, but I immediately vomited. And this is where I said God intervened. He didn't let those pills stay within me to kill me, he had other plans. My parents had just left me that day, I was still in my pajamas, and my mom tried to be as cheerful as can be and said, "Get dressed and you'll feel better." Well, I knew I wasn't going to feel better. My husband was out on this job. He was a courier for the bank, but in between his pick-ups, he would go from bank to bank to pick up things, he stopped in. He says, "Something told me something wasn't right." So he says, "How are you doing?" And I had the courage -- I don't know if you'd call it courage, but I told him what I did. Well, he called my psychiatrist, and I guess my psychiatrist said to call 911. So 911 came and got me, put me in the hospital, and that was the most... that period when I went into the hospital and until the time I was treated and released from another hospital was horrible. I realized what a terrible mistake it was, number one, it was very dehumanizing to have a tube put down your throat, charcoal put down, because they didn't know how much of the medication was there, so they tried to neutralize it and remove it from my body. And then I was put on suicide alert, so they had to have someone watching me all the time.

And then the hospital released me, and I didn't feel right. I told my husband, I said, "I feel as though I still need help." So he got in touch with my psychiatrist, and then I think he also spoke with my minister, and they suggested Friends Hospital up in Philly, so that's where I went, and that saved my life. I had a young psychiatrist who told me, he says, "With your history, I think you need ECT," that's electric shock treatment. So my family researched it, my daughter-in-laws researched it, and I agreed I would go because I didn't like the way I was living. It wasn't worth living. So I said something has to be done, and I think I had a total of seventy ECT treatments. And then the young doctor whose care I was under at Friends Hospital said to me, "The medication you're on is so antiquated," and I was going to an older psychiatrist. He says, "We have much better medication now," so he says, "I want to put you on one of them." First one he put me on, I'm still taking to this day. No ill effects, no side effects, the ECT cleared my head. They say it's a chemical imbalance and you've got to sort of joggle that chemical imbalance into place. So on the medication I've been fine. And my husband said to me, he said, because it was hard on him, it was hard on my children. He said to me, "How come you became this way? There were all those people in camp, they went through the same thing." He says, "Robert, not everyone is made the same. We each have our own personalities, we each react to situations differently," and unfortunately, because of my feeling of inferiority, and you know, you hate to say this, but I felt it as a little child. I wasn't good as my older sister, and I would never be better than my younger brother because he was number one son. And so I felt, in talking to one of my sister-in-laws, she felt she was adopted because she didn't seem to fit in. I thought I was adopted at one point because I didn't fit in. So you know, this is why I am so adamant about being kind to everyone. Because you know, you don't know what that one person in the group may feel. They may feel inferior like I did, and I don't want them to feel that way. They're as good as anyone else, and no one should ever make you feel otherwise.

So this is where I very freely talk about my mental illness, because there's a number of circumstances that entail why this happened to me. And we're all individuals and can't put everyone into one basket and say, "You weren't strong enough, that's why." "You weren't this enough, that's what." Maybe you were good enough. You know, how good is good enough? Good enough for one person may be not be good enough for the next person, and no one should ever feel that way, never. So I have my soap boxes to stand on, there may be many. But I firmly stand on them and I speak my mind. Because if I can help one person in this whole wide world, it's all worth it. Then I could tell my grandfather, who lived the American Dream, and I've lived it; I've lived it. Even though some parts were not dreams, they were more like nightmares, I've lived the American Dream. And for that, God Bless America.

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

<Begin Segment 18>

LG: I guess maybe related, why do you think it's important to share your story?

DM: I think I have a unique story to tell, because not everyone, everyone was traumatized to a certain effect. But I was traumatized in a way that not necessarily relates to camp. It relates to my life situation as a whole. I can't blame it on camp, I can't blame it on anything. All I can say is I've lived my life the way it was made to be lived. You lived your life the way everyone lives their life the way. And unfortunately, yeah, I had some bumps, but you know what? Came out a winner, and what more can you ask than that? That you come out on the winning side, and everyone could come out on the winning side. No one has to be defeated by anyone, we're all good. We're all good and we all deserve the best. And that's what I want for everyone, the best. Many times, I thought, you know, I can never be the best. I can only be the best if I was born white. But I found out that you know what? Doesn't matter. There are so many people that I admire of every race, does not matter. And if everyone could realize that, you know, we thought George Washington Carver, you know, Frederick Douglass or Marian Anderson, nor Toyota or Honda. [Laughs] It's not a racial thing, it's a personal thing, and everyone can be the best.

LG: Did your parents instill any values in you?

DM: My dad. The way my grandfather was a strong Christian, you know, I can honestly say, I can never, I never saw him angry or not kind. I mean, he used to get mad at my sister because she used to pick her pimples. But we had a friend who died picking her pimples, and so he didn't want that to happen to her. And she used to get so mad at him. She used to yell at my grandfather and I used to say, "Don't yell at him, don't yell at him." Because he used to say, when he'd tell her why, and I understood why. My sister was just my sister. She had her own personality, and I don't think she ever had the inferior feeling that I did.

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

<Begin Segment 19>

LG: What do you think of the "model minority" myth?

DM: The "model minority" myth? You mean about we have to be better? What is the...

RB: Just the idea that, like, Asian Americans and specifically Japanese Americans are sort of the exception in terms of minoritized peoples. In the '60s, they started to position Asians as part of the...

DM: Oh, oh, like Japanese Americans couldn't get... right, right. And so schools were discriminating against them negatively. Is that what you're talking about?

RB: That's part of it today, but I guess more in the sense of, I think when Densho asked the question, it's more about this idea of pitting minority groups against each other, because you have the perception in society that Asians are maybe closer in proximity to whiteness than Black people or Hispanics, and the sort of conflict with that.

DM: You know what my feeling on the Blacks? When they freed them, they should not... you know, families were making a living having children. When they freed them and going to schools with everyone else, they should not have given them money for each child. Because I had kids coming to tell me in school, I'd say, "Oh, what are you going to do when you grow up?" "I'm going to be on welfare." "I'm just going to have kids and I can get all the money I want." Remember how they used to give them money per child? They should have given them money for housing, for education. They prolonged the process of getting Black people into a better selection of, section of society by doing that for them. That should never have been done. They should have been taken care of, but they should have been taken care of, not with... well, maybe some food stamps, some subsidies, but not rewarded for having kids. That was a big mistake. So you know, as far as... and you know, I'm not a smart Asian. So when everyone says to me, "Well, you Asians are so smart," I said, "I'm not a smart Asian, I'm a nominal Asian." I mean, I made it through college because I studied hard. There was no failing, which was something that my parents instilled in me, which Japanese parents tend to be hard on their children. "You will succeed."

[Interruption]

LG: I guess, basically my last question, is there anything that we didn't talk about that we should?

DM: I think, because I have so much to say, I think we touched on about everything. You know, I look back and I look forward, I worry about the world today. I worry about the world today, not for myself. I worry about the day for you young people, because it's such utter chaos. I don't know how you look at it, but when I see the things that are going on, in 2023 when a country can invade another country and demolish it, that shouldn't be happening. That should not be happening. When I see the dissention between our political parties, it makes me unhappy. Because I don't know what the future holds for my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren. Are they going to be able to grow up in a world where I had some bumps in life, but I had a happy life. I lived the American Dream. Are they going to? I don't know. I'd like to leave the world a better place for them. And so when we have political conflicts about global warming, or we have political conflicts about the pandemic, when we have political conflicts just for having political conflicts that one party doesn't want to agree with the other, it scares me. It scares me, because Republicans say we're going to socialism, and we certainly don't want socialism, because we're fighting Communism. And we don't want the world where we have just the rich and the poor either, you want a middle class. So because now that I'm retired and living on a fixed income, do I consider myself middle class anymore? I did, but you know, I'm going further and further down. And I'd like to see my grandchildren live in the middle class. So that's... I'd like to see the world a happy place again. Trump said, "Make America Better, Greater." "Make America Great Again." Yes, I want to see America made great again, but I don't necessarily agree with the way Trump was going to do it. But yes, I want to see American great again.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2023 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.