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RB: So a few different things I want to touch on. I guess one question that I had, as you kind of came back here and spent more time with your parents in their twilight years, and you as an adult, were there certain things that you talked about related to the Japanese American experience, related to family history and identity, topics that you didn't necessarily broach when you were an adolescent living with them that maybe shaped your understanding of your understanding of your identity or your history?

MA: Yeah, that's a good question. I think what I tried to do was just listen and maybe prop some questions regarding camp life. Because I really wanted to fully understand and appreciate what they had gone through. And I think what's interesting for me, as we speak, my son is very interested to document this story and journey. So he and my daughter are on a mission, if you will, to kind of incorporate all the lessons learned that they've either had in conversations with their grandmother and father, Baachan and Jiichan. And they have energized me. So the three of us have taken a new mission, if you will, to try to understand the Asada and Taniguchi families and the journey that has transpired. And so as we were uncovering things about, whether it's camp life, and I always knew that my father's father did not join the family on the first trip to Poston. He was detained by the FBI and the Department of Justice facility. But my son found out through the Freedom of Information Act that my father had written the Attorney General of the United States at that time and asked where the location of his father was. Because he was sixteen, he was taking care of his ill mother, and he was wondering where his father was. So my son was able to locate these letters that were written to the attorney general in the National Archives. So there was a file about my grandfather with five or six letters that my dad had written. So it's really interesting to see what he wrote, his handwriting, and it's brought me back to, again, to think about how articulate he was at sixteen years old. No college, just graduated from high school, but concerned about how to take care of his mother. Because she is ill, but he doesn't know where his father is. So I can try to transcode myself. How would I have reacted, or try to take care of my mother? So this is very soul-searching, it's therapeutic, and it's allowed me to, in my final stages, allowed me to kind of become passionate about trying to assist my son and daughter to tell the story and to document it.

RB: Were your children interested in their Japanese American heritage in childhood, or is this something that sort of came to that later in adulthood?

MA: No, I think they were always interested from childhood, and I credit that to their mother, who was not Japanese, she was Caucasian. So my children are hapa, but they appreciated their Japanese heritage, and they've embraced it, and I think now, with the revelation of what my grandfather had gone through, they're even more interested about trying to put the pieces together. But they've always embraced their identity, they're proud of being hapa, but they're proud of being Japanese Americans. And they enjoy all the cultural things, whether it's festivals. We have a family reunion, the Asadas. I'm going to take my family to Japan, to Osaka in 2025, because my son, who is the State Department, had been the Deputy Commissioner General in Dubai for the World Expo. And so the next Expo in 2025 is going to be in Osaka, so we decided to make that as a focal point and hub, and we're going to all congregate there. And not only spend time there, but go to Hiroshima and hopefully see both sides of the families from their birth.

RB: That's terrific. So are you still in touch with your relatives?

MA: I am not. I think my son has reached out, and it's interesting, but he is very focused, and he's made the, I guess, he's reached out and he's made the contacts. I have not, so I know we have relatives there, but I have never reached out, but my son has. So he's made some contacts already.

RB: That will be very exciting. So I guess I could probably assume the answer to some of this, but do you feel that your parents instilled certain values in you that are linked to Japanese or Japanese or Japanese American culture? In part, do you think you then imparted those into your children?

MA: I think so, absolutely. I think whether it was a subtle way of growing up or whether it was indoctrinated in me, I understood from day one, even though they said not to think about myself, but to blend in. But I knew inside the house, I can even hear the words, you know, "never dishonor your family," it's always about honor and respect. And so I do feel the values that they instilled upon me, I incorporated it into my DNA, if you will, and then, in conjunction with that, with my military background, I think both of those, I tried to instill in my children. And so they were probably brainwashed from day one as well. But they're probably in better shape than I was when I was indoctrinated. But I could see the lineage if you will, the connection, and they're proud to be Japanese American, they're proud to be hapa, they're proud to participate and appreciate the Japanese culture in the United States.

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