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RB: In terms of the house, were your family living in Seabrook corporate housing?

MA: We did. When I was young, we lived in the village, which is on the same side of the school systems. If you are familiar with the area, the schools are located on the east side of Route 77, which is kind of north and south. And there's a set of schools there, but my father was able to get in a lottery after I was ten or eleven, and he was able to move into a single home on the other side of the street. So I was able to walk to school, say, a five minute walk to school, and very convenient, and all my friends, we all lived in the same area. And so like I said, we went to school together, we played together, our parents all worked at Seabrook Farms, and so it was really, I didn't appreciate, I guess, the security and the sense of just being able to not worry about things. I guess that's the main point.

RB: Were your parents involved in Japanese American community spaces as you were growing up?

MA: I would say yes. We have a Seabrook Buddhist Temple, and my mother was the main leader in the temple, she was a Sunday school teacher, member of the board. And my father not in leadership positions would always support the various activities, whether it was a chow mein dinner sale, whether it was making sushi, whether it was Obon festival, all these types of events that drew the Japanese American community together, they were a part of if not leading or supporting in some fashion. But I would make the comment that, interestingly, even though these were Japanese American community events, it was really supported by the entire community. So again, you would see a really, support from various ethnic communities that supported us, the Estonians would be out, the Latvians would be out, the Puerto Ricans, and the African Americans. And they would all come to these events, and it was very, very well-populated.

RB: Do you have any specific memories of either the JACL chow mein dinners or the Obon in childhood and adolescence?

MA: Yes, I do. I remember, as I said, back then, there was a lot of Issei and Nisei. Us Sansei, we were small, but we were just doing errands. But I remember my mother and my father and my aunts and uncles and my grandparents and other Isseis, they'd have an assembly line for making chow mein or sushi, they'd have all the ingredients. I can just still picture this. Or making mochi for mochitsuki, we would have the old fashioned, the steamed rice and then we would have someone pound it. And then several, ten years later, they were able to get this grinder where they would grind the rice up and then make it into the patties, and then they would box them up. So, yes, I had very fond memories of that. Probably I can't say when it stopped doing the chow mein dinners and the mochitsuki, because then this lack of people to support it because it's a very senior population that we have here. And out of the twenty-five hundred original Japanese Americans, there's only about, as I understand it now, about two dozen, maybe twenty-four that you can name by name from that original twenty-five hundred. And that's because of people moving on, my generation, after I graduated from high school, went to school, and probably went off to work somewhere else. So there was not a lot that stayed behind, and the ones that stayed behind had to do the work and support of these events, and it was tough to support.

RB: Do you remember Oshogatsu celebrations?

MA: I do. My family as well as all the Japanese American families, would open up their house on New Year's. And I remember my mother slaving away, making sushi, roast duck, chow men, shrimp platters. But I'd be home helping her in a sense, and I was, again, an adolescent, up into my high school years. But I remember my father going out, and he would pay the respects and welcome other families, and he'd go door to door, and all the other men would be coming to our house. And so they wouldn't really eat a lot, they would have their customary drink and toast, and move on. But because we had all this food, I asked my mom during high school if it would be okay to invite my friends, my high school friends. So she said, "Oh, yeah." So my high school friends loved it, they all came over. So there was a couple of dozen friends that always would stop by for New Year's and kind of celebrate. So to this day, I carry on that tradition in my own sense. I open up my house on New Year's day. When I was in the service, I would open it up to my units and my families would come in. And then later on as I became a businessperson, I would have my business contacts and colleagues come. So it was very fun, and I told them why it happens, because Oshogatsu is the most important holiday for the Japanese, and so I wanted to carry on this tradition, so that's what I've been doing.

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