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RB: Did your parents speak Japanese at home?

MA: My parents did not speak Japanese much. They did speak Japanese, and I think that's where I feel like I kind of missed out, because I had to go to Japanese school when I was a child, and prior to Sunday school, yeah, Sunday school in the temple. And so at five or six we had a small classroom, there was no heat. I remember having my winter coat on, I could see my breath, and it was just not a pleasant experience. But it was Japanese lessons, it was Japanese school, and I just told my mother, after a couple years, "I cannot take this anymore." I said, "I really don't want to go," and I just made a fuss, I guess. So she allowed me not to take the Japanese classes anymore, so to this day, I regret that. So to answer your question, yes, they did speak Japanese, but not necessarily on a regular dialogue. My father's mother lived with us, and she raised me. And so my mother and father were working in the plant on shift work, my father was shift work. But my grandmother raised me, and she couldn't speak English. So she would speak to me in Nihongo and I would always answer her in English. So I can understand Japanese to some degree, and I could speak just a very, very minimal, just to get by.

RB: So you mentioned your father was on shift work. What did that entail, exactly?

MA: So shift work, depending on what occupation or job you had at the factory, and I think my father was working in the cold storage warehouse. And if it was a night shift, he'd go in, I'm assuming it was like maybe five o'clock or six o'clock, and he worked through the night in an eight hour shift or ten hour shift. And so he would come home during the day and sleep. And so my mother, she was a payroll clerk, so she was very popular. Because on Friday, she would pay out the paychecks to every employee, so she kind of knew everybody, everyone knew my mother. So she had a nine to five shift per se, but my father was sleeping during the day, and then he would go to work in the evening. And then when I'd come home after school around three, I'd have to be very quiet because my father was sleeping. So that was the type of shift work that was very common for all the people that worked in Seabrook Farms.

RB: Were you involved in any Japanese American sports activities and other teams?

MA: No. Surprisingly, we didn't have those types of leagues for my age group. I do remember at the community center where there was a large... well, I guess for my mother and father, they had social events, they had dances, and they had basketball leagues. I remember my mom had these various jackets, silk jackets with the emblem of their team on there. And I remember my uncles, they played in softball leagues, the JACL, Seabrook JACL. I just saw one of my uncles' jerseys. And so I don't know why that did not continue, but at my age, they didn't have a youth basketball league or a baseball league or anything, so we kind of just migrated to the conventional Little League or church basketball league. So there was no specific Japan American League.

RB: So I guess you touched on this a little bit in one of your earlier answers, but growing up, did you have a sense of being Japanese American or is that an identity that you sort came into later in your life?

MA: Yeah. Again, I know it sounds bizarre, but I did not really think that I was Japanese American. I know that's maybe hard to believe, but again, I think my parents really encouraged me just to not stand out and blend in. And I guess it was ingrained on me that it was just blending in. And so I never really appreciate -- I mean, I did appreciate the fact that we have our Obon festivals and I put on my yukata or whatever and dressed up, but I never really sensed that I was Japanese American until about, I guess middle school or high school where I sensed that on a couple of occasions, that I did receive a little bit of prejudice and discrimination. I didn't kind of understand what was going on here, but I did feel like I was not welcomed in this particular area. And then names started to be called out, and then I started to sense, "You know what? Maybe I am a little different." I do look different, but I never sensed that as I was growing up.

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