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Did you live in the country when Pearl Harbor happened
or were you living back in the city?
I
was in Saratoga living with this American family, and my mother was
teaching. In the country she taught on weekends, because the kids couldn't
go after school to the Japanese language school, so they went on weekends.
She was teaching, Pearl Harbor that day, and I was with this family
in Saratoga.
Do you remember the day you went to go live as an au pair?
I went to this family but I could go home on weekends or on Sundays anyway, so that I probably just took clothes, it probably meant I change high schools because I was going to Campbell but then I went to Los Gatos. So I would have to make new friends. The situation is new moving into a family of two boys, but I don't remember that it was a difficult time.
What was your reaction within the Caucasian family?
I didn't know anything was going to happen to me. Neither did they and I was not treated any differently.
Was their reaction any different from that of yours?
I don't think so, because by that time I am considering myself an American and I listen to the radio just like they were doing and reacted to the reports that we heard as they did.
Can you tell me more about working and living in an American house as an au pair?
It was learning how to eat food that was different, prepare food that was different. I remember this lady said "we're going to have cobbler for dessert tonight," and I had no idea what she was talking about, and I learned quickly because that was part of what I was to do was to help prepare dinner. I'm trying to think what else would I have learned that would be different—the way a family communicates with each other.
How is it different?
There's a lot more interaction, because as we are growing up, we are children, we are not to speak until it's our turn. We didn't express ourselves because it was just not allowed.
Were there kids in the caucasian family.
Yes there were two boys.
Did you see a difference in the way you behaved around the house?
Because of the boys.
Was it different living with a culturally different family?
It wasn't for me. These two boys were like my younger brothers. They helped me with my homework as I helped them with theirs. They taught me how to play tennis. The younger one especially. We would go to movies, that's where I learned to appreciate culture that is. I was taken to concerts and it was always the younger one who went with me.
Did you run into any discrimination as a Japanese-American when you were with this family?
Not at all, not at all. There weren't that many. I had found out, I went to Los Gatos High from Saratoga, and I just recently met someone who was there at the same time I was, and we said we all knew each other because there was just maybe a handful of Asians. This is Los Gatos, so there were no African Americans that I remember. I don't know that there were any Latinos.
Did that kind of atmosphere change as the war neared?
I did not feel it, not in school. I just had a great time in high school.
Did you continue to hang out with those Caucasian boys at school?
There weren't enough Asians in my class so that I could be friends with anybody. My step brother was one of them in my class I think. But there was maybe two or three others who were girls and we're not particularly friends. Yes, we're acquaintances. My friends were Caucasian, and I was the only girl taking advanced math or physics. My acquaintances there were all the boys.
Did you do well in school?
Yes.
Did your family pressure you to do well in school or were you self-driven?
It's expected.
What does it mean that you were "expected" to do well in school, how was that expressed?
I'm trying to think, how would she have told us? My older sister was good in school, my brother was excellent, and so I am following in their footsteps, so I'm supposed to be like them.
Do you recall everyone being expected to perform well?
I'm next to the youngest, and the youngest one was sickly as a child, so nothing was expected of her.
Did you put a lot of pressure on yourself to keep to the standard that your older siblings set?
I think I did, because I worked hard in school.
Did these expectations apply to other things other than school?
I think it was mostly school.
How did your sister, being sickly, alter the family dynamic?
The older sister was the first grandchild, and of course she's the first- born so she gets things alright. And then along came my brother. Actually I have another sister who was born in Japan and left there with my grandparents, so when you ask me at first about how many I have in my family, I really pause because I don't know whether to count her in or not, but she was left with my grandparents.
So how did your younger sister alter this dynamic?
She was the youngest one, so it's always "poor thing." My father died when she was four, I was six, and she was four, so poor thing because she's lost her father. My older sister, she graduated from high school and that very night is when my father died. So these two become rather special in my mother's eye, and to this day we say, "Those two are spoiled." And me being in-between I got the full brunt of it.
How close were you to your siblings?
Very close to my brother, and I just lost him the other day, because he was five years older, he was a great reader. He said that in the attic in the house we lived in, the lady had kept books, many books apparently. That's where he learned to read the classics. He then taught me to read and appreciate literature.
Do you have any specific memories about experiences with your brother?
Other than teaching me how to read? In recent times, I could talk with him about politics, people. I depended a lot on him for just a conversation—someone to talk to and get feedback from. He was more a talker, I was the listener.
How did you get to work for the family or live with
them?
How
did I get there? My mother must have put an ad in the paper. "Mother's
Helper" I think is what they were called. A lady came and interviewed
me, and I went to live with the family. On weekends, Sundays was my
day off, so I would go home on Sunday. Pearl Harbor is when my mother
was teaching. My brother by then had been drafted into the army, and
he was at Camp Roberts and he would come home on weekends. So he was
home that weekend and my mother's teaching, 'til about noon, she comes
home and there's the radio. We hear Pearl Harbor. Of course my brother
immediately went back to camp to his headquarters. We didn't know
what was going to happen, so we just went on living as usual. Until
we get the order in February.
Where were you when you first heard of Pearl Harbor?
I was at home, because it was a Sunday, and I went home on Sunday. So I was home, my mother was in the country, she taught the Japanese school on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so Sunday morning she was teaching. When was that when we heard about Pearl Harbor, around noon? So she had just come home perhaps and I was already there. My brother had been drafted and he was stationed at Camp Roberts, and he was home for the weekend, so we knew when you heard on the radio, he returned to his camp. We just wondered "Oh, what does this mean?," my mother being a Japanese language teacher. We just didn't know what the consequences would be right then and there. We just knew something extraordinary would be happening to us too.
Did you have any reaction when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor?
I just thought it was an awful thing to do.
Were you angry? Did you have any specific emotion?
I'm trying to think?
Or even just your reaction?
When I heard? My brother had said he felt that the war was inevitable. My thought must have been, "This is it." So how would I have reacted? I considered myself non-Japanese so it would be a reaction as an American.
What did you think of President Roosevelt prior to the war and during it?
We're taught not to question authority. We grew up during the Depression time, so FDR was great. He could do no wrong.
But what about when he signed Executive Order 9066?
That's part of war. We'd accept it. Again, we don't question authority.
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