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My father was born on June 12, 1903 in Fukui, Japan and my mother was born on February 7, 1906 in Fukui, Japan, but in separate villages. So they didn’t really know each other at that time.
And my mother was the eldest of four children. And she was, she was the favorite of her father. And which is what she told me. And she always wanted to be a nurse. And the father finally after many years of being badgered, relented and they sent her off to nursing school.
My dad, he was a single child and his father remarried someone else and they had so he had a bunch of half-sisters.
When he was in his pre-teens or teens, his father left Japan and brought his only son over to the U.S. and sent him to work in the Bingham Copper Mines, which is pretty hard labor.
And once once a month when he got paid, Grandpa was there to collect all his money and give him a couple of dollars to last until the next month’s pay. And my dad said that he had never gotten anything. His father had never given him anything which is why when they had me, you know, he felt that he needed to give me everything if I asked for it.
Date: May 13, 2022
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Evan Kodani
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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