Being accepted as biracial family

Getting involved in the family business at age 19 A body, mind and spirit work ethic Postwar discrimination Less information about Hawai‘i in mainland Family first Being accepted as biracial family Preserving tradition becoming more difficult To be “100 % Japanese”

Transcripts available in the following languages:

The anticipation of meeting people is more worrisome to me because her oldest brother got shot down by a Japanese plane and he got found in the Pacific Ocean but, you know, he was hurt so he couldn’t produce kids. But he was the oldest son and he’s like one year younger than my dad. But he was the most loving person I ever met. He accepted me and the father accepted me, the mom. The mom was a little bit different, difficult, but at the end, she loved me just like her son because I was born on the same day – November 10th. So she called me her “birthday boy.” It was difficult the first trip I was there but we all met, we had fun together. We talked together and everything. I thought it was a great meeting. The second time we met, it was 100 percent accepted, both sides. And we had a…the wedding…the reception was there, but we had an engagement reception in Boston but we had our wedding in Honolulu, at Japanese Chamber.

Date: June 1, 2006
Location: Hawai`i, US
Interviewer: Akemi Kikumura Yano
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

biracial boston family hawaii multi racial

Get updates

Sign up for email updates

Journal feed
Events feed
Comments feed

Support this project

Discover Nikkei

Discover Nikkei is a place to connect with others and share the Nikkei experience. To continue to sustain and grow this project, we need your help!

Ways to help >>

A project of the Japanese American National Museum


Major support by The Nippon Foundation