Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/925/

Talking with Grandmother

My grandmother used to baby-sit me when I was a little kid and we’d spend the whole day together she’d speak to me in Japanese and I’d speak to her in English and neither one of us had any idea what the other was saying but somehow we talked all day long.


families hapa languages racially mixed people

Date: February 7, 2000

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Johnnie James Morton, Jr. was born in Inglewood, CA in 1971, the son of an African American father and Japanese American mother. As a child, he attended Saturday Japanese school in Gardena for three years. Growing up in Torrance, California, he graduated from the University of Southern California after a distinguished career as a student athlete on the Trojan football team.

Morton is a twelve-year veteran in the National Football League and currently plays wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers. He has done some modeling and acting work, including an appearance playing himself in the film Jerry Maguire. (August 10, 2005)

Fumiko Hachiya Wasserman
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Wasserman,Fumiko Hachiya

Mother founded Japanese language school in neighbors’ backyard

Sansei judge for the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California

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Holly J. Fujie
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Fujie,Holly J.

Her grandfather was pressured to teach Japanese

Sansei judge on the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California

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Kazumu Naganuma
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Naganuma,Kazumu

His sister Kiyo was like a second mother to him

(b. 1942) Japanese Peruvian incarcerated in Crystal City

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Masato Ninomiya
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Ninomiya,Masato

How he met his wife

Professor of Law, University of Sao Paulo, Lawyer, Translator (b. 1948)

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Reiko T. Sakata
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Sakata,Reiko T.

Parent’s Marriage

(b. 1939) a businesswoman whose family volunterily moved to Salt Lake City in Utah during the war.

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