(Japanese) For the first half of my life in America, I walked the exact same path as the Issei; I think I’ve done the same kind of things as the them. For the first 15 years, even after I got married and had three children, for over ten years until my father died, I continued to send money home. So, no matter how hard I worked, I had almost no savings. My three daughters in elementary school – and I as well – never had any fun memories of vacation or anything like that.
So, for me, you could say the Kibei are “junior Issei”. That’s where I place them.
Like the Issei, I’ve done everything – from gardener’s apprentice to houseboy, from truck driver to vendor at a tiny shop. I worked by doing things that were around me, one after another. Because of that, I couldn’t really go to school. No, not “I couldn’t really go”; I didn’t go at all. So, the same went for studying English. This is my failure – that I didn’t go to school.
Date: January 31, 2012
Location: California, US
Interviewer: John Esaki, Yoko Nishimura
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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