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(Japanese Homepage)American PF writes:
I still have a second-generation immigrant's fascination for the old country (China), and still have relatives (on my mother's side) in Singapore. We hope to pass that sense of family history on to our children. And to show them that the American way is not the only way to live.
The best way to accomplish either one, of course, is through stories. Tell your own; listen to others. As a society, Americans seem to have lost the habit, preferring to substitute the canned plotlines available on television to the real ones that constitute our lives. For example, our son was born so prematurely that his ears were not yet formed. His hands were such tiny things that my wedding ring fit over his wrist. Every once in a while, we tell ourselves this story, to remind both him and us that life may start small and grow wonderfully.
But we need to hear the sad stories too, the ones without happy endings. At my maternal grandmother's funeral, her daughters stood one by one to tell what they remembered of their youth during the Japanese occupation: the killings of their father and grandfather, the scarcity of food, the long walk from their home village to the city. These were stories that no one in my generation had ever heard before. They'd protected us from them, as one aunt put it, "Because such things were not fun." And yet we were all grateful to hear them. Stunned perhaps, pained certainly, but uplifted too. We knew ourselves better somehow.
Australian KM Writes:
When my father was young he served in the British Navy. He was part of a submarine crew. When I first heard this I was fascinated because I tried to imagine living with other people for a long period of time in such a small space. I wanted to get more of a picture of the situation from him. I wanted to ask him something about it to draw more information out of him, but I couldn't think of anything. I never have found out anything more about it.
Regarding other stories of his past, Dad has protested that my brothers and I aren't interested in hearing about them. That's not true. It's just difficult to set-up the situation in a way he would find sincere. I take after my dad, and therefore there are many things I could learn from his experience, let alone just trying to understand him.
As human beings, no matter how different our lifestyles are, we all share the same fundamental emotions and experience. Yet, because none of our lives are the same, we all have something to teach, and something to learn. As a part of our collective history, our family and our personal histories, everyone's story is valuable.
AFFLILIATIONS:
Association of Personal Historians (USA), Oral History Association (USA), International Biographical Center (UK), The PEN Club (Japan). Legacy Memoirs is an imprint of Breakthrough Seminars, Inc. (Japan)
SAMPLE TRANSCRIPT
From an Interview in Las Vegas, Nevada
Conducted on October 21, 1998
Audio Tape One, Side Two
The following short selection is an excerpt, with permission, from an interview with Betty Jean Harper, conducted by Ellen Epstein, author of Record and Remember: Tracing Your Roots Through Oral History. The edited version of Ms. Harper's Legacy Memoir can be seen by clicking CONTINUE at the bottom of this page.
Q: Let me just ask you a little bit... so, the war was going on when you were in school?
A: It started when I was eleven years old, December 7th, 1941. Yep.
Q: Do you remember?
A: I remember I was walking home. At that point, we lived in the last place that I lived in... was the... oh, what do you call it... the apartment on El Camino Real. And I remember I was... I don't know where I... maybe I was... it was a Sunday, wasn't it?
Q: Yes.
A: I'd been to church, that's why. Because I remember the direction was going back. And why would I be going that way? That's what it was. I'd been to church, walking home. But I was by myself. And this boy... I don't remember which one, a kid that was in school with me... told me the war... that we were at war. And I said, "No." You know, I mean, nobody you know... you how kids.... And I went home and found out it was true. Yeah. Yeah... Now, that's wrong. I couldn't have been... that isn't where I was living, because it was 1941, and we didn't move to Belmont till I was... till 1940. So it was the house. I was going the other direction. But I remember, whoever it was, he was on a bicycle and he told me. Yeah.
Q: So did the war have any impact in terms of rationing? Do you remember...?
A: Oh sure, yes, I sure do. We saved tin foil. Cause we didn't have aluminum foil in those days. Saved tin foil, like off candy bars or whatever it was on. And big balls of it. We saved tin cans. And we had a tin can house at the school that they built. It was a little shed that they built. Pardon me... you'd take them down there and give them to them. And we had cigarettes. Of course, I didn't smoke, but my mother did and my father did. And cigarettes were rationed. Shoes were rationed. I think you could only have two pair a year. Of course, by that time... well, at eleven I guess our feet were still growing, but... less than if you had babies. That must have been really hard. What else did we... oh... we planted a victory garden. Well, we planted the victory garden in... down at the creek, my sister and I. We grew... oh, I don't know what we grew. I don't even know if it was edible. But we were growing it anyway. Maybe that's why we had the garden in the back yard. It was a victory garden. That makes sense. Because we had the dog nearer the beginning of our stay there, the one that ate the cucumbers.
Q: And did you have a car at that time?
A: We had a car. In fact, there's a picture... there's a picture in those pictures of my father going like this out the window of a car. It shows the car. And that was 1940, because that's stamped on the back of... from the picture, you know, the people who did the printing. Yeah, we had a car. It was a coupe.
Q: Do you remember any gasoline rationing then?
A: I remember there was gasoline rationing. And I believe we had an A-card. It was whatever was the most common, you know, kind of card that you got for gasoline. I think coffee. I don't know whether coffee was rationed or not. I think it was. Nylons were. But see, my sister and I were not old enough to wear nylons, not when it started at any rate. And... I know you could go... we had a little store on the corner, a little grocery store. And we'd get on our skates and skate down there and twirl around the pole and come back up to the house. But you could go in... this is something that's long gone... you could go in the store, and the chickens in those days were fresh. And they had plucked them, but they'd have some pin feathers, and I remember the little light, the little fire came out of this pipe, and they would singe the pin feathers on the chickens. And when you went in and got something, they would give you liver for your cat, or... cause we had a cat... or they would even give you a hotdog, you know, cause they are cooked anyway. They'd give the kids a hotdog, and we'd chew on the hotdog as we were going home. I don't think rationing... other than we were really aware of it, of course, because we were doing all this saving. Oh, and my mother... my mother knitted turtleneck sweaters for the... I think it was the Coast Guard, if I'm not mistaken. And she taught us to knit squares of a certain size. And all you did was knit squares. And then somebody, somewhere else, put them together and made afghans out of them. And so that's how I learned to knit, from doing those. Yep.
Q: And when the war was over, do you remember where you were?
A: That would have been 1945?
Q: Right.
A: I was still in Belmont, because I was there until I was nineteen.
Q: But do you remember a lot of hoopla or anything?
A: I remember blackout curtains, because I lived in California. We had the blackout curtains so that the light wouldn't show through. And, I remember too, two of my very, very dearest girlfriends... until this day I could cry. One was... her name, if I don't have them wrong, and I've always said they were these names... one was Chieko Nagatoshi and the other one was a Yukiko Iwasa. And they had to go off to the camps that they had. Oh, I remember how I felt. It was so terrible.
Q: Did you get a chance to say goodbye?
A: Yes, I got a chance to say goodbye because they were in my class, huh? I mean, not inasmuch as they were not going to come back, yeah. And the one... it was Chieko... gave me a doll, a Japanese doll. I don't have it anymore unfortunately. I wish I did. But I really valued that too. There... see... Belmont was what they called "restricted" in those days. You had to be, I guess, Anglo-Saxon white to be in there, to live in Belmont. But the Japanese had the gardens, beautiful gardens, and they grew the chrysanthemums and stuff that they sold to the floral shops. AhSam's is one. AhSam's is still there in... I think it's San Mateo. Beautiful flowers. And they sold the flowers. Why Chieko and Yukiko were in my class, I guess, was probably where they lived, and I don't know where they lived. But we didn't have that many schools. So Belmont happened to have a school, and they went to Belmont School. I don't know....
Q: Do you know what happened to them?
A: No, never. Never ever, ever heard from them again. Uh-uh. Yeah. So I guess, because they were my friends, all the propaganda and stuff we had about the Japanese and the Germans... I never hated anybody. Until this day I don't, huh? It was a bad... it was a bad thing. But uh... now, I have wondered over the years how they were, or where they... I would love to meet them if they are still alive. One would be my age. I'd love to see them again. But you know, the Japanese community, where was it? I think it couldn't be in Honolulu, because Honolulu has loads of Japanese people... but somewhere I lived, the names... the community was so small that they knew where these people were, and the names did not ring a bell with whomever I talked to, and I don't even remember where it was, you know. They didn't know of them. So, I don't know. It's sad.
Q: So the war ended in 1945. And in 1948 you graduated from high school. Was there a lot of pomp and circumstance to do with your graduation? Do you remember the graduation?
A: Sure, I remember graduation. In fact, when I was in high school, we had a choral club called the Treble Clef. Mr. Carrington was the music teacher. And I was in the Treble Clef. They only had like fourteen of us each year. It wasn't a big thing. But we really practiced, and we really sang. We sang all over the place. And I do remember one time... it shows you how people are so unthinking... we went to a veteran's place. A hospital? But I know it was for veterans, and they were sick. You know, they had on bathrobes. And we sang, and one of the songs we sang was "My Buddy." Oi vey! They got up and a lot of them walked out. I can't blame them.
Q: Why don't you explain that, because your grandchildren listening to that might not know what that reference means.
A: Oh no, I'm just talking.
Q: But "My Buddy" the song.
A: The song, "My Buddy." Uh-huh. Yeah.
Q: Why did it cause the...?
A: Oh, because they had buddies, or friends, that died. Some were blown up next to them. And some killed in other ways. So I can understand why they would have left, you know.
Legacy Memoirs
E-mail: legacymemoirs@geocities.com
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