MATSUKUMA​,​ Mitsuko

When my husband came to America to study medicine, he sent for me, and I joined him for a while. Our children were born here, but in 1933 I went back to Japan with my elderly mother and the children. My husband later became a member of the House of Representatives, but we didn’t have enough money, so we turned all our property into cash to support him. It was a hard life. He had said he would run in the general election, but without money, it just wasn’t possible. The next time, he became the campaign manager for another candidate in the second election, but then he collapsed from a heart attack. By that point, we had spent everything we had, and when he passed away, we were left with nothing. He died in Tokyo, and we held his funeral there. During the war, our eldest son—he was born in Los Angeles—was nine years old. Now he’s working in Japan as a company employee. My eldest daughter stayed in Japan too, but my second son went to America. After the war, we had lost everything in Japan, and Japan itself was defeated. So, thinking America might offer a better life, I came back to the United States again in 1957. When I arrived, there were only a couple of other Japanese people around here, and we mostly spoke Japanese among ourselves. I can’t really manage English. Even at church, the sermons and prayers have to be in Japanese. My daughter tells me I should watch English TV shows so I can get used to the sound, but I just can’t. Once, a seventeen-year-old found my handbag and returned it to me, but since I can’t speak English, I couldn’t even thank him properly—or explain anything to the police if I needed to. It’s scary, so I hardly go out. Now I live with my husband. I have one younger brother still living in Japan. This interview is part of the DMHJNY's new exhibit Issei: Portraits Of The First-Generation Japanese New Yorkers which is on view here: https://www.historyofjapaneseinny.org/issei/