Hans Goto | Interview 2 | February 16, 2022

FARRELL: This is Shanna Farrell back with Hans Goto on Wednesday, February 16, 2022. This is our second session for the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project and we are speaking over Zoom. Hans, when we left off we were talking about your early life, a little bit about your early education, we kind of left off starting with your high school years. You attended Watsonville High. I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what your experience was at Watsonville?

GOTO: Watsonville High was pretty interesting. It was an extremely large school. I want to say that it was literally bursting at the seams. It should have been two high schools but it was one high 00:01:00school. They ended up having split sessions, as they called it. There was an early session and then there was an early session and the later session went later than the earlier session, et cetera. In the middle of the day, late morning, early afternoon everybody was there. My memory says six thousand kids. It was just outrageously huge so it was a very interesting time. There was a huge mix of students. There were Caucasians, Japanese Americans because of the farming community in Watsonville. There were a lot of Hispanics and a lot of Filipinos and some Chinese Americans were mixed in, too, but not as many. I would say the other ethnic groups were a little bit more. It was a huge 00:02:00mix and it was really fun that way to be in a high school.

Previously, the school I went to was in Corralitos and that Corralitos school went from kindergarten to eighth grade so there was no middle school. From primary school we went straight into high school, which was a huge, huge adjustment. Big books and just having to carry things. It was a bit of an adjustment. I remember it as being interesting and challenging and so on.

My second year, I don't know how I got started with the others, a couple of my friends, but we got interested in surfing because we were in the Santa Cruz area. We'd go surfing a lot or just try 00:03:00to. They also said, "You should get involved in school politics." I said, "I don't even know what you're talking about." They go, "You should run for vice president of the sophomore class and then if you get that, then junior year you should run for the president of the junior class and then your senior year we'll put you up for student body president." I go, "You guys are just crazy." My friends basically ran the campaign and that's exactly what happened. So sophomore vice president. I got to cruise around. Junior president. I had no idea what I was doing but I had fun because whatever. Nobody really cared in high school anyway but it was fun to do the campaign and then student body president I just had to say a few words every once in a while 00:04:00but, again, it was really not a big deal. I think that was the most interesting part of high school, was being involved in that sort of activity.

I did do some sports freshman year. I did lightweight football, which meant the small guys doing football, and track. I injured my ankle skiing in my sophomore year so I was able to get a doctor's excuse and just swim. Instead of doing PE [physical education] I could just swim the whole time for PE and I loved that. That was just great. Yeah, I have fond memories of high school. I don't feel I was ever picked on or abused. I think a couple of times some guys were starting to fight and I was able to 00:05:00intervene just by talking to them. I was amazed at how a voice could be powerful enough to intervene and stop violence.

FARRELL: Did your friends share with you why they thought you would make a good vice president and then later president?

GOTO: I think it was a joke that went out of control. Believe me, these guys, I think had had too much sun from surfing. It was a semi-joke and then everybody was shocked, including me, that it actually worked. But they actually put in a lot of energy. We made cards and they went out at lunchtime. They talked to everybody. They said, "You should vote for this guy," and people would go, "Well, who is he?" "Oh, he's that guy over there." It was a great PR campaign that they ran. I think it's 00:06:00just that crazy energy that high school kids sometimes have. I think that's what really ran the whole thing. It wasn't ambition because I really had no idea what the job was.

FARRELL: Were there any issues that you found yourself caring more about or trying to work on?

GOTO: That's a really good question. I think, as silly as it seems now, probably the only issue that I felt strongly about and stood up to the administration about was the length of the skirts. At that time there were mini-skirts and high school girls would wear mini-skirts and the administration was really horrified by that. They just wanted longer, it had to cover the knees or some ridiculous thing and so there was a lost battle basically. We took it to the administration, too it to the 00:07:00principal. No, sorry. But we fought the good fight, I thought, but didn't win.

FARRELL: Did you have any teachers that you found were particularly influential or, if not, maybe some subjects that you liked the most?

GOTO: I really liked biology. I really liked the teacher but he was kind of goofy. The best part of his class is that every Thanksgiving he would make a big turkey and then we would bring the fixings, all the side dishes, and then we'd have this big banquet. It was just hilarious. He'd talk about the biology of cooking the turkey and so on. He'd kind of fit it into the program. But he was a real character. I learned a lot from him but he was also kind of a goofy guy.

The person I'm still in contact 00:08:00with, the person who surprises me how influential he is, is a US history teacher and his name is Mas Hashimoto. I didn't find out until just a few years ago, I want to say, like twenty years ago, that he was in the 442nd. He was born in, I think, Minidoka, one of the camps, and none of that ever came up in high school. He was a great teacher. He was really strict. I didn't care for US history. At that time it seemed to me too many dates and that sort of thing and not the bigger picture. Like I enjoyed the fact of what was happening, why was it happening, who was doing 00:09:00it and so on and I felt like the dates and things were sort of secondary but we could work that in. But anyway, I felt at that time there was a great emphasis on dates, knowing dates, knowing whatever it was occurred when. But he was a great teacher. He was very disciplined. He was one of the strictest US history teachers. And lo and behold, he's still in contact with our family. I am still in contact with him. I am amazed. He and his wife are super, super nice people and he keeps in touch with my mom as much as possible. Yeah, really great person.

FARRELL: How did you find out that he was in the 442 and born in one of the camps?

GOTO: By accident. My mother went to an event 00:10:00and he was at the same event and it was in Morgan Hill where they have an exhibit of the 442nd. They just announced and said, "Yes, this fellow, Mas Hashimoto, was in the 442nd." It was like, wow, I had no idea. Had no idea. I feel like I've matured late, late maturity about finding out all of these things about the camps and the history of people and so on. But I'm sure glad I at least have found out. But it's like, wow, what took you so long to figure this out? But anyway.

FARRELL: When he was your teacher did he ever talk about incarceration? So he didn't teach that as a subject area?

GOTO: No, it was never a topic in high 00:11:00school. I took a history class in college but I didn't stay in it long enough to see if they would get to that part of US history. But yeah, I had never really heard about it, about the camps, being incarcerated and all that except through my parents by incidental talking to other people.

FARRELL: When you were in high school did you have any early career aspirations? I know you went on to attend UC Santa Cruz. Was there anything in particular that drew you to Santa Cruz?

GOTO: One of the things was that it was close, close to home. But also, I thought the notion of a school that was centered around small colleges -- so there were small colleges associated with a larger 00:12:00university, sort of an Oxford system as they described it in the old days, and I thought that was really interesting. My parents really wanted me to go to school in Southern California where they went to school but, yeah, it was just not my style to go down there. So yeah, I applied to UC Santa Cruz and then I was surprised that I was accepted. I was happy to go into Santa Cruz at that time.

FARRELL: You started in 1968, which is a pretty big year in terms of all the cultural changes that were happening at the time. What was your experience like attending Santa Cruz?

GOTO: It was really interesting. It was a huge culture shock for me. Number one, I came from really a 00:13:00country high school, let's just say, Watsonville, where hair was cut short. Shorter than this now. Very academic, carrying books all the time and stuff. Santa Cruz was just at total eye-opener. People had bushy hair, long hair. Just a whole different culture. Literally a city on a hill. It was a completely different change so it took some adjusting. The students themselves were nice. The professors were super nice. But I'd never faced such rigorous academics before. I realized when I went into college I had just cruised through high school, that I just used whatever native intelligence I had. I could write out 00:14:00whatever, a paper and stuff, and it was okay. But in college I was just astounded how much I had to read and how much I had to produce. I didn't realize how short the quarter system was, that it was ten weeks and not a semester and it was like, "Oh, yeah, I can handle that." It was quite an adjustment, honestly, so it was interesting.

FARRELL: What were you majoring in?

GOTO: At that time I was majoring in biology. There was nothing like pre-med. I was thinking of following in the footsteps of my parents. That's all they pushed. They always pushed, "You should go into medicine." My father had one whole idea, my mother had a whole other idea of what type of medicine but medicine nonetheless and 00:15:00so I did that at first. By the time I got to my second year, sophomore year, I looked at how much time I was spending in the laboratories and how much time I was looking out the window at the sunshine in Santa Cruz, in the Santa Cruz area, and I went, "I'd like to spend a little bit of time outside in the sun." I started readjusting some of my classes and I ended up with a psychology major but I still had a lot of credits in biology and so on and hard sciences. Yeah. I took the easy route out just because I said to myself, "Am I going to be in studying like that for the next twelve to fifteen years of my life?" I thought, 00:16:00"Oh, this is really tough." That was a really tough question when I was nineteen years old.

FARRELL: Yeah, it's a really big commitment in terms of staring at your future in school.

GOTO: Yes, yes. I saw that immediately. I went, "Oh, am I ready for this?" I have to admire my parents, for both of them just being very focused. They were both super focused on that.

FARRELL: Did they give you any pushback for switching majors or not pursuing medicine?

GOTO: No. I mean I could tell they were disappointed but there was never like, "Oh, go back there and do this again." They just said, "Okay, okay. Figure out what you want to do." They were really very understanding, I think.

FARRELL: At Santa Cruz did you have any professors who were 00:17:00significant or classes?

GOTO: Let's see. Excuse me. I really enjoyed a lot of the microbiology classes. It was just fascinating to be one of the first students to work on an electron microscope and see cells being sliced and then you could see how they're constructed. That was fascinating to me. It's mostly the graduate students, of course, but that was great. But the other significant professor, because he has such a grand name I can never forget it, is Professor Burney Le Boeuf. He was a marine biology teacher and so we would go out to the 00:18:00ocean and he'd talk about kelp, how to harvest kelp, what type of kelp was edible, how to prepare it, et cetera. Also we'd go out to Año Nuevo Beach just north of Santa Cruz and he was a very crazy, eccentric professor. He'd be running out there with a mop dipped in paint, white paint, and he'd sneak up behind the elephant seals, which were really endangered at that time, and he would mark them. Then they'd turn around and he'd go running off into the distance. But he would mark them and he'd have us just make sure we knew what number it was or whatever he marked. It was exciting. I thought, "Oh, if this is marine biology, this is really great." That was one of the things. I thought, "What else is there besides being Burney Le Boeuf professor, 00:19:00teaching." I don't know, so anyway, I gave it up. But he was fantastic. I thought he was very good.

I would say one other professor was really influential and he was a teacher of -- what do you call it? What was his specialty? I want to say Asian psychology. He had studied in Japan, this professor. He literally had just come back from Japan. I do a martial art called aikido and he was really my first aikido teacher. He was fascinating in that sense. He was really interesting. His name is Robert Frager, F-R-A-G-E-R.

FARRELL: How did you get involved with martial 00:20:00 arts?

GOTO: Not easily. When I was younger, eight or nine, my uncle said, "You boys," the three of us, the three cousins, he said, "You boys are just sitting around too much reading comic books. You should do this judo thing." Excuse me. [coughs] He took us to a judo class. It was really difficult. It was hot in Los Angeles and humid and we go there three days a week and we were there for two hour straight. It was interesting. The idea of JU, in Japanese, being soft and do being the way, the way of softness. I looked at my cousins and said, "What about this is 00:21:00soft? There's nothing soft. We're just pounding each other, throwing each other around." So I gave that up. Really like after a year or so I gave it up, but I do recall something so it was a good experience.

Later on in college, that's when I met Roger Frager and he literally introduced me to aikido, which is using the other persons force to redirect it and then use it as a throw or a hit. I went, "Oh, I think this is what judo is supposed to be," in my mind, so I was very much attracted to it.

FARRELL: Were there places in Santa Cruz that you could go and take classes or had an open gym or anything?

GOTO: No. It was at the 00:22:00college and the first classes that were given was in the athletic building and it was in the handball courts. We had to literally unfold the mats in these narrow handball courts and practice in there. But we're students, we could care less. It was really interesting.

FARRELL: Did you stick with that after college?

GOTO: Yes. That's one of the reasons -- we can talk about it in a little bit -- the whole going to Japan and then even to this day going back to Japan every year. It's related to the aikido business.

FARRELL: Okay, perfect. Okay, that's great. That's a good breadcrumb. What were your career aspirations before you graduated in 1972?

GOTO: At that 00:23:00time I had lost the thread of wanting a hard career. I didn't know. I really didn't know. I think I got lost in the craziness of the '60s and early '70s. My main thought was to save money. Save some money and then go to Japan for a year and learn as much Japanese as I could, the language, and then learn about the culture and then, if I could, study a little bit of aikido. That was sort of three things and kind of in that order. But, in fact, life throws funny curveballs so the order was reversed. It became aikido, culture and language kind of mixed all together, but the aikido became a 00:24:00dominant part of my stay in Japan.

FARRELL: This is probably a good time to talk a little bit about that you were in Japan from 1973 to 1974. You just talked about it a little bit but were there other reasons for your interest in moving to Japan?

GOTO: Not really. The main reason was curiosity about the culture. I felt that my training in aikido was -- so at that point I had studied long enough that I was told I could take a test to become a black belt, which was a big deal at that time. But I didn't feel I was adequate. It just didn't feel right. I was really curious and I wanted to go to Japan. I knew that the level of training was different. I found out how different it was 00:25:00once I got there. I thought, "Yeah, I think this is a good thing." I didn't even think about the Japanese face but no language business but that came crashing into me once I got to Japan.

FARRELL: Were your parents supportive of you moving to Japan?

GOTO: Yeah. They were. They said, "Yeah. Go ahead and do that. How long are you going to be there?" I said, "About a year. I'll constantly write to you guys. I'll keep you posted. I'm not just going to disappear off into the wilderness or something. I'll let you know what's going on." So I did. I would write every week. I think they were called aerograms in Japan. They were little folded papers, you just fold it up and then you could buy like sheets of ten of them. I'd write it and just drop it in the post. 00:26:00Yeah, I felt really good about that. It wasn't easy, I must admit.

My adventure was I went to the headquarters of aikido. I thought I'd train in southern Japan but that was not available. A friend of mine that I bumped into said, "Well, I'm going up north," which was about an hour-and-a-half north of Tokyo. "Why don't you come?" Because of him, though, I was introduced to my teacher and it ended up being that the place we trained was where the founder of aikido had his school. It was a pretty shabby place at the time. It was pretty poor. It's really a country place. It had a tremendous feel to it and the people were really amazing. They were country people 00:27:00but just salt of the earth type people. Just really nice and amazingly strong. They would grab a hold of you and it's like I don't think I can move. They kind of back up a little bit and so on, but I ended up training with my teacher for that whole year, a little bit over, and seven days a week basically, three times in the middle, Monday through Friday and then twice on Saturday and once on Sunday. Sunday was kind of the holiday by just training once. But I learned a whole heck of a lot at that period, from that.

FARRELL: Did you stay in that town the whole year?

GOTO: I stayed in 00:28:00the school. It was kind of a monastic life.

FARRELL: Got it, okay. How were you supporting yourself?

GOTO: That was an interesting thing. That was money that I had saved. I had saved about four thousand dollars or so so I would pull out money. As I started to go through I went, "Oh, I think I need to figure out how to do a job," so I taught English part-time in the area. It was amazing. I taught at an agricultural college. Again, really great farmers, really great guys. I think one of the English phrases that I remember hearing from them was, "Do you know this pig?" I went, "Excuse me?" They go, "This is a very famous 00:29:00pig. Do you know this pig?" I go, "No, I'm sorry." And they go, "This is pig," and then they named a number. They said, "She's from Idaho," or something. "She's the mother of many pigs that we have here." It was hilarious. The sessions were really interesting and great.

FARRELL: Yeah, really honoring where their food is coming from.

GOTO: Yes.

FARRELL: On that note, were you learning about Japanese culture through food at all? Even regionally, where you were staying?

GOTO: Yes. Culturally it was through talking to the locals. My teacher and his family were extremely supportive. He had three daughters and a 00:30:00son and they were really kind. They just like treated me like the puppy dog that just happened to wander in. They'd throw crumbs at me, that kind of thing. They were just really nice. My teacher's wife was fantastic. When she knew or found out that I was interested in Japanese culture, number one, and number two, interested in country food, the food that she was making, she was amazing. She just showed me how to pickle vegetables. She showed me how they farmed the food and how they don't let anything go to waste, literally. They didn't use pesticides like everybody else in Japan at that time, so a lot of the vegetables were chewed on and eaten by the bugs because the bugs are voracious in Japan. But we just cut out the funny parts and still used 00:31:00it. It was a great experience. I really learned about composting and all those sorts of things there. Had not really experienced it first-hand before. It was a fantastic experience. To eat Japanese country food was a delight that I still enjoy. It was like, "Oh, yeah, this is just amazing." Northern style versus southern style and all those different regional differences is fun.

FARRELL: Did you learn how to make any dishes, or even pickling, or eat anything that you still enjoy either making or eating today?

GOTO: The one dish that I feel relatively comfortable doing is gyoza. 00:32:00Japanese gyoza is like pot stickers. My teacher and his family had a very specific way of making it. I watch other people, cooking shows and stuff, and how they make it, it's different. But there's a lot more garlic, a lot more white pepper in it, a lot of garlic chives in it. It gives it a nice, great texture and all. Anyway, we'd make hundreds, hundreds at a time, and then all the students would come in, which would be like where did everybody come from. Normally there's only ten or twelve people and then like twenty or thirty people would show up and so we'd make this stuff. My teacher would put it on an open fire. He had this big, large steel plate and then we'd pour oil on it 00:33:00and then put the gyoza on it and everybody, when it's done, picked it up and eat it. It's a treat. It was really fun. It was like a picnic but it's social and all the other stuff that's good about that sort of thing.

FARRELL: Yeah, it's like community cooking.

GOTO: Yes. Very much so.

FARRELL: Yeah. That's special. Did you visit Tokyo at all since you were only an hour-and-a-half away?

GOTO: Yes, I did. Mostly I visited Tokyo for two reasons. One was when my body was so banged up that I needed to heal for a day or so. I had a couple of friends that I met who were from Switzerland and they said, "Yeah, just call anytime. Come by, sleep on the sofa. We're good. We'll go out to have food and some beer and relax." 00:34:00That was really nice just to take a day or two and just not have to get up and clean the shrine, clean the dojo, clean everything up and then train and then kind of all that stuff. It was a routine and it came naturally but it was like such a vacation not to have to do that. Then the second thing that would occur when I had to go to Tokyo is at that time my teacher said he wasn't able to get me a cultural visa. A cultural visa required him to show his bank account and all kinds of things and guarantee my stay there and then I could stay there for a year. I understood. I said, "That's fine." He's a country guy. He just may not have the money. He just didn't want to show all 00:35:00books and all that sort of thing. I said, "Yeah, I'll try and do this on my tourist visa." The tourist visa is good for three months and I think you could renew it twice. You go three months, you renew it once, and then you can renew it again, I think, and then you have to leave the country. I went, "Oh." The first time that happened I was going, "Where can I go?" I thought, "Oh, yeah, I could go to Hawaii." I went, "I don't have the money for that and that's not going to happen." Everyone goes, "Oh, just go to Guam." I said, "I don't have the money for that." And then they go, "Well, the third is the worst," but it ended up the best for me, is to go to Korea. I ended up going to Korea. I loved it. I love the people there. I love going to the country. It's so different 00:36:00now. It's so much modern, just like Tokyo is so much more modern than it was in the '70s and all.

FARRELL: It's interesting that people in Japan were telling you that that was the worst option given the history between Japan and Korea.

GOTO: There is no love lost between the Japanese and the Koreans.

FARRELL: Yeah. That's interesting. Where in Korea did you visit?

GOTO: I went all the way down to a place called Shimonoseki, which is the closest jump off point to Korea, to Pusan. I caught a ferry boat overnight to Pusan and from there caught a bus and went up to Seoul and went to the embassy there, the US embassy.

FARRELL: How long were you in Korea for altogether?

GOTO: I want to say a week, something like that. Not super long. I take that 00:37:00back. I went to Korea twice and the time I went to Pusan there was an embassy, a consulate there. I went into the consulate and at that point in time I'm standing in line to get my visa renewed or some sort of paperwork done and sirens went off and it sounded very serious, like a military something. I peeked out the window and I could see the military throwing the covers off of anti-aircraft guns and I could see tanks starting to move through the streets. I turned to the guy at the counter and I said, "Excuse me. What in the world is going on?" He goes, "Don't worry. This happens once a month. It's a drill because the North 00:38:00Koreans once a year make a suicide run and see how far they can get into South Korea." They're always prepared in South Korea for that, that crazy run. I know. That was just unbelievable but just showed me what a different culture it is. Yet the people are super sweet, very sweet.

What I found in Korea at that time is that the young people did not really like the Japanese, Japanese nationals, because they would come to Korea because it was so inexpensive at that time and they would party and they would carouse and then they'd leave. It's just like they kind of abused the restaurants and the workers and all of that sort of thing. They loved the 00:39:00Americans. They didn't know what to do with me because they said I look Korean, I spoke English, but the older people spoke Japanese. I would speak to the older people in Japanese. Their Japanese was elegant, really elegant. I stayed at a couple of Korean inns and so I asked the owners, "Well, how is it that you speak such wonderful Japanese?" They said, "Oh, because when the Japanese came here, if you didn't learn Japanese they would kill you." I was horrified. I didn't know what to say.

FARRELL: Yeah, it's a troubled history there.

GOTO: Yes, it truly is, and yet they're wonderful people.

FARRELL: Yeah, and speaking of language, so when you were in Japan -- because you had listed sort of the reasons that you were there, 00:40:00language being one of them, but it ended up being reversed. How much were learning Japanese? Were you feeling like you were fluent? Were you able to communicate when you first got there?

GOTO: We'll go in reverse order. I barely was able to communicate when I got there. What I thought was Japanese was really rudimentary, almost childish, childlike Japanese. What a little baby would speak to the grandparent or the parent. I had to readjust everything. I had bought a huge volume that went through the Japanese language from A to Z. I would, every day, go through at least one or two lessons. I'd 00:41:00try it on the other students. They were really very nice usually. They kind of got tired of it sometimes. Then I would go to the shrine, because I'm cleaning, the kids would be coming around and playing and then I'd say hello and they'd say hello. I'd say, "Can I speak with you for a moment?" They'd go, "Oh, yes. Certainly." And then I'd go, "I'm actually from America." They'd go, "Oh, no, no, no. You're not from America. Your face is Japanese." I said, "No, no. I'm really from America, so I'm trying to learn Japanese." The conversation went from there and they just thought it was the funniest thing that they had ever experienced. There is this older guy in his early twenties speaking to them like an idiot, with broken sentences, and then they'd have to correct 00:42:00me. But they were great. Children were some of the best teachers because they were so patient. They'd laugh but they would still make those wonderful corrections. Actually, all of the people I met in the countryside there were very generous. They would gently correct my language -- the verbs, the tense, all of those sort of things. They were just really, really great. By the time I left Japan I was relatively fluent. Because I don't use it as much it takes me a while to get back into gear when I go to Japan. It's just like, "Uh." Plus my vocabulary has sort of dropped off. It's like, "Oh, that's really frustrating." The Japanese language has changed so the nouns have changed and so you can make English words 00:43:00Japanese and get away with a lot of stuff. You know like "hot dog" is "hotou dogu." So that's pretty straightforward. But a lot of things, if you aren't sure what it is, you can kind of just make it Japanese-sounding and then they go, "Oh, yeah, I know that, okay."

FARRELL: Oh, that's really interesting.

GOTO: Yeah. Because of social media and all of the other internet and stuff, it's just like English has just made into the Japanese language and it's just quite amazing. Only in the countryside, it's not so much so because of the older people.

FARRELL: Yeah. Interesting. You came back in 1974 but aside from the pandemic you'd been traveling back to Japan each year for about ten or fifteen years, is that right?

GOTO: 00:44:00Yes. Because of the aikido world. Around, when was it, early 2000s, I would say, 2008, 2009, something like that, I was in a position in the aikido organization which we're involved with, which is about seventy schools in the United States, Mexico and Europe. I was basically one of two representatives so I, at that time, started going back and forth to Japan, once a year. Part of it was to have the hierarchy in Japan know who we were as individuals so that they can see our face and when they see our name they know who we were 00:45:00and to have conversations and ask questions, which were much more difficult when we'd just write to them or email them. It's been a really good relationship. Things have changed dramatically in Japan. But what hasn't changed. We can't get there right now. For the last two years we haven't been able to get back. But we're dying to go. We want to drag our kids there, too, again and let them explore.

FARRELL: Did you take your children?

GOTO: Yes. They've been there, I want to say, twice. Once when they were younger, I want to say high school, early college, and then later on after they graduated undergraduate school. They traveled with my mother, who turned 00:46:00eighty-eight on the trip. We traveled with grandma and it was quite an adventure. They still remember it because it was like the craziness of the trip. We want to take them one more time as full adults.

FARRELL: When you've gone back, did you go to the same aikido school that you were living at?

GOTO: I did. Being very traditional, the school is, that is, so when I go back I pay my respects to the senior people that taught me and pay respects to the shrine, which is also part of the school, the dojo itself, the training hall. Since our teacher passed away, my teacher passed away, we also go to his 00:47:00gravesite and then pay our respects. That's very traditional Japanese. If they don't know I'm in Japan I don't have to do that. But if they know I'm in Japan I have to do that. It's one of those things. If our kids go then we just go and not let everybody know we're there and then just travel around.

FARRELL: Yeah, okay. When you came back in 1974, what were you doing when you came back?

GOTO: I actually took a month off. Just had to step back from everything and let my body heal. It was really tough. Also, I recall that there was a bit of adjustment, a huge adjustment, actually, 00:48:00culturally. Looking at people in the eyes versus looking down. Bowing and people aren't bowing and just like, "Oh, wow. That was weird." A lot of little things. It's like things that just came so automatically in Japan were just not useful here in the United States so it took a little while. I started job hunting and it was really difficult to job hunt, at least for me. I looked in San Francisco and I looked a little bit in Santa Cruz but Santa Cruz didn't seem like a great place at that time to go job hunting and it took a while. It just took a while.

FARRELL: When you moved back -- I forgot to ask -- did you move to the Bay Area or were you in Southern California?

GOTO: No, I moved back to the Bay Area. I actually moved back to the Watsonville area for a short 00:49:00 while.

FARRELL: Where did you end up getting a job when you came back?

GOTO: This is crazy, a crazy transition time. I still had in the back of my head I might still go to graduate school. I was thinking, "Hmm, I might go to graduate school in psychology, into clinical psychology." I also worked part-time at a restaurant in the Palo Alto area but it was not very satisfactory to me, the school of psychology. It's like very cerebral. Everybody was really cerebral. They're not really well grounded and I thought, "Oh, these are my colleagues. How am I going to work with these folks?" I said, "No." I ended up dropping out of 00:50:00that program. I moved to San Francisco area and then worked at a Japanese restaurant for a while, which was really interesting and fascinating.

FARRELL: Which one were you working at?

GOTO: It's no longer there but it was called Yoshida-ya and it was one of the very first yakitori places. I think it was the first. Mr. Nori Yoshida knew his food. He and his wife knew their food. They couldn't cook it but they hired guys that really did a great job with yakitori.

FARRELL: Where in San Francisco was it?

GOTO: It was just off of Union Street on Webster. The building is still there but I don't know what it is. I drive by it once in a while. Just can't figure out what it is.

FARRELL: Were you working in the back of the house as a cook or were you in the front of the house as a server?

GOTO: Front of the house and then I ended 00:51:00up working part-time as a bartender, as well.

FARRELL: Oh, great. How long did you do that for?

GOTO: Oh, at least a couple of years. It was really interesting. Yeah, that was kind of interesting, fun, and really crazy.

FARRELL: I know that you started to work in schools and you were a high school librarian for a while.

GOTO: Yes.

FARRELL: How did you transition into that job?

GOTO: I jumped around really crazy jobs. For fifteen years I had worked for a retail store called Gump's in San Francisco. Old, Asian stuff and all. They literally got sold and then didn't hire the current staff. They said, "We're moving on. If you want 00:52:00to reapply you can but most of us decided to move on." At that time it took me about a year or so, maybe a little longer, to figure out what direction I wanted to go. At that point I thought, "Hmm, I'm thinking about a pension," which in the restaurant business there's no such thing. I started working for the high school, with the local high school in the cafeteria and then at one point in the library they said, "Oh, we need somebody to sub because someone is ill. Would you be interested?" I said, "Sure," so I went in. The librarians seemed to like me and so it just kind of built from there. I was able to do more positions or more 00:53:00subs, substitutions, and then they said, " This position is open. Do you want to interview?" I did and I was lucky to get it.

FARRELL: How long were you working in the library for?

GOTO: The library I worked from -- I want to say ten years. Something like ten years. Five years in the cafeteria, which was just a strange experience. To not cook real food but to -- anyway, it was quite a different adventure to try and create food that looked good and hopefully tasted good for the kids. It was very interesting.

FARRELL: 00:54:00Okay, so you were there for about fifteen years?

GOTO: Yes, correct. Yeah.

FARRELL: Backing up a little bit, before we talk more about that, in the late '70s and then into the '80s, the redress movement started and I think when we had talked before you mentioned that your father was a bit involved in that and had presented at a trial during redress. Can you tell me what you know or you remember about that?

GOTO: I wasn't directly involved. I had heard about it later. But I believe it was, I want to say '81, around '80 when the committee went around the country to listen to testimony. When they got to Los Angeles, 00:55:00unbeknownst to me, my father decided to give testimony. It was an interesting testimony. It was not the most moving one and it wasn't the most -- how would I say it -- not necessarily the one that pushed the committee over the edge to like grant all the compensation to people. But he did tell his story the way he remembered. It's interesting to see the film. The film is really grainy. I wish somebody had -- if it was possible to clean it up digitally, I don't know. But it's interesting. Including the part where some lady was just really upset. Comes running down the aisle and tries to overturn the hearings and so on and so forth. It's 00:56:00quite amazing. He told his story and he said how he worked with the administration and he was getting older, right. He was in his late seventies. Oh, wait, it had to have been before '80, so yeah, in the late seventies he had to give the testimony. His memory was not the best and so how often does he tell the story? I think that was the first time he ever kind of told the story to public. Anyway, the first time I heard it was seeing the videotape my sister got ahold of.

FARRELL: Did your father ever tell you or your sister that he had presented at the trial or was that something you found out on your own?

GOTO: 00:57:00Since I live up here and since my sister lives in Southern California, I think she happened to talk to dad about that and he told her, "Yes, I'm going to be talking there." If I had lived in LA and was talking with him at that time I think I would have known as well. But yeah, we just didn't communicate about that.

FARRELL: That makes sense. Do you remember when it was that your sister got the tape and you saw it?

GOTO: I want to say the mid-'80s, but I'm not sure.

FARRELL: What were your impressions from that presentation or how did it leave you feeling?

GOTO: I think the strongest impressions were from some of the 00:58:00people besides my father who spoke about how difficult it was. The whole experience was so difficult and how emotional it was and that really struck me more than anything else. It's like that's part of the history of the "camps" that we never heard. We always heard, "Oh, yeah. We went to camp and we met so and so" this, that and the other thing. But there's some really heartfelt stories of deprivation and things being taken away, their whole life being turned upside down and so on and so listening to some of that was, I think, really memorable and really sticks in my mind.

FARRELL: Your father had also tried to get compensation 00:59:00from the government for lost wages. Do you remember if that was around redress or if that was kind of right after the camps close? Because I think that there were two periods where --

GOTO: Oh, is that right? Yeah. See, from my impression of what my father said, it sounded like right after because he was miffed. He said, "Do you know how much money I missed? That I should have been practicing and they're paying me nineteen dollars a month." He just goes, "This shouldn't be. They should be paying me the wages I should have gotten through the county hospital." He said they didn't, that it was denied or whatever.

FARRELL: Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like I hear people talk about more like trying to get compensation during redress. But from what I've 01:00:00heard, right after the camps closed, that's when you could file the forms and everything. But people were not getting very much money and often if you tried to get the full amount, which was only like four thousand dollars or something, you weren't getting anywhere close. That's interesting, he was part of the after the camps closed.

GOTO: Yeah, and interestingly enough, excuse me, I never heard my mother say that, that she didn't apply for the same thing. Were they on different wavelengths? I don't know.

FARRELL: That's interesting. Or I think sometimes it was just per family, too, so I wonder.

GOTO: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's true.

FARRELL: Did you ever talk to your father about his presentation at the trial?

GOTO: No, not really. I don't 01:01:00know why. I never did. He kind of downplayed it. That's his style. Oh, yeah, yeah. I talked. It was like, "Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to say anymore. This is pretty much it. I said what I was going to say and so that's it." But that was typical of my father.

FARRELL: How about your mom? Did she ever talk more about things during redress or get involved with that movement?

GOTO: She did not. She was not happy about the situation but I don't think she felt as wronged by the action as my father did. I don't know why exactly. I'm just making this up but we could say that my father's family lost 01:02:00everything. The farming operation and the nursery operation, whereas my mother's family, her father was able to put this very nice property in her name and house and so it never got taken away so they literally moved back into their old house and everything was okay. I don't know, I don't know if that's the difference or what, but really a different perspective I feel.

FARRELL: Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean it also, I think, goes to show maybe how people experience things are different but also what they talk about is different, too. And their reactions to things, too.

GOTO: Exactly, exactly.

FARRELL: This is kind of a pivot, a different sort of question, but when and how did you meet your wife?

GOTO: I'm sorry? Once again.

FARRELL: When and 01:03:00how did you meet your wife?

GOTO: We met in the late '70s through some mutual friends. My mom, she worked for the US government for a while and she transferred to Okinawa and she stayed there for a short while. Our overlap, my stay in Japan and her stay in Okinawa kind of overlapped a little bit, so I visited her one time in Okinawa to say hello. At any rate, she met some good friends in Okinawa and then when we got back to the United States, my mother and myself, she said, "Oh, I have some friends, some young people your age that I'd like you to meet." I met several of these 01:04:00young friends and one of those friends introduced me to my wife Sandy and the rest is, I guess, history as they say.

FARRELL: Oh, that's great. And is Sandy from the Bay Area?

GOTO: She is born and raised in Mill Valley, California. Just amazing that she's twenty miles, fifteen miles from her house that she grew up in.

FARRELL: Yeah. When were your children born and what are their names?

GOTO: Our daughter's named Stacey and she was born in 1985 and our son's name is Garrett and he was born in 1989.

FARRELL: Well, I have some questions about that but we'll get to that 01:05:00as we dovetail with your learning about your family history while you were working in the public school at Marin.

GOTO: Sure, sure.

FARRELL: I know when we had talked before you had mentioned that you started to engage with your -- you're aware of all these things throughout your life but then engaged deeper with it when you were working in the library. Can you tell me how all of that came to be?

GOTO: Yes. I think it's really well put what you just said, that a lot of the information and a lot of the history if floating around in my head and like I never put it together and thought, "Okay, I should do like a real history of things." When some of 01:06:00the teachers, especially three of the social studies teachers at the high school said, "Would you mind coming into our US history class and talking about this?" These are the same instructors who would have Holocaust survivors come in, the same teachers who would have the Air Force group, African American Air Force group.

FARRELL: The Tuskegee Airmen?

GOTO: Yeah, Tuskegee Airmen. Thank you so much. Yeah, so they would have some of those guys come in. Everybody's almost gone now. They felt it was really important for the students to have a real person come in. They asked me and I said, "Well, I don't know what I can offer." They 01:07:00said, "Give it a try." I ended up doing it for about five years, the presentation, and every year I would laugh and tell them, "This year it's different than last year. The PowerPoint presentation is somewhat the same, some different quotes, definitely different pictures." Poor history teachers are trying to do other work but then they'd have to look up. They're going, "Oh, yeah, that's different than last time." They'd be working away. I'd laugh because I know what they're trying to do. Yeah. It was really educational for me. It forced me to focus my mind and focus on what did I want to tell the students. What was important and how did this happen? Was there a history to 01:08:00it? Did it just happen out of the blue? It's such a gift to me. They seemed always so appreciative and the students always seemed appreciative but it really helped me a lot. It was such an educational experience.

FARRELL: When you were first starting to give these talks, how did you get started with learning? Where was your entry point into this?

GOTO: I know. That was the hardest thing. I said, "How do I do this? I've never done this before. I've never given a talk on this topic." Over the years I've given talks on different things but not on sort of an academic historical topic. I approached it by asking a friend from the Sonoma County 01:09:00JCL and they had a PowerPoint presentation. I looked at their PowerPoint presentation and they said, "We'll give it to you." I said, "Really?" They said, "Yeah. We'll give it to you. You can redo it, reshape it, do whatever you want to it and make it your own." I looked at their basic outline and I really liked the way they had put it together. The basic history and then how did the war develop, et cetera, et cetera and so that's basically it. I used their outline and then the current version that I have now is like nowhere even similar to what I originally started with. But I'm forever grateful to the JCL in Sonoma County for that help of an outline.

FARRELL: In between, during those five 01:10:00years, let's say from year one to year two or year two to year three, were you finding yourself learning more about this in between times when you weren't preparing for a presentation?

GOTO: Yes, that's true. It was always in the back of my mind. I would say in the second or third year was when my wife and I decided to actually go to Manzanar for the first time. She had never been there. I had been there when I was a little kid so it was really good. That was a great experience to see the actual building, to hear some of the history and stay there, nearby, in the nearby town. I think that added some depth to the presentation, as well, because suddenly I was able to have current pictures of the 01:11:00place and so on. For me it was helpful. It made it more current. Over the years that's exactly what I would do. Anything new, if my relatives were talking about Manzanar, I could add certain articles and pictures and so on and so forth, so it was really helpful.

FARRELL: Yeah, so each year it would change because you were doing more research?

GOTO: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

FARRELL: During this time did you talk to your sister more about this?

GOTO: I did a little bit but she wasn't nearly as interested.

FARRELL: Oh, interesting. Okay.

GOTO: Yeah, even though she was born in Topaz.

FARRELL: Yeah, yeah. How about your relatives? Did you start to ask them more questions?

GOTO: The aunts and uncles, it was almost impossible because they had all kind of gotten 01:12:00older, mostly passed away. On my mother's side they were never talkative about it. They're just like, "Oh, yeah, Aunty so-and-so, she liked going to the dances. Aunty so-and-so liked to play baseball." That's pretty much as deep as they went. They never went any deeper than that. On my father's side there was a little bit more talk but they weren't really interested in getting into it. They're just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about that before so you know this stuff already."

FARRELL: By this time had your father passed away?

GOTO: He passed away in late 1990s.

FARRELL: Got it. Did you take the 01:13:00opportunity to talk to your mom a little bit more about her experiences?

GOTO: I did. Her side of the family kind of glossed over things. She says, "Things weren't so bad." She had her own version of the different stories. Like I told you, my father's version is that he was literally stripped of his being the chief medical officer and then he was told to leave the camp. But according to my mom, Topaz just needed more doctors so they decided to go over there and help them out. I went, "No, I don't think that's the case." I need to do a little bit more 01:14:00research but I don't think they were welcome in the Topaz medical group area. I think my father was very headstrong, very egotistical and very demanding. He wasn't a team player, let's just say, and so I think he wasn't welcome to Topaz. I think they tolerated him in Manzanar though.

FARRELL: Okay, that's interesting to hear what your mom has maybe repressed or maybe not remembering or something.

GOTO: Yes, that's what I think. I think she repressed it. But it's just the way it is. But I say those things, what I just said, because I was just reviewing a lot of the reading about the uprising or riot in Manzanar. 01:15:00There's a fellow named Frank Chuman that wrote a really -- it's short but a really interesting -- perspective of what happened and how my father was involved in the whole thing and how he got turned away from Manzanar and sent to Topaz. Whereas a lot of the official versions they just go, "Yeah, this is what happened and that's it." But it's kind of unusual, I think, to be removed from your position and then asked to leave.

FARRELL: Right. Something, it sounds like, nobody wanted to put it on official record.

GOTO: Maybe so. Because Mr. Chuman, I was just reading, too, he said he didn't know where my mother and father went. They were gone within a week and he 01:16:00said he didn't know where they went. Nobody told him and he was the hospital administrator so you would think he would know.

FARRELL: Yeah, that's really interesting.

GOTO: Yeah, that's what I thought. I went, "Wait, yeah."

FARRELL: Given that your dad had passed at this point, that your mom had a different memory of things, and that your dad's family were like, "We told you this already," can you tell me a little bit about how you started to learn more about like his exact involvement? I know there are some photos in the National Archive. How you started to learn more about this?

GOTO: Sure. I think being involved in the library, it was extremely helpful. I think if I hadn't been, I don't think I would have found half the information I found or know 01:17:00where to look or what search words to use. I have it to the whole system that I was able to figure this out and looking at the National Archives and then just sort of sorting through photograph after photograph and seeing who took the photograph. It was very interesting that Ansel Adams did some wonderful photographs. He did some wonderful people photographs and he took several photographs of my cousin and my aunty and her daughter, two cousins and then my aunt. Just amazing photographs. Dorothea Lang did some great photographs but not necessarily of my 01:18:00family. I forget the other fellow's name but he's the one who took the photographs of my father and my mother. I'm sorry, I'm just blanked on his name. But yeah, so that's how I found it. I went and I looked through all of Ansel Adams. I looked through Dorothea Lang and then the different things, and then just looking at Japanese American National Museum, looking at Densho and sending out inquiries. They all have been helpful, some more so than others. They have more complete information. I think it's just digging away. I felt like one of those old-fashioned detectives or one of those things, just poking away until 01:19:00something. "Oh, look it. I have a gem." Some information.

FARRELL: Yeah. It's like you're a historical detective.

GOTO: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of feel like that at times.

FARRELL: Did you become at all more involved with maybe different groups like the JCL?

GOTO: We have been. The thing is that the JACL [Japanese American Citizens League] in Marin, where we are, is not active at all. We used to be very active. We joined the JACL of Sonoma but it's a bit of a distance so we tended to do it like once a month or something like that and joined their activities so over time we do participate. We do participate in like an organization in the East Bay called J-Sei, which is for seniors 01:20:00and culture. I thought that they're very good. The organization in San Francisco, the Center, is also very good but it's such a big organization that it's like yeah. I like to support the smaller guys.

FARRELL: You had also mentioned visiting Manzanar with your wife. Did your children go, as well?

GOTO: Our son went with us one time. Did our daughter go? I'm trying to remember. I want to say yes. I think she did. I think both came at different times and we took a tour and so on and looked around. I think it was very interesting for everybody involved. I feel like 01:21:00both our son and our daughter are smarter than we are so it's to know exactly what they're absorbing because their mind's going. It's like okay, whatever.

FARRELL: How many times have you been to visit Manzanar?

GOTO: I think we've been there three times.

FARRELL: Okay, and were any of those trips for pilgrimage?

GOTO: Yes, w was it twice? Once for sure for the pilgrimage and that was to carry -- my cousin Abby carried the Topaz flag.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit about what that pilgrimage experience was like for you and also flying the Topaz flag at Manzanar?

GOTO: Yeah, that was a little bit nerve-wracking, to be kind of the focus of attention and not knowing exactly what I was supposed to do except follow the person in front of me. But I felt very honored 01:22:00that my cousin said I should do it, wrote a little, unfortunately controversial, article and then was able to carry the flag. It was a real honor to stand amongst the other people who were there. I think there were eleven flags. There was like a 442nd flag and so on and so forth, maybe twelve flags. No one was young. They were all of a certain age. It was quite an honor to be there, to stand in this magnificent place in the middle of the desert where our families were held.

FARRELL: Do you remember what year that was?

GOTO: I do not. I can look it up because I have it on photographs and stuff.

FARRELL: That's okay. I just 01:23:00thought I would ask. How did the experience visiting Manzanar leave you feeling?

GOTO: That massive group of people was really interesting. It's different than when we visited Manzanar on our own and went into the museum and walked around. That sort of visit was very personal and this seemed to be more like about the community and about listening to speakers speak, all of that sort of thing. A little bit of political action, social action. Not that it was unpleasant but it was just different and we still enjoyed 01:24:00it. Our son enjoyed it. We had a great time visiting and, like I said, we visited with my cousin's son and his family, which was really nice, as well.

FARRELL: Have you thought about doing another pilgrimage or going back?

GOTO: Yes. We were just talking about it, wondering if we can squeeze it in this year. I think it's April 30h but I'm not sure exactly.

FARRELL: I think so. I can't remember if they've decided it's in person or virtual again.

GOTO: Yeah, that's what we were discussing, too. Like I think it's in person but we're not really sure.

FARRELL: Yeah. What's it been like for your wife to visit, too?

GOTO: I think she's enjoyed it. She hears the stories that I 01:25:00tell. I show her the PowerPoint presentation, which is different than if you're sitting in an audience of people. I think she really enjoyed it and just found it fascinating that you could see the names of our family members on the walls of Manzanar and so on. It's just very personal. Her family was in Poston and so I said, "Well, we should go to Poston." She goes, "There's nothing really there though yet." It's one of those sad things because I think Poston had more people but Manzanar just had LA people with the money to pull it together.

FARRELL: Yeah. Is she similarly engaging with her family's history?

GOTO: Not as 01:26:00much. She just says, "Your family is much more colorful than my family." She says, "My family is really quiet farmers and just people of the earth and low profile," let's just say. My family is like high-profile, really out there, and just like crazy, crazy. So it's different.

FARRELL: You had mentioned before when we had talked you were also trying to teach your children about this history, both Stacey and Garrett, and you had set up a family hard drive so they could see the research that you'd been doing. What are some of the most important things or pieces of this history that you wanted to make sure to share with them?

GOTO: I think that's really important. I think the 01:27:00PowerPoint is an important thing because it shows kind of the throughout history and the things that are related to the incarceration of Japanese Americans. But then beyond that, I think what grabs me and I think would grab both Stacey and Garrett the most is the personal story of their grandfather and what he did and what he didn't do, how he helped create them, how he helped set up the infirmary and the hospital and then how he was confronted by the authorities and told to say one thing when he knew in fact it was not that thing at all. He didn't back down. That's an amazing story to me, to say your grandfather, just stubborn or whatever, 01:28:00just didn't back down. He said, "You know what? Whatever happens but I'm not going to sign on to this as a falsehood." He got dismissed and sent away and life went on after that. I think that's an important thing for young people or our kids to know, that it's okay to stand up for what you believe in or what you know is right.

FARRELL: Are you finding Stacey and Garrett become interested in learning about these things on their own, about this history on their own?

GOTO: I don't think so. Just like anyone else of a certain age, they're so busy in their careers, that it's just sort of in the background. They know. They know that 01:29:00there's this Google drive sitting for them and the Google drive has all kinds of stuff in it. It has family history, a bunch of photographs, family photographs. It has family recipes, things that. They go, "Oh, we really like this." "Did Grandma make this?" that sort of thing. I think, wow, to be able to have a Google drive like that, that a family history in it, is just astounding. And it's so easy to upload for me. I go, "Oh, yeah, here. Just put it in there."

FARRELL: It's a real gift.

GOTO: It is.

FARRELL: Yeah, it's a real gift. Before you had retired and you were still giving these presentations, what were some of the major things that you wanted the students to glean from your presentations?

GOTO: That's a really good 01:30:00question because I think one of the things that I noticed at the high school, Tam High School, is that it's really multiethnic. We had Muslim Americans. We have African Americans, Asian Americans. And not just Japanese or Chinese but Cambodians and Thai and Korean and many different Asian cultures. What I wanted everyone to know more than anything else is that this could happen to anyone. This incarceration could happen to anyone and to be mindful and to be watchful and to not let things slide by. Because once things start sliding it's really easy to let it go and I see that happening now unfortunately. 01:31:00But I just told the students, "When the times are really tough against the Islamic people," I said, "this is similar. This is similar." And then, of course, the Japanese Americans community kind of stood up for them as well at that time. I said, "This is not right. It's just the way it should not be."

FARRELL: How did they respond to that?

GOTO: They really appreciated it. I don't think many people speak to them like that. The other group of kids that were so interesting, is that a lot of Japanese American young people now are 01:32:00not -- how would I say -- mixed Japanese American. So much so that if you look at them you are not quite sure if they're, just by appearance -- they would come up to me afterwards and say, "Oh, my grandfather knew your father." This one boy goes, "Your father helped my mom do the birth of my grandfather." I went, "Oh, my God. This is just crazy." He remembers. The grandfather said, "Yes, this Dr. Goto guy did it." Other young kids said, "Never heard this story so I'm going to ask my grandparents. I'm going to ask my relatives about this." I said, "Please do because you might be surprised how interesting your family history is. This is 01:33:00something people don't think is important. They think other things are important." Just those few people, I think it was fantastic.

The other kids, because one teacher was really fantastic, she goes, "I want you guys to write a thank you note every time he comes to talk." Some say, "Thank you very much." But others go the reason why they thank me and it's really interesting. Several people go, "We never heard that this was an occurrence in the United States and we're so happy that we learned about this." All of that was great. Just wonderful stacks of thank you notes from kids.

FARRELL: Yeah, that has to be really meaningful and let you know that you're making a 01:34:00difference. Even if some of the students don't share the same background it's encouraging them to talk to their families and start that intergenerational dialogue.

GOTO: Yes. I think so. Yeah, I think so. I think that was a great side benefit of that.

FARRELL: Have you thought about continuing these presentations in other places or other like forums?

GOTO: For one year after I retired I still gave talks at the high school but then COVID came and then everything kind of shutdown. I'm still open to it. I sort of, how would I say it, sort of lost the momentum of giving the talks and all but I think I could get it back if I need to. I've offered my services, I think, to the Sonoma County JCL as well but I haven't heard. 01:35:00Because I'm more interested in the Marin side versus the Sonoma County side.

FARRELL: Yeah. Have you learned anything new since the past couple of years, since the last presentation you gave?

GOTO: I'm sorry, anything new about the --

FARRELL: Would your presentation be different now than it was a couple of years ago?

GOTO: Probably. I would probably clean it up a little bit more, find some different photographs. Especially the older photographs. But the storyline is basically the same for me. The history of how we got where we got as far as the internment goes, incarceration. Who was sent there and just that whole paranoia about arresting people. I forgot to 01:36:00mention that my grandfather on my mother's side was immediately arrested after Pearl Harbor by the FBI. They came to the door, knocked on the door and arrested him and he disappeared for one year. We found out later that he was in a Justice Department camp. [The name of the Justice Department camp my grandfather went to was in Fort Missoula in Missoula, Montana.]

It was so interesting because the whole family had no idea where. They just took him. I asked my mom about that. That's one of the few things she was very willing to talk about. 01:37:00She said, "Grandpa was taken away because he had saved money. He had actually money in the bank because he had made some investments, I guess. He spoke Japanese. He didn't really speak English so much. And he subscribed to a Japanese newspaper. And that's it." I said, "That's it?" She goes, "Yeah, that's pretty much it." They took him away for that whole year and then they released him and put him back into Manzanar.

FARRELL: Did your mom talk about what that experience was like for her?

GOTO: No. I think she and my dad were so involved with the hospital things and everything in Manzanar, getting the family together and the whole experience at 01:38:00the Santa Anita Racetrack. In the back of her mind I'm sure that was going on about Grandpa.

FARRELL: Yeah, she was going through her own stuff at that point, too.

GOTO: Exactly, exactly. That's what I think. There was a split.

FARRELL: Yeah. I do want to ask you a few reflective questions.

GOTO: Sure.

FARRELL: But before we do that, is there anything we left out or that you want to mention or talk about?

GOTO: I can't think of anything at the moment. That's a pretty broad perspective and I think we've covered a huge range of topics.

FARRELL: Okay. If something comes up for you later we can always add something into the transcript, too.

GOTO: Okay.

FARRELL: I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about growing up with some of this awareness about your family's history and them being high-profile, as you 01:39:00mentioned, then later becoming more deeply engaged with this history, having these students come up to you and say, "Hey, your dad delivered someone in my family." What does your family's history mean to you? What's it meant to you to learn about this and be a Goto?

GOTO: Yeah. I think it's kind of interesting. I don't know if it makes me prouder but it certainly makes me respect both parents, my mom and my father. I think as I was growing up there were sometimes when we didn't see eye-to-eye. We would argue about things. I thought I was right and they were wrong and all those sort of things. Now I see that both people, both my mother and father, were amazing people in and of their own 01:40:00right. I think we don't know our own family well. We think we do and we react to them and maybe get mad at them, just like, "Oh, you're doing the same old thing all the time and whatever." But there's some depth there, too, to the family. I think that's what I appreciate more than anything, is the depth of my father. Even though he has certain personality quirks, the whole strong ego, and then my mother's -- really she has this very strong personality and has a real depth to her. Both people are just quite extraordinary in their own way. I think that's also what I want our kids to know. I think they understand that but 01:41:00just to reinforce that for them.

FARRELL: How do you hope people will remember your family's story?

GOTO: Oh, I don't know. I think once a certain generation goes away, my generation and the older generation, this will just be a story and it won't be history, like a living history anymore. That'll be a little bit sad. I think this sort of thing where you have an oral history, where you have film footage of people telling their story, I think that that's super important and that you get to see literally living history doesn't go 01:42:00away that way. We continue. You can hear somebody's voice. You can hear them get excited about things. You can hear them get choked up about other things. I think that's a really important part of history and makes it so much more interesting than just memorizing dates and places and that sort of thing, which I did not like as a kid.

FARRELL: What has it meant to you to share this history, your family's history, with both of your children and then students, the younger generations?

GOTO: Yeah, it's so interesting because I see myself not only talking to them but listening to them. I find that the listening part is more important than the telling part so I'll tell 01:43:00things but I want to see their reaction. If they're like, "I'm not really interested," we'll skip over that and go to the next topic. Certain things you can see them perking up, like, "Oh, that's kind of interesting." I'll develop that and then ask if they have questions. I think that's the most important thing to me, is the interaction. Same with our children, that the interaction of, well, do you have question about Grandpa or Grandma? We try and fill in all the gaps that they might think about. It's quite interesting. There's things that I totally forget about that are really extraordinary, even with their great-grandparents. Sorry. I'm going to interject something really quickly.

It just came to me last night that I forgot to mention that my grandmother -- well, I was one of the few crazy grandchildren, maybe the only one out of ten or twelve grandchildren, who was kind of interested in Japanese culture that my grandmother knew about. At one point she said, "Let me show you something." She pulled out kimono, Japanese kimono." She said, "This is a kimono your grandfather wore for our wedding." I said, "Wow. It's just beautiful." Like it's all pure silk and so on. I said, "Where'd you buy this?" She goes, "Oh, no, no, no. I made this." I went, "What? You made this?" I was just stunned. She goes, "Yeah. I wove the 01:45:00material and then I made the kimono." I went, "You wove it?" She goes, "Yes. When I was living in Japan as a younger woman, we didn't have TV. We didn't have radio." She said, "I was weaving on the loom." Oh, my God. She gave me that kimono and it's just an amazing, amazing item. I'll end up giving it our kids.

FARRELL: Yeah, that's incredible, especially making it herself.

GOTO: It's just like I've never heard of that. Just like, "You wove it?" This is just amazing.

FARRELL: Yeah. What an incredible family heirloom.

GOTO: Yeah. Truly, truly.

FARRELL: Yeah. My last question for you is broad, but what are you hopeful for in the future, either related to this or anything 01:46:00else? However you want to take it.

GOTO: Hopeful for the future. I just hope that the young people, you young people, take even the miserable planet that we've left you with and move it forward and upward. I'm very hopeful that you all are very smart people and caring people and I think that carries the day for most of everything. That if you don't care then things are just going to go downhill quickly. If you care even just a little bit I think life will improve. I must admit, I saw that with the high school kids, too. The high school kids care and I think that's the biggest thing that I 01:47:00miss. That I see the excitement of life, I see the excitement of approaching a career or the thought of a career. This one incredible Islamic young girl once told me, she says, "I want to be a software engineer." I said, "You can do this. You're just so smart. I know you'll be one of the top people." She just like was stunned. But I said, "No, I just can see that." That's what I'm hoping for, to be sharp, to pay attention to things, to care about where we live, how we live, how we affect other people, how we affect other countries. Not to be too self-centered. Yeah, anyway, I'm hopeful for that.

FARRELL: Very well put. I have to say I share your hopes, 01:48:00 too.

GOTO: Thank you.

FARRELL: Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

GOTO: Not really, not really. You're a really great facilitator. I would say facilitator more than an interviewer. You just help move things along and stimulate, so thank you. I think it was great.

FARRELL: Well, thank you. You've made my job easy.

GOTO: Thanks.

[End of Interview]