gotohealth's Blog

How Auntie Onions Got Her Name!

Jun

20

Chiyo "ONIONS" Marooka Nakanishi
During 1942 - 1945 Incarceration

Today, I spent the afternoon playing Shanghai Rummy with 97-yr-old Auntie Chiyo “Onions” Nakanishi. Chiyo and her daughter, Ellen, downsized to the Villagio Apartment complex on Yarrow Bay in Kirkland, Washington, after Uncle Hiro passed in 2020. Chiyo does all the score keeping and wins her share of the games. Between deals, I had a chance to find out more about how she got the name “Onions”.

Chiyo explained, “My birthday is in May and I turned 16 in camp so it must have been April 1942 that we were taken on buses from where I lived on King street, next to the Nichiren Church to Puyallup. We were in Area C.”

“Were you scared,” I asked?

“There were a bunch of us, so I wasn’t scared, but wondered because the bus windows were all covered.”

“What did you take in your bag? What were you wearing,” I asked.

“We didn’t have much anyway, so I don’t remember. Oh, as I think about it, we had a Toy Fox Terrier name “Junie”. When we sang, she would sing too. We had to call the Vet and he came to take her away as we were about to leave. That was so sad, I couldn’t worry about what I was taking.

We didn’t wear jeans those days. Wooden clogs were the shoes in style so, I wore that with my skirt and sweater. It turned out that camp grounds were all dusty and muddy so those shoes really came in handy.”

Chiyo went on to explain about her nickname,”I was on my way back home, walking along the road from the Recreation Building. I knew a lot of the guys on the back of the truck as they passed me, driving vegetables to the mess hall. Poison Kato and his brother were some of them. Bako Kinoshita threw one of the onions at me and I caught it. When I threw it back it went through someone’s open barrack window. The next day they started giving me a bad time about that and started calling me “Onions”. The more I protested, the more the name stuck.”

Nothing like good name calling to make the forced imprisonment bearable. Here’s a bunch of nick names we brainstormed: Tomatoe, Tinky, Gunner, Buster, Beansy, Slug, Lover, Shorty, Gas House, White Christmas. When they meet today, they still use those names.

Yes, Auntie Onions won big time today!! I won the last hand, but I was hundred's of points behind.

ODORS OF OUR HERITAGE??

Jun

14

The Aroma of Tacoma

Last week, my granddaughter and I went to Uwajimaya Asian Market to choose a hostess gift for her to bring to the Yucatan. She was embarking on a High School abroad experience in Merida, Mexico, for four weeks.

She had Applets and Colette’s from Washington State and decided as a fifth generation of Japanese heritage teenager, to also bring something Japanese. She chose the popular with kids Pocky Sticks (flavored dough on a stick) and Arare (rice crackers coated with soy sauce). I was surprised that Arare was considered, “so very Japanese”.

Later, in a discussion with my daughter, she explained that although the girls loved Arare, she was hesitant to put Arare into their school lunch boxes and warned the girls, “You are going to have stinky breath, so be aware.”

That also reminds me, when Sam and I built our new house on Mercer Island 50 years ago, one of our discussions was to not cook any mackerel fish in our new house because, “We don’t want to have that stinky Japanese smell when we have guests.” One of our first guests was Sam’s Medical Dental Building office neighbor, Dr. Wiesel. I think we even considered not cooking too many things with soy sauce the week before he was coming to dinner.

When I was growing up, I heard a lot of conversations between my parents and with grandpa, when we lived in the farming area in Idaho, about the, “stinky, white people’s houses.” I still remember my best friend Shirley Talkington’s dairy farmer’s house, when I stayed over night. The odor was strong, but it was more important to me to be friends.

Before we moved to Mercer Island we lived on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Our neighbors across the street were Shelly and Paul Pierce. The musical group called the Pierymplezaks was formed in their basement. They became famous in the 1960s for a song about digging for clams called: GOOEY DUCK SONG. They also sang the song about THE AROMA OF TACOMA. Tacoma was the first residence of the Japanese Consul General before 1900 when the office was moved to Seattle. My Dad and his family lived near Tacoma. Early immigrants had a lot of jokes, among themselves, about the odor in Tacoma and joked about other ethnicities and their odor when they felt discriminated.

Doing research, I am finding, the Japanese are considered some of the most diligent in daily baths and having homes that are easily aired out and in communication with nature. As those of us with Japanese heritage continue to integrate and we are about to host guests, I hear a lot of, “It’s really low class to have a smelly house. Air out the house!!”

OTees of Block 5 Minidoka

Jun

3

Teenage Antics - During WWII Incarceration of Japanese

One of the Seattle elder social events in the community of those of us with Japanese Heritage in 2023 is the Nisei Vet’s first Friday of every month Luncheon organized by Keith Yamaguchi and his wife Mary Ann. It restarted this year with a new volunteer retired cook and the dozen or more volunteers after Covid.

I agreed to attend and meet 97-year-old Auntie Onions. Lisa picked her up with a couple other 90+-year-olds, Hidy and Marti, living across Lake Washington in the Greater Seattle east side. They kept waiting for Knuckles and she finally came.Then they continued their conversation about going to Broadway High School over 80 years ago and where they grew up in Seattle’s International District. Onions exclaimed, “We used to get together all the time, but now, this is the only way I get to see all my friends?”

When Junko and Mary joined our table, the girls started joking, “How are the OTees doing?

“Tell me about the OTees,” I implored.

Lisa added, “My dad was also one of the OTees. They all got jackets alike. I have a picture.

Junko started to explain, “Well, I was 14-years-old when we got taken to ‘camp’. We were some of the first ones, rounded up in Seattle and taken to the Puyallup Fair Grounds and Area D. As other families arrived, our parents told us boys to help them carry things. We made it a game to scout out the cute girls and would holler ‘Haba Haba’. Some of us kids got jobs to help like passing out things for meals and such. We whispered ‘Haba Haba” when a cute girl was coming around.

So, I smile at Onions sitting across the table, “I know you were one of those cute girls. You were 15 when you were incarcerated, right?” I interjected. Tell us again how you got the name ‘Onions’.“

Typical of Nisei girls, Auntie put her head down, flaped her hand at me and demurely declined. Especially with all her friends around, it wouldn’t have been proper to talk about herself. I convinced her later it was important to share her stories for the sake of the grandchildren.

Going on with Junko’s story. With close living quarters, community toilets, community showers, body parts and excrement exposure, figuring out who could come up with the most outrageous put down and name calling was the daily challenge, especially for the guys.

Junko continued, “When we got to Minidoka in Idaho, a bunch of us were part of block five and created the OTees. we considered ‘Stinkys’, ‘Poopys’ and other Japanese language descriptions. But thinking we needed to be a little more sophisticated and decent, we chose the name ‘Odorless Turds’."

GRANDDAUGHTER PERFORMS BELLE IN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

May

21

MIDDLE SCHOOL MUSICAL
THEY WERE GREAT!!

SLEEPING WITH HER FLOWERS!!

The Mercer Island Middle School musical BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was performed Friday night and twice on Saturday this weekend. It was fun and the directors were even a couple of the students.

They were re-rehearsing some of the parts between performances to make it better. What a learning for working together midst all the TEEN-AGE personalities! Belle nailed all her parts!

As Mom Kelly and Grandma Dee are rerunning the last few days in our conversation today, I ask, "Where did Kaori put flowers that she got?" I'm worried because I don't see them around and feel concerned they are not in water.

Mom, Kelly answers, "I know they brought them in from the car last night." Kelly hollers to daughter having had a guest overnight downstairs, "Where did you put the flowers?"

Kaori answers, "They're up in my room."

Kelly laughes and says, "Of course, she slept with them!"

K TSUKAMAKI FAMILY AND FRIENDS “GO EAST - NOT WEST” AS NEW PIONEERS

May

17

Part of the caravan in 1937

The youngest pioneer was a three-week-old premie

The completion of the Owyhee Dam in 1932 provided irrigation for row crop faming in Eastern Oregon and Western Idaho in an area called the Treasure Valley. A quote from a covered wagon pioneer woman’s diary, passing through the area in the 1850s states: “A desert so rugged and dreary that thousands of years would not render it livable nor supportive of human life.”

This was November 1937. At age 51, Grandpa K started over after losing his once thriving dairy business in Kent, WA, due to discriminatory laws and practices. Racial tensions were strong and everyone was having hard times with the depression. Mr. E.K. Saito (Saito’s Kent house is now the Kent Museum), started a packing shed for gathering and shipping vegetables in Ontario. He promised free onion seed and acceptance of the harvest. Grandpa K and his two teenage sons had gone ahead, a month earlier, to find places to farm and housing for the six families to live.

The caravan group, with vehicles and possessions, made sure they stuck together because of potential vehicles trouble or discrimination problems. My father, Sago Miyamoto, drove their black International Truck loaded with all the worldly possessions of three families as they left the Renton farm (which is now Renton Boeing), for the 500-mile trip to Eastern Oregon. Mary, my 19-yr-old mother, was specially concerned about her most prized possession, the washing machine they had gotten for a wedding present the year before. Sago, age 29, led the group because he was the oldest Nisei and the only one who could speak English fluently.

The youngest and the biggest concern of the trip was a premie, just three-weeks-old. She had been cradled in a shoe box and had been kept warm with an electric light bulb. This day, the warmth of the mother and the two-year-old in the back seat surrounded the shoe box. Oldest son, four-years-old, sat proudly in the front seat with his dad.

The S Tsukamaki family, with three preschoolers, followed in another sedan. Mr. N Goto and Mr. T Nakano, having formed a partnership, drove their truck and possessions in another truck. The rest of of the Goto family of three children with their mother went on the train with the Nakano’s mother and three children through Portland to Ontario, Oregon. The caravan drove windy roads around trees as they went over Snoqualmie Pass. It was cold in November. It was already dark, but they made it to Pasco, Washington, where the Yamauchi family owned a business. They all crowded into a couple rooms to stay overnight.

All the families found places in the Vale, Oregon, area to start their new lives. About ten miles west into the sage brush from town, in a place called Bully Creek, I was born, a year later. We were cast into this inland desert before the mass Japanese relocation and incarceration with WWII.

GUESS WHO VISITED WITH US TODAY - STORIES AT THE PANAMA

May

7

Jamie Ford surprised us with a visit at our first Sunday of every month:
STORIES AT THE PANAMA

As we gathered at the Panama Hotel this first Sunday in May2023, we had a surprise visit with Jamie Ford. He shared that he has purchased a DARUMA for each of his books. He blackens in the pupil of the right eye, according to tradition, as he starts his books and then blackens in the left eye when completed. One can google the Japanese Daruma tradition for goal setting.

Today, he showed us the tatoo on his right forearm of a daruma, created by his daughter, for his latest book. She will darken the left eye when it is completed and add some flashy highlights.

Jamie shared some further significance of the tatoo. It seems his father had many. Tatoos were known to be either military or prison related and Jamie was adverse to the idea most of his life. But recently, he values his father more and realizes the history of his family has a lot of significance in finding "HIS REAL SELF".

STORIES AT THE PANAMA has been successful because sharing stories about ourselves, our heritage and life values is what we are all about. I consider it one of my "life purpose" thoughts for my life fulfillment. It's been a lot of fun and everyone is welcome.

"HELL" IS GETTING EVERYTHING ONE "THINKS" THEY WANT IN LIFE

Apr

28

PRACTICES FOR GOODNESS

HEAVEN is every expanding goodness! Hell is “stagnation”. According to many visionaries we can think ourselves into heaven or hell. We all have free choices, living in America; but I like some of Japanese heritage practices like Karate that puts thoughts into directing our physical body energy and five senses.

Last year when my granddaughters started lessons at the Pacific Shito-ryu Dojo, I walked with them to observe one of their first lessons. Lucas, 12-yrs-old, entered at the same time as us, but bowed his head as he entered - giving respect for the room holding the practice. Then he immediately got the wide broom and started walking over and back across the room to sweep it clean. As he completed the process, I walked over to him and asked, “How come you are sweeping the room? Is that your job?”

He looked at me, kind of surprised to be hearing such a question, “No.”

I again asked, “Then why do you do it?”

“I don’t know, he responded and then walked over to get ready for the warm-ups for that session of practice.

Later, the girls told me he was a black-belt student and had been practicing since before he was eight year of age.

Two years of twice weekly lessons and tournaments have now been completed and I am impressed with the learning of respect and responsibility that is generated.

The girls are showing us thoughtful choices and not just going along with all the choices of the popular kids at their Junior High and High School activities.

Highly valuing research with education, I have thoughts about why it is valuable to share my Japanese Heritage values with maintaining a Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington for the next 100 years or more.

An important outcome of Japanese history and the 200 year Edo Period from 1600AD to 1800AD is the bringing of Cultural Arts like the Martial Arts to a researched science. The masters in the arts and cultural activities, researched and published the experiences of the five senses that created the best results.

Just so those reading this blog understand, our household has plenty of daily nagging about cleaning their room and doing their chores. Of course we are all striving to expand our goodness!

FAMOUS PEOPLE ON MY LIFE PATH

Apr

24

Meeting Rev. Andrews, Floyd Schmoe,
Gordon Hirabayashi

Seattle’s MOHAI (Museum of History and Industry) in collaboration with Seattle’s JACL (JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE) debuted the PRIDE AND SHAME exhibit early in 1970, chaired by Tomio Moriguchi, owner of SeaAsia and Uwajimaya Asian Market. It was also in commemoration of the 1970 Osaka World’s Fair. The title was from the 1965 CBS documentary The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame. Professor Min Masuda of University of Washington Psychiatry was one of the organizers.

Shortly after the opening of the MOHAI exhibit, Professor Masuda - with Professor Frank Miyamoto, Chair of U of WA Sociology and Rich Berner, who created the Suzzallo library archives in the 1940s formulated a grant to start a Japanese Collection documenting the Japanese American Experience in the Pacific Northwest.

I was shown two boxes with historical records and left to keep track of my own hours and find and collect documentation of the Japanese Experience of the Pacific Northwest. Karyl Winn was hired at the same time to head Special Collections so she and I learned what to do together. My husband, Sam, bought me a tape recorder and suggested I find out who some of the community leaders were and do some interviewing. Some of those tapes have been translated and digitized. They can be found at Archives West on-line.

At that time Sam and I lived on 23rd Ave. E, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district. I had a 6-yr-old and 3-year-old so I arranged baby sitting and had to be home before school was out on the days I chose to do my work. I decided to start with the churches and became friends with Reverend Emery Andrews of the Japanese Baptist Church. He was known to have moved his own family to Twin Falls, ID to be near his parishioners incarcerated from 1942 to 1946 in Minidoka. He also made several trips in their “Blue Box” Ford Van, bringing requested items from the church gymnasium storage of items left behind when everyone left Seattle with only what they could carry.

On this day in 1970, Rev. Andrews had arranged a meeting with Floyd Schmoe. We were invited to lunch at the Schmoe home in Juanita on the east side of Lake Washington. At that time, there was no internet and I had very little idea of who Schmoe was.

After the early 1970 morning of organizing breakfast, school, preschool and babysitting; driving “Snow White” our Malibu sedan, I picked up Reverend Andrews at the Baptist Church in Seattle, on Broadway. I drove south on Rainier Avenue and got on to I-90 and through the Mount Baker Tunnel. Half way across the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Floating Bridge the car engine started to sputter and came to a stop. The gas meter was embarrassingly at zero. Coincidentally, there was a police car following me. In those days they carried a can with gas in their trunk. He pulled up behind me, gave me some gas and sent me on across the bridge.

It was easy to find a gas station on Mercer Island. We made it to the Schmoe home by noon with no further difficulties and had a delicious lunch fixed by Floyd’s then new wife, Tomiko, whom he had met when building houses in Hiroshima to help recovery from the WWII atomic disaster. I considered it a friendly info gathering lunch and didn’t think of taping the session.

his immeasurable service to the Japanese community as a Friend’s Pacifist during WWII and with projects like HOUSES FOR HIROSHIMA after the war. He is remembered for earning Japan’s highest civilian honor and being nominated for Nobel Peace Prize three times.

Schmoe’s daughter Esther was married to Gordon Hirabayshi. Gordon is known for fighting Executive Order 9066, the forced removal and incarceration of all those with as little as 1/16th Japanese Heritage, all the way to the Supreme Court and winning. He was also honored with a post-humous award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. My mother, who was my babysitter, said, “Gordon was in my fifth grade class at Thomas Grade School.” One year when I met Gordon, he remembered my mom and said, “I remember, we had to get up in front of the class and give a demonstration. Your mom showed us how to wash rice.”

I was able to visit Floyd at the Ida Culver House, in 2001, shortly before he died at age 105. He was still enthusiastic about life and most encouraging about my leaving a legacy of the Japanese American experience!

MICHI HIRATA NORTH PIANO CONCERT TOWN HALL SEATTLE - APRIL 16TH

Apr

11

Debut at age 9 - Final Concert at age 91

If you want to know about the history of Michi Hirata North, google https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/classical-music/

Michi is a “best friend” and has been for over 50 years. What I’m able to show her is the life of being an ordinary person. She was with me when something broke off my car and we had to ride in the cab with the AAA driver to the service station. Michi was with me when we took Auntie Masami to lunch and to the SuperMall, where Masami had a seizure, stiffening and falling strait backward as we were in the cashier line. We waited for the ambulance to take Auntie to the hospital, but I had to take Michi home for her late afternoon piano student lessons. Auntie recovered from that incident and lived several more years.

Having lunch last week, Michi and I had a good laugh. One of the things we have in common is that we have always saved the boxes of various omiage - hostess gifts and presents. Both of us could imagine that one day the box would be just the size we needed to wrap a gift we wanted to give someone!

Both of our husbands considered these boxes stupid. Both of us, remembered how mad we were when Sam and Murray decided it was time to clean a closet. In our first house, Sam and I had an attic and I remember the boxes, at least 10 or 15 of them landing on the stairs and tumbling down to the front door as he threw them out.

Michi also loves purses and she remembers that Murray threw one out that had something valuable to her inside and how mad she was.

Such is life for even a concert pianist and I am excited to hear her live concert at Town Hall next Sunday afternoon.

PHYSICAL HUMAN PARTINGS, BUT NEW BEGINNINGS?

Apr

7

HAPPY EASTER IN HEAVEN!

Fred, my brother-in-law, was 94 years old and passed this week. The three remaining sibblings were there to bid him farewell to this human world! Fred now has the peace that he sought.

We gather and celebrate birth with joy. It is said that death brings equal joy and celebration with a gathering of friends and relatives.

I'm sitting here with a smile because the "real Fred" no longer has human thoughts and is retired from his physical body CEO position.

Fred had a cute smile and was noticed by all the girls. It was fun to go for a ride in his plane. He loved taking care of the women in his life and enjoyed meeting his friends at McDonalds and Burger King the last several years. Fred liked to read and when we got together, we often had these deep conversations about life.

Thanks Fred for paying for the wedding reception at the Moore Hotel in Ontario, OR, when Sam and I married. We were all poor in those days so that was a big deal.

Thanks Fred for being part of my human life,
Dee

gotohealth's Blog

How Auntie Onions Got Her Name!

ODORS OF OUR HERITAGE??

OTees of Block 5 Minidoka

GRANDDAUGHTER PERFORMS BELLE IN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

K TSUKAMAKI FAMILY AND FRIENDS “GO EAST - NOT WEST” AS NEW PIONEERS

GUESS WHO VISITED WITH US TODAY - STORIES AT THE PANAMA

"HELL" IS GETTING EVERYTHING ONE "THINKS" THEY WANT IN LIFE

FAMOUS PEOPLE ON MY LIFE PATH

MICHI HIRATA NORTH PIANO CONCERT TOWN HALL SEATTLE - APRIL 16TH

PHYSICAL HUMAN PARTINGS, BUT NEW BEGINNINGS?

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