03:54
You know, that was about the time I started to take voice lessons, from this German opera want-to-be in a neighbouring town. Her name was Misses Stolz. For those of you who don’t know Stolz is the German word for proud. She was very proud. And very, you know like typical, big bust and short y’know with crazy hair all piled up and everything who’ll just wack us with a stick, y’know, if we didn’t do something right. And I just couldn’t understand why I had to put up with this. And not only that, I didn’t really know if I had a good voice or not. Because I was going there for enunciation.
04:43
It was kind of a crazy time. At the age of 4 my parents moved to Iowa City in Iowa. Because they had a very, very good medical school there and that was the internship for my father. While he was there he was asked to continue his residency into neuro surgery where in that time it was just a very baby specialty. But my mum got pregnant again with my brother. And he decided he hat to go work. So he went around and interviewed for jobs because they decided to stay in Iowa. My dad was a  great gardener, I mean, my mother and father came from plantation workers in Hawaii and they were were farmers back in Japan who were .. immigrated to Hawaii.
05:46
And … so I assumed that was one thing. The other thing was they didn’t want to go back to Hawaii. Because they wanted to be kind of free of the Hawaiian immigration culture at the time. And then he in his interviews he met up with this man named Jim… James Warrol who was about 10 years older than he was and had a pract… a medical practice. And was looking for a partner and when they met, my dad said, «well, we just felt they we knew each other and that we were brothers». Which was very interesting cause my father was not at all esoteric or, y’know, I mean I… we, we never talked about emotions with him. But for him to say this, must have been … the experience must have been very profound.
06:46

06:46
So we ended up in this very small town in the south-east corner of Iowa. That’s where I went to school all my years of … in the United States Grade School, so from 5-18. And basically I saw my life as being really terrible. My Brother was born almost 5 years after I was, so I was almost 5. I had been an only child, very pampered and very dotted on for 5 years and then, all of a sudden, the son comes. In Japanese families, sons are very important. And he was also a premature baby. So he got lots of attention. And I felt totally not cared for at all.  And then a couple of years later my sister came, so very close together. Actually, they’re.. I think they are an year and a half apart.
07:54
So, it was kind of .. one thing over another thing. And then in school – because this was right after the war – people were not happy with having a Japanese child in school. And the teachers were extremely weird. Mostly, the prejudice and they kind of hateful experience I had in school were from teachers. They would… the kids would tease me about being Japanese and I would, of course, fight for my self. And … I was the one that got her mouth washed out with soap. Or, y’know, got to stand in a corner. Or.. and the other kids never had any kind of retribution from the teachers.
08:49
It was only when I was 64, if you can imagine, and found out that I had a metastasis from my breast cancer.And so that my girl friends from this time, I’ve met them when I was 4 when I moved to Keosauqua, three of them came and we talked about my relationship with my mother which was very fraught and my family life back in those days and who they saw I was during that time. And it was a revelation, really, I mean, this was really true reconciliation. 0934 OK, I’m gonna take a little brake here..0937
09:42