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PW: So can you just share a very brief history of the Buena Vista Methodist church? I know that it's a lot of history, but for those of us who aren't familiar with Buena Vista, can you tell me a little bit more?

MY: I think there's going to be a lot of the history with this Densho project that's going to be recorded, but I'll just give you like a thirty-second snapshot. It was founded in 1898 with an outreach to immigrant men from Japan coming into the city of Alameda. And there were missionaries who outreached to them to help teach English, help support them for looking for employment and also for housing. And that sort of grew over the years into a fellowship and then eventually into a church, into the congregation. And they found a Victorian home on 2311 Buena Vista Avenue, which is the current location of the church.

PW: So it's always been in the same location?

MY: No. Well, I mean, I think the outreach started like in the house ministry or something, but I think it was like 1907 or so that they found the current location. So a few years after the initial outreach.

PW: So let's start with your beginning with Buena Vista. When were you first appointed?

MY: I was first appointed half time in 1986, which is when I graduated from Pacific School of Religion with my MDiv. But my primary appointment was to the Berkeley Methodist Church. And I was there under an arrangement where I was going to be an associate to do social justice work and outreach to young families. I was there for two years and then I was appointed full-time pastor in 1988 to Buena Vista, in July of 1988.

PW: And then what was it like when you first arrived?

MY: You know, I grew up in the Bay Area but I wasn't that familiar with Alameda. And Alameda's got its own unique culture and history. And so it was something new for me, and something different. So just getting acclimated to the community as well as to this particular congregation was something new for me.

PW: And was it predominately a Japanese American congregation?

MY: Yes. Because from its beginnings in 1898, we were serving Isseis, it was a primarily Issei and Nisei congregation. Although at that particular time in '88, there had been a Sansei generation that were born and raised there, but most of them had moved out of the area. So when I arrived there, it was a small congregation, primarily of Nisei, but a small handful of Issei as well.

PW: And for people who aren't that familiar with Alameda, it's kind of an island, right? I mean, it is an island.

MY: It is an island, yeah.

PW: And the people that generally have lived here for many generations, the Japanese Americans, I should say, were in the same kind of industries over a long period of time? Like I'm just kind of curious to get that feeling...

MY: Kind of what the economy was?

PW: Yeah, or just what the culture was when you said you came here and it was a little bit different?

MY: Yeah. Well, one of the things that... there was a navy identity in Alameda that got started during the war, because they opened up the navy base there at that particular time. So there was definitely that kind of feeling of a military identity of a portion of the city. But it's also been kind of a suburban outlier for San Francisco, you know, people who maybe commuted to San Francisco. But then also there's kind of the rural aspects of Alameda, too, where you've heard of Bay Farm Island where there actually were farms prior to them developing homes in the particular area. So it was kind of a unique history. And because it's an island, and also, at the time I came, I think there were about maybe seventy thousand population or so, kind of a small city that has kind of a character that's kind of quaint in some sense. And as you get to know people, you get a sense that it's a very tight-knit community as well. And one of the things that one of the members told me is that, "Well, you're a newcomer here, it's going to take you a long time to become an Alamedan." And I said, "What do you mean by that?" And he says, "Well, I've been here for like twenty years, and I'm still a newcomer." And I would learn that as I began to meet people in Alameda along the way, that there are Alamedans that go back many generations, and that there's that sense of Alameda identity that was there throughout the community. And I think that was also mirrored in the Japanese American community as well, that there had been generations that go back. Which is a different feeling than, say, if you think about churches that are in Oakland or Berkeley or L.A., they're a different kind of sensibility.

PW: It makes a lot of sense, the navy piece especially. Because my father was actually stationed in Alameda with the Navy for twenty years.

MY: No kidding? Oh, really?

PW: Long time.

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