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AI: Well, now tell me, when and where were you born?

TI: I was born in Portland, Oregon, August 15, 1924. And we lived in a, rented a hotel in which mostly transients lived there. A lot of Filipinos who worked in the canneries used to live there, too. And I still remember climbing the stairs as a little child. It looked like a huge mountain. I kept climbing and climbing to get up there. I was scared of heights. Maybe that's where I learned it -- [laughs] -- looking down.

AI: And were your parents working there at the hotel at that time, also?

TI: Well, they worked there and as well as at a restaurant. My father was a janitor all these years, and mother worked in the dishwashing room.

AI: So really they both had two jobs...

TI: Yes.

AI: ...managing the hotel as well as the restaurant work.

TI: Working seven days a week. No vacation time.

AI: Do you have any visual memory of what the hotel looked like or the block that it was on?

TI: Well, other than being on a second floor and this tremendously long staircase to climb, we had a, of course, a basement, and huge logs were used to heat the furnace for the hotel. And it was dark down there, and I was scared about that. Usually I'm a pretty nice kid and all, but one day we were playing in our favorite place and, a lot, and there was an old car sitting there. It wouldn't operate, but we were monkeying around, havin' a good time. And then police came, and we ran, and I hid under the bed, and I was so scared that I'd done something awful. And I never knew what the results were, but I was just scared. I still remember -- [laughs] -- that incident.

AI: Well, now you also had an older brother and sister and younger brother. And what was your older sister's name?

TI: Shizuka.

AI: And you mentioned that she was born in 1921.

TI: Yes.

AI: And then your brother, his name?

TI: Kazuo.

AI: That he was born, then, in 1922?

TI: Right.

AI: And you came next?

TI: Yes.

AI: And then your, you had a younger brother?

TI: Yeah. Saburo.

AI: Born in 1926?

TI: Yes.

AI: And were you all born there in Portland?

TI: Yes, uh-huh. Yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.