Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: James Yamazaki Interview
Narrator: James Yamazaki
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Van Nuys, California
Date: February 4, 2005
Densho ID: denshovh-yjames-01-0008

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TI: But I think there was one official reason why he went, and you mentioned earlier, this must have been early 1920s when the United States, the laws targeting Asians were getting worse and worse, and in 1924 there was the Immigration Act of 1924 where they stopped all immigration from Japan to the United States. And during this period there were still lots of bachelors in the United States, Japanese bachelors, and they wanted to get married. So talk about that, because your dad helped some of these bachelors go find wives.

JY: Somehow that story, we were old enough to understand a little bit, marginally at least, what was going on. We knew these young men, they were sort of older brother figures to us. And a lot of activities to get a bride, and these men wanted to go Japan to seek out a bride themselves. But I think there was some government provision that if the person was going to bring the bride to this country, he would have to have some economic wherewithal to bring her here, and that was, in those days, a considerable amount from a workingman's salary. And so the neighborhood, most of the Japanese communities had a self-help loan kind of organization called tanomoshi, and they would, friends would get together and make a bid for a certain sum of money every few months. And so that was a big event where they decided who was going to get the money from the group.

TI: So that they could afford a wife?

JY: Yeah, another thing. But, of course, at this time, it was the wife that was paramount.

TI: Now, was your father involved in this community bank?

JY: Oh, yes. Yes, I think he was all the time.

TI: So it was all the community, so they would all just put like a little bit in this fund every month?

JY: Yes.

TI: And then as a contributor, say, your father, did he ever get anything in return?

JY: Yes. I think because he eventually paid a down payment on a house. I said, gee, minister's salary, and I eventually saw the returns of his income over his entire ministry when I was cleaning up his house one day. And it was fifty dollars. He never got more than fifty dollars. And so I think this tanomoshi was something for these Japanese families to obtain the kind of possessions they wanted, furniture, cars, major appliances. It's amazing.

TI: It is amazing.

JY: Because we would hear some of these reverberations of these tanomoshis even as kids. Because there would be a certain amount of equity that they promised to pay kind of thing, that some people would be more reliable in that extent than maybe, say, if there were ten person there would be a spectrum of reliability. And sometimes the person that's least reliable would get the money. And so they would have to sweat that person's promise to pay over a longer period of time. We knew that existed.

TI: So let me recap this. So here, the community, the ones who could, would contribute, like on a monthly basis, and there would be money. And then people in the community who needed a sum of money to either...

JY: Yes, to this small group of tanomoshi.

TI: Right, to either get a wife or to start a business or to buy a house, would apply. And then, I guess, the group would decide who would get that money?

JY: That's right.

TI: And then after they get the money, eventually they would have to repay it back into the fund, so this would keep growing and people would go back and forth. But some people were less reliable than others in terms of paying them back.

JY: Or circumstances made it impossible for them to pay back the way they intended.

TI: And so I'm curious, in the community, did people kind of know who did not pay back?

JY: I think so. That would come out, of course.

TI: That's interesting. And the reason these things probably existed was the official banks wouldn't lend money to the Japanese individuals to do this.

JY: I know. But I guess this was much more effective way of obtaining the kind of money they wanted, it's on a loan basis. So it was sort of a community support group.

TI: That's good. So you were telling the story, so in the early 1920s, some men, because they needed the resources to get a wife, they would borrow money from the tanomoshi and then they would go to Japan. And so, and your father, you mentioned earlier how he would take a group of men...

JY: Yes. In know, actually recall one group that he took, because they found a wife for this person, and they came to the neighborhood, and it was quite a celebration, I guess, that the people waited for this bride to come, and they were warmly welcomed, and we knew their kids from then on. It was something that just was indelible. Because thereafter there was no more families coming from Japan.

TI: Right, at that point it was stopped.

JY: Yeah. So that was the last family that came to our neighborhood.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.