<Begin Segment 2>

MA: So, Larry, your father was married and had one son when he moved to Hawaii, to the Big Island?

LK: Yeah. Well, his wife didn't like Hawaii, so he take his daughter, her daughter, and she was no relation to me. Anyway, so, but my brother was. Dad was his real father. Anyway, so the mother and daughter moved to Japan, so then I don't know what happened, but he called my mother. And now, all that family is related.

MA: You mean your mother and father?

LK: My mother and father is related. So all my, all the children got small. [Laughs]

MA: Did your mother also work?

LK: Huh?

MA: Did your mother work?

LK: Work? Never. With all the kids? No, Mom didn't work. One, not, she raised vegetables. That's how I was born. Now, she was raising daikon. You heard of daikon? Okay. She was raising daikon, and Mom was pulling the daikon and I guess she pulled too hard, so here I came. [Laughs] And then, anyway, but that's what they told me.

MA: Well, let's talk about your family, because you have a lot of siblings. How many, how many brothers and sisters did you have?

LK: Well, let's see. Tadao, half brother. Mike, Ray... me -- no, no.

MA: Masami?

LK: Masami. Me, now, what's unusual is, he and I was born in the same year; he's February and I'm November. So I'm premature, way premature. So finally, we didn't know that, that we was born in the same year. And finally we figured it out, we said, "There's no record of my brother," and then I said, then somebody told me, they came out with February. So then I know that I was premature, so...

MA: What about your other brothers?

LK: And I got... from me, it went to Masao, Mitsuru, and Hajime. Now, that's a funny thing. He's the last one, and he's, the name is Hajime, it's the first name. So now, then my, after that my sisters came. I've got Asako, Hanako, Shizuko...

MA: Is it Sue?

LK: Well, the next one died. So... what's her name?

MA: Did she die in, as a child?

LK: She's what you call premature. Anyway, then... [laughs]

MA: Was it Sue?

LK: See, now, my next sister is...

MA: Larry, that's okay. So, how many, how many total were there? Was it fourteen?

LK: Well, yeah about that. How many boys did I have, and how many... I have six, six sisters.

MA: I think eight brothers, or eight boys, six girls.

LK: How many boys?

MA: Eight.

LK: Eight, okay.

MA: Eight boys.

LK: About right, eight. I always thought it was nine. [Laughs] Anyway, okay, eight. Yeah, if we include me, yeah. Anyway... that's it.

MA: How did all of your siblings get along?

LK: Huh?

MA: How did you all get along with each other?

LK: Get along? Oh, fine. You know, all my, even my children amaze me. We're always get together. That's like now Christmas, we always get together. I mean, they come from California and Chicago, but then see, now, what happened is on Thanksgiving, my youngest daughter always come up with the Thanksgiving dinner. And you know, my daughters never cook, never cook. I don't know where my young daughter learned how to cook. [Laughs] But she always baked the turkey.

MA: Larry, let's talk about your brothers and sisters. How big was your house, and where did you all sleep?

LK: Well, let's see now. One, two, three, four, five... seven rooms. But what we'd do, we don't live in the room. We live in the living room. And what you call the mat is a tree, they call it Hawaiian, lauhala. That's the leaf that they cook to make the mattress, and that's what we live on. And amazingly, it's warm. Well, Hawaii's always warm anyway. We never closed the window. Anyway, it's warm. So not only that now, my neighbor got nine children, and they all lived with us.

MA: Why did they all live with you?

LK: They're building a house next to ours, so before they get it fixed, built, all the brothers and sisters... there were four girls, one, two, three, four... yeah, five boys, so nine children. So they all lived with us, amazingly. [Laughs] And you heard of okala? Tofu no katsu? No, huh? That lady always make us kids, always that. It's real good stuff. And that's good for you on cancer, you know? [Laughs]

MA: Larry, what were the meals like with all of those kids?

LK: Interesting. I mean interesting. We never -- well, we fight, we fight. Yeah, we fight. But you know what happened? Every time when we fight, my oldest brother, he used to lock us up in a box. I mean, that's a big crate now. And lock us up in the, nail the cover up and that's it. So you know, when I was a kid, I was a boxer. Well, my cousin now, they are professional boxers. So, so I start following them. [Laughs]

MA: Where did you go to box?

LK: Huh?

MA: Where would you box?

LK: Box?

MA: Where?

LK: We used to call it... well, they used to have a gym for us, and that's where we used to... yeah, but actually, my, yeah, my cousin and I, he's a judo. And I was kendo. You ever heard of kendo? Okay, I'm kendo and he's judo. So that's why when I went to Japanese language school, I went to ninth grade. And that's when we, what do you call, started learning about sports and stuff. Japanese... yeah, judo and kendo.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.