<Begin Segment 2>

TI: Well, you mentioned your mother, tell me a little bit about her, her family history. Where her parents, yeah, about your grandparents on your mother's side, just tell a little bit about that side.

EW: Sure. Well, my father's Japanese, so thus I have the Japanese surname, Watada, but my mother is Chinese American. Her family has been in Hawaii for, I think, she is fourth-generation Chinese American or Chinese Hawaiian. You know that Hawaii did not become a state until I believe it was the 1950s, but her family had been there long before that. In Hawaii, there are a lot of, there are a lot of people of Asian Pacific ancestry because there were a lot of plantations on Hawaii, even before statehood, and they brought in a lot of immigrants or migrant workers from the Asian Pacific realm, the Philippines, China, Japan and Korea. And they came to work on those plantations for a set period of time, and after they had fulfilled their contracts, then they were pretty much free to set up their own businesses or be, or work for somebody else. And so my great-great-grandfather finished up his term on the plantations, and he started his own business and became very wealthy and prosperous, and he had many children.

TI: And what kind of business did he go into?

EW: I'm not particularly sure. I know that he did pass on a bakery to my great-grandfather, and that bakery went really well and it was in the family, and it was eventually -- because of eminent domain, they were building the freeway in Hawaii -- they had to close down the bakery, and I don't know what happened to it after that.

TI: And what was the name of the bakery?

EW: I can't remember.

TI: Do you know where it was located, sort of?

EW: No, it was in, somewhere in downtown Honolulu. I know that my mother said that she used to play around the bakery when she was younger, but I had never seen it when I was born.

TI: Okay, let's talk about your father.

EW: Sure.

TI: You mentioned Japanese American, so tell me about your father's family's history.

EW: Well, that's also interesting as well, is how they came to America. My great-grandfather was, he tried out many professions, he was a sumo wrestler, but he was never really successful. So he came to America to start a new life, and he started working on a farm, he bought some land, a very small parcel of land. And his son, my grandfather, followed him here and searched all around to try to find his father; he eventually found him in Colorado, and so they both settled down and started to farm together. And then my grandfather went back to Japan to find a wife, and he, he was matched up with my grandmother, and he brought her back to Colorado to live and raise a family. And she was, she came from a very wealthy merchant family, and she was shocked -- [laughs] -- that she had to come back and pretty much rough it on the farm, and it was a whole different life. It was very, if you can imagine Colorado during the 1930s, it was a very hard life back then.

TI: Do you recall any stories in your family folklore in terms of how difficult it was? Or when people say, "Grandma was surprised at how hard it was," were there any stories that you can remember in terms of what was hard for her?

EW: I think, you know, she wrote... my grandmother was very introspective, and she wrote a book of haiku, or many haiku, and it was composed into a book that the family published. And in it, you can kind of get a sense of how she felt having to survive on a farm in a faraway land away from her friends and family, with virtually a person she had no knowledge of. [Laughs] And I think there are stories that my dad told me in that she at many times felt like she didn't want to go on anymore, because, because life was so hard and tough, but she did it for her children. She ended up having twelve children, and she ended up having the will to go on because of, because of having to raise those children and love them.

TI: So twelve children, so you have lots of uncles and aunts on your, on your dad's side.

EW: Yes. My dad has... what is it... eight, seven brothers, two sisters. [Narr. note: nine brothers]. One of his brothers was killed in the Korean War.

TI: So how did you go from, the family go from Den-, or from Colorado to Hawaii? What was the connection?

EW: Well, my father was the only one who moved to Hawaii. He, he lived in Colorado for practically his whole life, he spent two years in the Peace Corps in Peru, and I think he was working on his PhD, his doctorate, and he was offered a position at the University of Hawaii. And so that's how he ended up over there, and that's how he met my mother.

TI: Interesting. So do you, do you still have a lot of family in Colorado?

EW: Yes, I still do.

TI: Now, what area of Colorado do they live?

EW: Pretty much in the Fort Lupton, Brighton area, small towns outside of Denver, the farmlands over there. And there are some that moved to the East Coast, there are some that moved to California, but primarily most of the family still lives in Colorado.

TI: Okay, we'll go back that, because I'm curious, I want to hear this. But let's, you mentioned Hawaii was where your parents met. How did your parents meet?

EW: I think the story goes is that my, both my father and my mother played tennis, and I think my father was on the courts one day, and he saw an attractive woman and asked if she wanted to go out on a date, and that's how they met, supposedly, I guess.

TI: That's good. And so they eventually got married, and so tell me about when you were born in birth order, and your siblings. How did that all play out?

EW: Well, I have one brother, and he was, he was born about seven years before me.

[Interruption]

TI: And what's your, what's your brother's name?

EW: My brother's name, my brother's name is Lorin Watada.

TI: Okay, so Lorin's seven years older.

EW: Uh-huh.

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