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TI: So let me just sort of summarize right now. So we just talked about your, your, when you were born, your siblings, you had four older siblings, your father came to the United States when he was about thirty-nine, forty, and your mom came with him when she was about twenty-six, twenty-seven. They came with your oldest sister, and then she graduated from USC. How, how, do you recall how old she was when she came to the United States, your oldest sister?

JI: She was five, I think, yeah. And she kept a diary that our daughter Chiyo, who was named after my second sister, was, she has it and it's quite interesting, 'cause it's very precocious, probably when she was ten or eleven. She had some, some perceptive things to say, but I, I haven't read it completely.

TI: Yeah, I have to talk to, to your daughter about that. I'm curious about the diary. But, so now that your father and mother and your oldest sister are in the United States, what did they do in the United States?

JI: Okay, my father started work on a farm, and he, as you know, many Japanese had, went into farms, and eventually, when they had children who could own property, they became quite prosperous. My father, I think, felt that rural schools at that time were very inadequate, so he moved to the city, took a very menial job with a pharmaceutical company, the Standard Homeopathic, and was there for about thirty-five years until he retired. And he was the only Japanese in the firm, but he still never learned to speak Japanese -- speak English. He would say "yes" and "no," and he could, understood everything that was, all the instructions. And he was, he had the responsibility of mixing various chemicals to make pills and things, and they trusted him to do that and to run the machinery to make those things, but it was still a very menial job. But he worked with them all through the Depression, so we, even though we didn't have much money, at least we had a father with a job. And my oldest brother went to work on Saturdays to earn money to help the family, so when he was fourteen. And the second brother did the same when he was fourteen.

TI: And your, and your mother during this time, what did she do? Did she stay at home?

JI: Yeah, well, she cleaned houses for some people. I noticed at one point, and I don't know for how long, I don't remember for how long, she got tuberculosis and eventually she died of tuberculosis. Well... I don't want to go into that part, but she, she killed herself because she thought she had, that it was, that the family couldn't afford to keep her in the sanitarium. And so in the sanitarium, after a few days... it was symbolically, did it in, on Easter day. And she and my father -- I'm not sure, but they may have converted to Christianity when they were in Japan.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.