<Begin Segment 20>

TI: And how did Ralph treat you, his little brother, how was he...

PY: Oh, well, that's what he told me, "If you wanna come back to Hawaii, I'll support you so come back to Hawaii." And those days, going to America or foreign country is very hard, although, even though you have a money. And then for the young people to go America or Europe or whatever, that was a very prestige.

TI: So that offer meant a lot because it was going to America.

PY: Yeah.

TI: But going back to when he visited, American GIs would often have candy, gum, things like that. Did he share some of those things with you?

PY: Yeah, yeah. And not only, I got a shirt like that, too. And I used to wear that shirt, I was very proud of wearing that shirt.

TI: You mean this is like an American army shirt?

PY: Yeah, it was, I think, American shirt, yeah. Army shirt, yeah.

TI: And I think you said, so the first time when Ralph came, you said the townspeople were maybe suspicious or afraid of him. But then he came again, and how, in future visits, how did the townspeople...

PY: Well, nothing happened. Nothing happened after that. The townspeople knew that I had one brother living in the... and some of them knew my brother name, too. So at the first time, when they said, "Let's do something to the Yempuku son," of course, my brother, my mother didn't know. Afterward she found out. But I didn't know those things happened, too. But later on, we just found out. So from the second trip, nothing was wrong, everything was okay. And then around that time, second trip or third trip time, I think the Japanese changed their attitude and mind, too, toward the American soldier.

TI: And how was it changed? When you say changed --

PY: They felt that they are good people. In fact, the Japanese army personnel was more worse than the American army personnel.

TI: Well, let's talk about your other brother. Because Donald, he was a key interpreter for the Japanese military. And actually, there was an interesting, kind of, meeting. Actually it wasn't a meeting, but when Donald was an interpreter for the Japanese and Ralph was with the Americans, that your brother Donald saw Ralph during this time. Can you describe that meeting a little bit?

PY: Well, they didn't tell me too much, though. I really, I don't know. I don't know.

TI: Okay, that's okay. I just, I read about this in a book so I thought maybe you would have more.

PY: Yeah, yeah.

TI: So let's go back to your --

PY: You know, they didn't, they didn't... yeah, they didn't tell me. But Ralph did help Donald afterward introduce to some important people, things like that. Because Donald start doing business with a American company. I think Donald got some help from Ralph.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.