<Begin Segment 5>

TI: So going back to your parents, can you just tell me a little bit about what they were like, starting with your father.

WY: Oh, my father was a quiet man. I thought about this much, much later, but he had a tattoo from (left shoulder to left elbow). Now, that is a yakuza emblem, and he was a very silent man. This is much, much later that I thought about it, maybe he was a refugee or something, I don't know. But my mother was not a "picture bride," so apparently the family agreed to it, whatever it was. My father did not speak much. And my mother was a schoolteacher because she went to, was a Japanese school teacher because she went to (Japanese) high school. That was very unusual for an immigree...

TI: Immigrant.

WY: ...immigrant to have that much education. So she was teaching Japanese schools.

TI: And so within the community, would you say, like, your mother had perhaps more education...

WY: Than most?

TI: ...than most.

WY: Yeah, because they were "picture brides," and they were brought in from, by a marriage... what do you call them? Agents or something, yeah.

TI: Marriage brokers?

WY: Broker, yeah. And my mother and father, my mother always said -- and my father would snort and walk away -- she always said that her father -- it's a long story, you know. Her father had nothing but girls, and so they had what they called yoshi, where a man comes in to marry. And at the very end of their sex lives, I guess they had a little boy, baby boy. And the guy that came in to take over the family got, what do you call, got jealous, and started embezzling. So by the time my mother was ready to marry, their reputation, they were bankrupt. So that's why she married my father. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, so let me make sure I understand this. So it was probably one of her older sisters married a man and he was yoshi so he took the family name.

WY: Yeah. And they prospered.

TI: And they prospered. But then, later on, I guess your grandparents had a boy. And then this man, this son-in-law, became jealous.

WY: Yeah, and he figured he's had no, we was not gonna inherit any of this, so he started embezzling. And then when they found out -- he was a tea packer, my grandfather -- and so when they found out (they were) bankrupt. So they told him to get out, "We won't sue you or anything, just get out." And they told the wife, (their daughter), "You want to get out with him or you want to stay here?" And she said she's going out with him, so she went out.

TI: Interesting. So going back to your father, the idea of a tattoo, I haven't heard very many Issei men with tattoos like that.

WY: I know it.

TI: So have you, did you ever come across anyone else with that story?

WY: He was not a talker, and I didn't -- [coughs] excuse me a minute. I didn't ask him, but this was much later that I thought about it. Much later.

TI: And your mother never said anything about it or anything?

WY: No, no.

TI: And you never heard the other men asking him? Because when they took a bath or something, it would be sort of visible.

WY: Yeah. I guess they had the manners not to ask, you know. But you're right.

[Interruption]

TI: So let me ask again about your mother. So what was your mother like?

WY: Oh, I just adored her. She was so pretty, you know. Of course, everybody thinks their mother is pretty. She was so pretty, and she was better-educated than most people, the immigrants' wives, and she was teaching Japanese school. She used to tell me stories, but the stories that she told me were very mature stories about... in those days they would have arranged marriages and they wouldn't permit you to remarry unless the families were from the same social class and all that. And she would tell me about, because I was the last one home, my sister and my brother were older and they went off to school, she would tell me stories. 'Cause I'm always after her, "Tell me a story, tell me a story." And she would tell me these stories about lovers committing suicide. That's why my stories are all so sad. [Laughs] I remember when people, when this guy had come to... Nobu McCarthy, you've heard of her. Her husband is Cuthbert. Cuthbert, can't remember his first name. Anyway, he... god, I forgot what I was gonna say. Anyway, he asked, somebody asked him -- he used to come over because Nobu was directing the play, And the Soul Shall Dance. He used to come to the theater all the time and go and sit down and watch the whole thing all over again. Somebody said, "Are you enjoying the show?" He said, "I never enjoy this play." [Laughs]

TI: Oh, because it was so sad? [Laughs] That's good. Well, going back to your mother and father, did you have a sense -- because the Japanese were very class-conscious. Did your mother, were your mother and father from the same class?

WY: Well, like I say, he had a tattoo from here to there. This is much later when I grew up... she claims that because her father went bankrupt that she got stuck with this guy. [Laughs] But he didn't talk much. And much later, I thought... every time we'd hear a car coming, we'd throw a towel at him on a hot day so that he'd hide his tattoo.

TI: Oh, interesting. So you knew that there was something wrong with the tattoo...

WY: That it was not a common thing, because nobody, even small tattoos, we never saw them on other people's father.

TI: How intriguing, that's interesting.

WY: And then much later, I thought, "Gee, was he a refugee from someplace?" you know.

TI: That'd be a whole story in itself. [Laughs]

WY: Yeah, he rarely talked. We would ask him to tell us a story, all he'd talk about is the boat coming into America, and the sharks waiting with their mouths open. He made it up, I think. [Laughs]

TI: Or I was wondering if it was like a metaphor for the people waiting at the docks for them or something?

WY: Could be, I don't know if he was that deep. Maybe he was, but he just never spoke as much.

TI: Well, because the reason I asked was, in your play And the Soul Shall Dance, there was, for one couple, there was a distinct class difference between one of the characters and the other. So I was just wondering if you got some of that from...

WY: I don't know. This is, like I say, much later. "What was he doing with a tattoo?" you know. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.