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TI: You mentioned a little bit about your father. Let's talk about your father. And first, in terms of his family, and what kind of work did his family do in Japan?

KT: We were farmers in Japan. And my dad was the oldest son, so he was the chonan of the family. And my grandfather was very strict in that definition, even though he had two other, my uncles, I guess, younger than my dad, he decided that my dad was the chonan, so all the property in Japan was deeded over to him. And I kind of, I remember that my oldest sister Haruko was left there in Japan, and when my grandparents died, I remember my dad saying, "Okay, I want you boys to know that everything in Japan belongs to Haruko, and the stuff in the United States will be divided among here." And we even, to make sure that we won't contest the ruling, if we ever went back to Japan, he had the legal paper made out and we all signed it saying everything in Japan is left to her. And later, people were telling me that since we had property there, that they were saying, "Hey, you guys could, you boys could go back there and claim it." And I said, "No, not in our case. My dad made sure everything was left to my sister." So my dad was very organized that way. He made sure that things he told us, it was gonna be that way.

TI: [Takes paper] Yeah, I'm going to take this so we... put this over here. So I'm curious, so your father was the oldest. And when I talk to other people, usually it's like the second or third son is the one who comes to the United States, and not the oldest one. Because, as you said, the land is going to go to them, so they usually stay. And because the second one doesn't have land, they leave. So what caused your father to come to the United States?

KT: He just didn't like to be a farmer. He was the rebel in the family. He actually came, I think he was nineteen years old when he came to Japan, I mean, came to the United States. And then he was a laborer, he worked in the railroads, he worked in the lumberyard. And all over the state of Washington there are a lot of places where we used to drive out there, and he would show us, said this was the campsite where he was and all these places. And then we could tell because my brother, oldest brother was born in Winlock. My sister was born in Onalaska right down in this area. So when we would be driving down, I would say, "Oh, that's where my sister was born," and I would point that out to Ron and my other son Steve and my daughter.

TI: And the reason he was moving around was the type of work he was doing?

KT: Work he was doing. The different camps that the railroad camps were, or lumber camps were.

TI: Did he ever talk about what kind of jobs he had at either a railroad camp or a lumber camp, the type of work he did?

KT: At the railroad, I think he was just working as a section worker, moving tracks and replacing tracks and stuff like that. And then the lumberyard, I guess he ended up having the job where he had to, in the pond, he would have to spot which tree it was, fir, cedar, or whatnot. And his job was, they would tell him which, what they wanted. They want a cedar log, then he would have to go and hook a cedar log in the pond and bring it up to there so it could be taken up the waterways into the sawmill.

TI: Oh, so he was kind of like a sorter.

KT: Sorter, right.

TI: And was he one of those guys that would stand on the logs with a big pole?

KT: He would do that, and stay on there and pick it. So he was quite... and actually, I think he got the job because he was really tall for a Japanese Issei. In fact, I think he was actually taller than all of us sons by a half an inch or so. [Laughs]

TI: And so when you say "taller," about how tall was he?

KT: He was about 5'8", 5'9". So he was tall by his standard, and there's an old wedding picture, and he's standing on the wall, and he's a head taller than the rest of his friends.

TI: Given that he had two younger brothers that stayed in Japan, do you know, recall or ever hear, was there resentment that your father went to the United States and he still had the land deeded to him?

KT: I never noticed that. I mean, you know, I really didn't know any about my uncles and aunts in Japan at all. And then later on, when we, Setsu and I went back to Japan to visit, we stopped by there and visited all these people, but they were all deceased, most of them were deceased already. And I don't know. I really, my dad never talked about that.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.