<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So you got to Gilroy around seventh, eighth grade, so you were a teenager. How many years were you in Gilroy before the war started?

SY: Gee. When did... about three or four years, I guess.

TI: And for you, this was like the longest you could remember staying in a place with the whole family?

SY: I guess so. I may be mistaken, but that's what I think. I know we lived there more three years.

TI: So this is probably a good time to think about, what are some fond memories of those three, four years in Gilroy? Do you have any, like, good memories of either the family or playing in Gilroy or anything about that?

SY: Oh, there was one family that we... we visited. They were in the same town, and there was one particular family that we used to not communicate that... is communicate? And they would come over and we'd go over there. And I guess that's about, that's about it.

TI: And for your family, did you have your own bathhouse, furo, or did you ever, was there a community bathhouse?

SY: Where's that?

TI: In Gilroy.

SY: Gilroy? Yeah, we had our own bathhouse, yes.

TI: And was this something that your dad kind of built for the family? It was just a separate place?

SY: No, it was there already. It was there already. And every night we would make bath, you know, with wood.

TI: And so explain that. Who would make the fire? Would the kids do it?

SY: Yeah, the kids would do it, yeah.

TI: And so would you guys take turns doing it, or did one person, was that one person's job?

SY: No, there wasn't any specific, you know, person that would do it.

TI: And with such a large family, was there always a certain order in terms of who took the first bath and how it went?

SY: Well, it's the menfolks who takes the bath first. And we, the females, they go in last. My mother was the last to take the bath.

TI: Okay, so your mother was last, and then the two sisters was like the second to last?

SY: Yeah, something like that.

TI: And then the brothers before then and then your father?

SY: Yes, my father, of course, he's the king of the house. [Laughs] He was the first, and my brothers. That's Japanese style.

TI: And I'm curious, by the time you took the bath, was the water still hot enough, or had it cooled off by then, or do you remember what it was like?

SY: Well, if it was cool, It's a wood stove, I mean, you know, you burn wood, so you just stick in the wood and make it a little hotter.

TI: So any other, like, family memories? So taking a bath at night together, anything else that you can remember about the family life growing up? Like a certain, maybe a time to read or anything, or just something that you had a routine as a family?

SY: I remember the dining room table, you know, my older brothers would make a ping pong table out of that and we'd play ping pong. We'd play ping pong.

TI: So they were pretty resourceful, they made their own homemade ping pong table on the dining room.

SY: Uh-huh.

TI: That's good.

SY: And it wasn't a big room, you know, so you can't reach over without hitting the wall. But it was fun.

TI: It sounds like you were close to your brothers. I mean, the family, the siblings were pretty close, that you were actually your best playmates, in some ways, your best friends, that you would do things.

SY: Well, I was called otenba, "tomboy." [Laughs]

TI: Good.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.