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TI: Before we do that, let's talk a little bit about your father and mother, and first your father. Can you tell me his name?

MS: Yasutaro.

TI: And Yasutaro Matsushita.

MS: Matsushita.

TI: And can you tell me just a little bit in terms of maybe when he got to Wapato?

MS: My father came with his brother Shozo. And they came, I think it was 1905, and they came because they came from a farming family in Japan. And as you know, that, since they were not the eldest, and they were from a farm family, there was no way of being able to carry on the farm. But they were fairly well-educated, so they'd been teaching. But they were young folks and they wanted the adventure of coming to the United States, and they landed in Seattle.

TI: And where in Japan was your father from?

MS: Oh, gosh, I don't know.

TI: Let's see, I have Hyogo-ken?

MS: Yes.

TI: In my notes here. Okay, so your father, and do you have any idea how he got to Wapato?

MS: I think they were, they must have met up with some folks on the way over. And since they had been farmers, they knew that people were coming to the Yakima valley. The Yakima valley was, as you know, an Indian reservation, but they were, the Indians were leasing land to people that were not of Indian extraction. And so they came with a bunch of young men, and came to the valley. So they've been there a long time.

TI: And when you talk about, so the Indians leasing the land to Japanese, was there much interaction between the Indians and Japanese?

MS: Oh, I don't think so. I think each group existed among themselves. And at that time, I don't think people were thinking about who we interact with, but we do business with each other, but that was about it. And they went out, my father and his brother went out to the valley, in Brownstown, and there was an area that there was, there were other people there like the Caucasians. I think there was a Brown family that had come from Virginia, and had amassed a huge amount of land. And so my father and my father's brother came in that area. And they had a small group of folks, other men who had come to the valley. Apparently, it seems that my younger brother, my father's younger brother, Sho, went on to Wapato High School and began to get education there. But he was quite, kind of a different person from my father. I still remember him.

TI: So, yeah, tell me about your uncle Sho. What was he like?

MS: My uncle Sho was really a very outspoken, talking, he was energetic, he was amusing, and he was really, kind of had a trigger on him. He kind of got very upset about things. But he was really very talented, and he apparently was quite a photographer and took pictures and so forth, which was unusual at that time. He didn't actually farm, he set up a small stand and a gas station and earned a living, but he was not well, apparently. We learned that he had diabetes, and he didn't live very long. I think he must have been in his late forties when he died and left a family.

TI: So you said that Sho was very different than your father. What was your father like?

MS: My father was, you know, fairly even-tempered. And he was quite a scholar. He read a lot. He was very, he read all kinds of things like the political situation and so forth, and so that he really was somebody who thought a lot about... as I look back, I think he was very aware of what was going on in the world. And I'm sure that Kara told you that in the wintertime, when you can't farm on the farm, we had friends that would come over, the men friends would come over almost every day around ten o'clock in the morning. And they'd sit around and they'd talk and talk about a lot of things, and they played Hana and so forth. And I remember hanging around and listening, and I can still remember hearing about the Red Russia and Port MacArthur and things like that. I didn't know what that was about, but when I look back, that was pretty sophisticated at that time. And so that this heavy conversation was going on day after day. My mother would feed them, and they would go home about two or three, after having been fed. And this went on about four or five days a week for a period when they couldn't farm.

TI: That's a great scene you described. I'm trying to, so you said like four or five of them? And describe, like, how they were sitting, and...

MS: Oh, we had a round table, and they would sit around that. And there were about, I guess about four or five. There was Mr. Kikuchi and Mr. Yonekawa, Mr. Inaba, and I think that's about... about four or five of them.

TI: And you said your mother would feed them.

MS: Uh-huh.

TI: Now, were they, like, drinking and smoking?

MS: Uh-huh, yeah.

TI: And was it, did it get pretty loud at times?

MS: Yeah, yeah. They really enjoyed each other. It was such a relief for them to be able to have the time to be able to relax and have friends and to talk. And so that went on, yes.

TI: And they're talking world politics.

MS: That's right.

TI: Interesting.

MS: And once in a while, they would have the Hana, playing the Japanese game. But I can still be hanging around and listening. [Laughs]

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.