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TI: So let's go, even before we go to your life, let's talk about your, your family history, and why don't we start with your father's family and why don't we start to the point, if you can remember, when your father's family first came to the United States, so probably your grandparents, can you share, like, where they came from in Japan and who they were?

RH: Okay. Both my families, mother and father's families, came from the Hiroshima area and they were both from farming families basically, and they came over to the United States, my grandparents came over here in the, I believe it's, it was about, almost about the same time, I believe, and I don't have the exact years, but it was somewhere around in the nineteen, early 1920s that they came here to the United States. It was probably, actually, even between, say, 1918 and 1920 or so that they arrived, and they were, my mother's side was, they came to the Oakland area, so they were, I know my grandfather had gotten into produce work and he was working in Oakland at that time and eventually got work, started working in a store to sell, a grocery store type of thing. My father's father and mother, they were more into farming and so they were in the Bay Area, then they actually had to, were moving around quite a bit, so they were in Salinas, they were in Watsonville, and doing a lot of the truck farming type of work, strawberries and other vegetables and all that kind of farming, but they, they would come back to the Oakland area, too, at different times, so they moved around a lot more than my mother's parents did. Both of 'em, I guess most of, I guess, my mother's family except for one, the youngest son, I guess, in her family was born here in the United States, and just about, I think, from my understanding, out of this, her siblings, it was just only one that did not go back to Japan for schooling and the rest were all sent back for whatever reason, and it was the oldest daughter that stayed here and all the other kids were sent back.

TI: Okay, so your mother was educated, had educated, was educated in Japan also?

RH: Right, so she was born here and then sent back, and so from elementary school to high school she was in school at Hiroshima. And my father also, he's Kibei also. He was actually born here, but he was also sent back from elementary school on. My father's parents, both of 'em, they, most of my grandparents had decided just to move back to Japan because they just didn't see, they couldn't figure out a great way to make a living here and they thought they would probably do better by going back home, so they returned.

TI: So there's quite a few similarities then, between your mother's side and father's family in terms of the grandparents both going back to Japan. Is that...

RH: Right. Right. My mother's parents, once they went back they pretty much stayed there. They never came back over here after they went back to Japan. My father's parents, though, they did, they were, like I mentioned, they were much more, they moved around quite a bit, so they did come back now and then to do different things here and then went back to Japan, so they were in and out more so than my mother's family was. But my father came back first, I guess, after high school, and then, I believe that was in the mid '30s or so, he came back, and then my mother came back, I think it was, she came back, it was about 1939, I believe, or so.

TI: Let's, let's talk a little bit more about just your father right now. So he comes back from Japan after, what, going through high school in Japan, and so what does he do when he comes back, I guess, to the Bay Area? What, what does he do?

RH: He, he, the stories I hear from when he came back, he was just out of high school, very young, so he came back over here and basically really couldn't find much work being that young and not speaking English very well, so he actually was involved more in the household servant type of work, so he was taken in by a family, I believe initially in Palo Alto area, where he was living, so he was just living there and doing whatever work was necessary to help support that particular family. And then he started to do some other kind of, more labor type of work. It was gardening and also some farming type of work that my grandparents had also done. He became, he was basically a blue collar laborer through the, his whole life. He was basically a gardener, but also he worked with Bethlehem Steel, which was based in Alameda, but that job didn't happen 'til after he came back from the camp in the late '40s.

TI: And what was your father's name?

RH: Yoshitomo.

TI: And how many siblings, or what siblings did he have?

RH: Just one brother.

TI: Okay. And, and so this was, he came back in the '30s and was doing this, and then let's talk about the war years. What happened to him when the, when the war broke out?

RH: They're living in the East Bay area, so they, and so when the war broke out they were sent to Topaz at the, at that time. So they had just gotten married and they were just living there. There was, they didn't have any kids at that time. My two oldest brothers were born in Topaz.

TI: Okay, so he had married your mother before the war?

RH: Right. And it was an arranged marriage, so my mom had come back from Japan specifically to get married to my father because it was arranged.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.