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TI: Okay, so tell me what it was like working with your father.

RH: We would always complain because he, we would figure, okay, especially when I would go, my other brothers used to have to go quite a bit and then I started going, too, so three of us and my dad to help him, his customers, so we would always say, "Wow, there's four of us, so we should be able to get out of here real quick." But we'd, seemed like we'd be out there longer when he was by himself than we were there, the four of us and we could never figure out why it took much more work, or why we didn't, we were out there longer when we should've been able to finish his work much faster. And so he just, one, I think perhaps we weren't that good, so it took us longer anyway. [Laughs] But he was trying to teach us all that, but he just made us learn about what it took to work and he was very meticulous about making us understand what it took to do different things, and so, and naturally, if it wasn't quite, if we didn't do it right, the lawn right, he'd make us do it over again, so whatever. And he would always find his own little things. He'd be, like, clipping a bush here and then half hour clipping one little rose bush while we're rakin' this large lawn type of thing, so it was his way to kind of teach us, I guess, to experience what it was to, to work and to be particular about what you do even though it might seem like menial work or labor type of work, but it was really important that you did it right and it was done properly and, and that you put all your effort into making it happen, basically.

TI: And how would he, how would he get that point across? Would it, would he say certain things, or would it be by just his doing it, or how did you know that?

RH: He would just tell us, "It doesn't look good. You have to do it better. Do it again." And so we would just have to do that, or next, when we go to the next place, say, "Well, you did it wrong, you cut the lawn the wrong way last time. Do it right this time." And in those days, too, there was no power mowers, right? It was the hand mowers. [Laughs] So, so we would be really struggling with that and all that kind of stuff. There's very few power tools that we were working with, so everything was by hand, the clippers, trimming the edge of the lawn was all by hand and everything.

TI: And tell me about your mother now, in terms of, when you did things with her, what was it like in terms of how your mother was?

RH: She was very hard working, because having the large family and taking care of everyone, she just spent all her efforts making sure everyone was well fed and taken care of and that the house was nicely maintained, so she didn't, she was basically at home. She never, she didn't even drive. She didn't start driving 'til much later, when I was in high school, I remember, she started driving. And so most of us, it was, so I just remember having to walk a lot because, earlier when I was growing up, or taking the bus or other public transportation, in order to get to places to, to go shopping or whatever, so I just remember having to do a lot, a lot of that. Even just the grocery store, maybe just a few blocks away, we would walk there and then buy and bring, carry everything back. And so those are things I kind of remember that it was, she was always involved with us and trying to do that. Naturally, when we first started elementary school, she would walk us to school and things and take care of us in different ways. And again, she had her Kibei friends that were in the neighborhood that she would be helping or working with, but also our local neighbors and things, she would really find, befriend and build these relationships with some of our neighbors who were not Japanese. So one of our neighbors right next door to us was a, was a Mexican family that had just kind of moved over from Mexico, so the wife there, she was a younger woman, too, I guess kind of like my mom in a way, I guess, but didn't speak much English, so she didn't understand a lot about things, so my mom was trying to teach her what she knew, even though she didn't know a whole lot of English, too, but what she knew about how to do different things. And so I just remember them sharing a lot because she would help her, teach her how to sew different things or cook different things and then, naturally, she'd, our neighbor, she would be, bring over tamales and flour tortillas and things like this that we would experience from her. And there were other friends, too, that she developed, from the Portuguese families and different things in the neighborhood that she was learning different things and gaining those friendships.

TI: That's a good story. Now, when you would act up or your siblings would act up, who would play the role of the disciplinarian, in terms of... yeah.

RH: In our family? My mother would be the first one, and if we were really bad we, we knew it came from my dad. And so, and it didn't take much, many words from my dad for us to know that we were in big trouble. [Laughs] So it wasn't like he beat us or anything like this, but, you know, he was, he could be very strict and he could, he had a temper, too, so we knew that we didn't want that to happen, so... and my mother, I guess, was the one that really kind of, was the one that really helped, I guess the first wave of discipline, if you want to call us that, really kind of kept us all in line.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.