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TI: Today is Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 --

YI: Girl's Day today. [Laughs]

TI: Oh yeah, Girl's Day, 3/3, yeah, I forgot, that's right because I was at Shirokiya, they have all the Girl's Day food and everything. I forgot about that. So we're in Honolulu at the Ala Moana Hotel, Dana Hoshide is on the camera, I'm the interviewer, Tom Ikeda and here today we're with Yutaka Inokuchi. So, Yutaka, I'm just going to start at the very beginning. Can you tell me when you were born?

YI: Yeah, born August 25, 1924.

TI: So that makes you, what, eight-six years old?

YI: Eighty-six, yes.

TI: You are in amazing shape. People must say that you look a lot younger than eighty-six.

YI: I hope so. [Laughs]

TI: And where were you born?

YI: I was born in Waipahu on this island here and there's a sugar plantation there in Waipahu. I mean it's primarily, it's a sugar plantation town. The company is called Oahu Sugar Company and I was born and raised there.

TI: So when you say you were born there, were you born... did they have like a medical facility or --

YI: Oh yeah, the plantation, all the plantations have their own medical facility for their employees. They also had what they called a plantation store where, you know, most of our parents, they would go and charge it and make payments when they get paid at the end of the month. I mean, the charges were greater than the... what you call, paycheck so kept running a big balance.

TI: So it's a way of the company controlling the people there?

YI: That's right. When you look back at it, that's the way they controlled the employees, that you're obligated financially. So this meant that, what you call, families with a lot of kids, meant the kids went to work already full time fourteen, fifteen to help pay back the big balances they had at the store.

TI: And so was the goal for families to make enough money so they could pay all their debts and then would they leave or would they stay?

YI: Well, you know, by the time I was born, to stay really. I mean, I think the roots were deep enough that I don't think, well, there were some families that went back but most of them decided to stay. Because already, you know, our primary schooling was English.

TI: But if, you know, after their debts are paid, they can either go to Japan or they can go maybe other places on the island or something like that? So the people go to maybe other places on their own and independent?

YI: Oh yeah, very few though, most of them stayed in the plantation. Funny, you get comfortable in that kind of lifestyle. So eventually they got old enough, got married and the longer you worked for the plantation, you know, you feed into different occupations.

TI: Okay, so we can come back to that. I like now talk a little bit about your father because I want to learn how you got to the plantation. So tell me your father's name and where he's from?

YI: Okay, my father is Kakuji, K-A-K-U-J-I, Inokuchi. He's from Hiroshima-ken, okay, I guess it's called a district of Takata-gun in Hiroshima-ken. He arrived Hawaii in 1906 at about age nineteen. He was a draft dodger. Before he got conscripted to the Japanese army, he came to Hawaii. He was not a contract laborer. He was a merchant's son in this village in Japan so he was not able to do manual labor work, I mean, he tried it but he couldn't keep up with... most of the immigrants were farmers. You know, farmers, he couldn't keep up with them so, I think, fortunately he had formal schooling in Japanese so he was hired by the newspaper, you know, running errands but primarily to typeset. You know, the Japanese typesetting, you got to be able to read it because it's not... you see the back of the type.

TI: Right, so you had to look like everything's backwards and you'd have to --

YI: You'd have to know your kanji in order to pick the right character. So he was able to do that. And then my mother came to Hawaii about ten years later. I think she came to Hawaii about 1916 or '17 because my older sister was born in 1918.

TI: So why did your mother come to Hawaii?

YI: Okay, there was another couple that came from the same area in Japan, like my father, and they decided... this arrangement where the husband and wife would come to Hawaii on a contract. Because most of them were later what they called "picture brides," but anyway, this couple decided to go back to Japan. I guess they made their money, you know, one contract, three years. And because they came from the same area, I guess they met, you know, and they became friends, and so when this couple was ready to go back to Japan, they said, well, you need a wife.

TI: So they're talking to your father?

YI: Yeah, yeah, "You need a wife," so they said, he has a niece who's about age to get married, I guess my father consented. So this couple went back and then, you know, they do this, what you call a miai kekkon, I mean, you know, the arranged marriage. They went through the formal process without my father, not being there and my aunt who's my father's older sister took my mother-to-be in and she taught her, you know, the what you call, the wifely things that she got to do. And interesting part is that they had the marriage in proxy, in others words, they went through the formal wedding ceremony in Japan, I guess you call that a proxy, my father was not there. So my mother is not a "picture bride," she's one of those arranged marriage.

TI: But married in proxy in Japan?

YI: Yes.

TI: So that's a little bit different, yeah.

YI: Yeah, yeah, I think we have pictures of that, you know, I don't who stood for my father but...

TI: And did you hear any stories from your mother when she first came to Hawaii and met your father, what that was like?

YI: You know it's funny, I mean, never occurred to us to ask those kind of question.

TI: 'Cause I always like those stories like where they were surprised or sometimes maybe disappointed or happy, so I was just curious.

YI: Well, I suspect that my mom knew little bit about my father because my aunt took her in, you know, I think she... you know, to make all the arrangements to come to Hawaii must have taken about a year. So while she was waiting for the arrangements to be completed, she lived with my aunt and so I guess there must have been pictures around the house. [Laughs]

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.