Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Akira Otani Interview
Narrator: Akira Otani
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 3, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-oakira-01-0004

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TI: And what was your mother's name?

AO: My mother's name, maiden name was Kane, K-A-N-E, Yanagihara.

TI: Okay, so you mentioned there were nine children so let's talk about the children, kind of in birth order, so who was the oldest?

AO: The oldest was a sister named Florence. She's gone, she's no longer alive now.

TI: And then after Florence?

AO: Then we had Mildred and she's gone too.

TI: And then after Mildred?

AO: Brother, Jiroichi, he's still alive but he's not well but he's still alive so he must be, oh, about ninety-five, ninety-six years old now.

TI: Wow, okay, after Jiroichi?

AO: Then a sister named Gladys and she would be about two years below... ninety-two or thereabouts. And then I come in at ninety.

TI: And then after you?

AO: And after me I had another brother, Kenji, he's gone.

TI: And after Kenji?

AO: And then after Kenji there's a brother named Toshiro, he's in Washington D.C., he retired from his job as a... doing cancer research with the National Cancer Institute there.

TI: So was he a doctor or a scientist?

AO: Yes, he was scientist.

TI: Scientist. Okay, that's seven so after Toshiro?

AO: And then I had another brother named Gilbert and he's home, he's still alive, he's home. He was in real estate but he's quite old now too so he's... and then the baby of the family is a sister named Evelyn.

TI: Good, okay so, yeah, two, four, six, eight, nine, so nine children.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.