<Begin Segment 3>

TI: Okay, so let's talk about I guess California, 'cause that would be kind of your earliest childhood memories.

RY: That's my earliest memories, yeah.

TI: So tell me, this is the Hollywood area?

RY: Yeah.

TI: And you're strawberry farmers kind of.

RY: No, my dad, there wasn't any job for a concert violinist so he had a fruit and vegetable stand that he had. And my mother was just helping him, she was a housewife naturally. But my mother was a different kind of an Issei, that's another story. She was a little ahead of her time because I remember the Virginia Slim advertisement, she used to, I remember her smoking cigarettes and having a shot of wine every now and then. And she went to night school at Hollywood High and she became pretty fluent in English, she took different classes there. She's the one that drove the car, usually it's the other way around for the Issei family. So I say my mom was way ahead of her time.

TI: Wow that really is I mean to hear some driving, smoking.

RY: Yeah.

TI: How about the way she dressed? Was it different also?

RY: It's just the way all the Issei women dressed and it wasn't anything fancy or anything.

TI: And because your mom was so ahead of her time, how did the other Isseis get along with her?

RY: They got along good. she did her own thing like she went to school by herself at night and as a matter of fact she took a few classes like tailoring, she became pretty proficient in making different clothing. And ceramic painting, what do you call that, designing dresses, I don't know what you call that, she used to draw dresses and stuff so she was pretty artistic too.

TI: And how did your father deal with that? Here his wife is being so ahead of her time, was that okay with your father?

RY: All I know is that he goes to work and he comes back, and that was his routine.

TI: So it seemed like it was okay with him. So you have this sort of fruit and vegetable stand and then for a while your grandfather was out someplace else doing strawberries. Going back to your father and the violin and your mother the piano, did they ever perform in California, do you remember?

RY: I don't think so. They might have performed in Washington but I never, I never asked my dad these things and so I just saw the pictures and I know he was teaching violin when we were in Hollywood. He had some students come over to the house and he was teaching them violin.

TI: And the students, were they Japanese?

RY: Japanese.

TI: And when said you saw pictures, was it pictures of the performing? Were they like on a stage?

RY: Well, it's just a picture of them posing, him with the violin and my mom at the piano. I think I was his worst violin student.

TI: Oh, so you got a free lesson.

RY: Oh, you're never supposed to teach your kids anything, I don't think, but I didn't want to learn violin in the first place but he tried to teach me violin and it never did work out. [Laughs]

TI: That's interesting. You were born in 1929, did you have any siblings, brothers or sisters?

RY: I had one sister.

TI: And older or younger?

RY: Older, she was born in 1927.

TI: Okay. And what was her name?

RY: Lilian.

TI: Is she still alive?

RY: No, she passed away.

TI: Okay. And going back to you I forgot to ask what was your given name when you were born what was the name given to you?

RY: It was, I think the birth certificate said Richard Eiichi Yamashiro.

TI: And you I think said earlier before we started that you actually went by your Japanese name.

RY: My mother used my Japanese name so... until I knew better.

TI: And so your friends all call you Eiichi when you're growing up?

RY: Yeah, well, they used to massacre it, Ichi or you know.

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