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TI: Okay so, Kiyo, the way I always start this is kind of date and where we are. So today's Thursday, June 16, 2011. We're in the Chicago area at the Hampton Inn at Skokie. On camera is Dana Hoshide and I'm the interviewer Tom Ikeda, and so, Kiyo, let's start with just when and where you were born.

KY: I was born in Berkeley, California, but I resided in Richmond, California. That was where I was raised.

TI: So if you were born in Berkeley then at a medical facility like a hospital?

KY: Well, there was a midwife and it was in those days when they had midwives so my mother went to this midwife and had both my sister and I.

TI: And then what date was that?

KY: That's July 31, 1924.

TI: Okay, good, and so if I do my math correctly you're eighty-six years old?

KY: Right.

TI: And what was the name given to you at birth?

KY: My given name is Kiyoko Yoshimura.

TI: Let me ask about your father. Can you tell me your father's name and where he was from?

KY: Okay, my father's name was Tameji, T-A-M-E-J-I.

TI: And where was he from?

KY: He was from Osaka.

TI: Okay. And do you know anything about his family's life and what they did?

KY: Yes, well I need to explain a little bit. My father died in 1962 and somehow my mother and father were the only ones who immigrated from their respective families. And I just sort of felt like it was important for me to get to know my family. I have a history and so in '64 I went to Japan with my mother who had not returned since she left Japan forty years ago. So I just wanted to get that in, but my father's family were manufacturers. And they made stockings and they had a factory in what's part of Osaka prefecture, Matsubara. And so that's my father's... a little bit of his background.

TI: So you mention he was the only one who came to the United States. So do you know why he came?

KY: Well, I understand that my father came with his father to the United States earlier, and my feeling is that my father had a taste of what it was like to live in the United States and there was I think a freedom, a much more freedom because if he remained in Japan he would be one of the leaders in the factory. And he was not the oldest, he was the second son so I really felt that, he never said this but I just got the idea that he had a taste of what it was like to live in the United States and he returned after he married my mother.

TI: Okay, so in Japan he met your mother?

KY: Well, yes, my father stayed in the United States and my grandfather returned, and then his father called him back to say, "It's time for you to get married and have a family." So it was an arranged marriage and so my father and mother lived in Japan for a while and my father wanted to come back to the United States. So they came back in 19 -- they returned to the United States in 1923.

TI: And the first time your father was in the United States, about what year was that, do you know?

KY: Well, it must have been the early 1920s or around there I would think.

TI: So let's talk a little bit about your mother. So what was her name?

KY: My mother's maiden name was Tanaka.

TI: And her first name?

KY: Her name is Chiyo, C-H-I-Y-O.

TI: And do you know what her family did?

KY: Yeah, her father was a doctor. She's from Nara and he was a doctor in Nara.

TI: So that would be your grandfather?

KY: That would be my grandfather.

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