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TI: And so in 1923 your father returns to the United States along with your mother. And so what did your father do in the United States?

KY: My father worked for the Santa Fe railroad. He was a painter and there was a Santa Fe... the company was in Richmond and that's where he worked.

TI: Any stories or anything that you can recall about his job as a painter with Santa Fe? Did he tell you anything about it or anything like that?

KY: No, not particularly. When I was living in Richmond and my father was working for the railroad, actually, we lived like in a commune I guess they call it. There was a building in which many of the workers at the railroad company, we all lived together so there was this big building, and so families, different families lived in that building.

TI: Now were they all Japanese families?

KY: Uh-huh.

TI: Oh, interesting so this is... so the building was owned by the Santa Fe railroad?

KY: No, you know, to tell you the truth I don't know who owned the building but there were a number of families who lived in this big building and it was near where the company was. So I lived in that commune, commune I guess you call it, and then we felt that it was important to buy our own home. So we moved out and people moved out and then bought their own homes in the community.

TI: Okay, let's talk about the commune a little bit. That's interesting. So about how many families were there?

KY: Let's see... I would think there were about six or so families, and there were single men too, I think.

TI: And so let's start with -- excuse me -- just maybe the sleeping quarters. So how did people sleep?

KY: Well, people were sectioned off. We had... we were on the first floor and we had four rooms. There were two rooms across the hall from each other so it wasn't like an apartment but it's a... there were rooms close by and you had a bedroom and a kitchen and a living room.

TI: Okay, and then you had four rooms and at this time there were four of you?

KY: Yes, in my family it's just my mother, father, and younger sister.

TI: And what was your younger sister's name?

KY: Her name was Tama, T-A-M-A.

TI: Okay, and so the four of you were in these four rooms. so bedrooms, kitchen, and then in a similar way the other families had several rooms scattered around.

KY: Exactly.

TI: When you said commune, were there some shared activities like sometimes kitchen where everyone would eat together or anything like that?

KY: No, well, you know, we didn't do that but there was a lot of sharing... my mother was a stay at home mother so she would take us and the children in other families like to the beach because we were very close by. So but there was nothing we didn't eat together, you shared, if you had something special you might share with one another but there wasn't any group activities per se.

TI: How about things like a bath, furo, did they have a large or shared bath?

KY: Yeah, there was a bath that it was shared bathing facilities, right.

TI: And that was more a traditional Japanese or just a big tub.

KY: It's just a regular tub, yes.

TI: In terms of the bathrooms, is that shared or did each --

KY: Shared, yes, it was shared.

TI: And food, housing, it sounds like as a kid growing up there you had a lot of playmates.

KY: Yes.

TI: In that area.

KY: Well, in a way, where we were, I grew up in not a Japanese community. I mean, this commune was, but there weren't any other Japanese other than in the building so I lived in a community where most of the neighbors were white, there were some Hispanics, so my growing up I didn't see that many Japanese.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.