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MN: Now, when were you born?

JK: I was born October 10, 1915, on 155 North Central Avenue.

MN: And what is at this location today?

JK: Today it's part of the parking lot, city parking lot, which is inside of all the retail stores on First, Central, San Pedro, and Second. I'm sorry, Jackson is not there anymore.

MN: But Jackson used to run across Central before the war, right?

JK: Yes.

MN: Now, everybody calls you Jack, but your birth name is Yoshisuke. How did you get the name Jack?

JK: Well, it's rather a long story. I loved to read, so using my library card for the main library at Fifth and Main Street, upstairs, Foreman and Clark haberdashery. Before, we used to get ten books to bring home for the week. And it turned out to be not enough. I would read on the front porch, and I would see this World War vet, number one, passing by every day. And it would always have magazines, fiction magazine, of jungle stories, sea stories, pirate stories, anything adventurous. And he would give me what he had finished. So one day he says, "Hey, what's your name?" So I tried to carefully announce my name, and he stood there openmouthed, wondering what I was coming up with. So he says, "You know, you're in America now, and most people won't understand your name or whatever. So I'm just going to call you Jack." I said, "Well, that's fine with me. Who cares?" So we just took that name and adopted it.

MN: How old were you when you met this World War I vet?

JK: Oh, yeah, we had library cards very early, so I don't know. Probably ten. Anyway, I was old enough to walk from my house to Fifth and Main Street. No cars, traffic, no problem, walk up to second floor.

MN: So did all the teachers in school and your friends start calling you Jack from then on?

JK: Yes. I just told them I had a new name. So of course my family was wondering what came over me. It took hold.

MN: So your mother also called you Jack?

JK: She had to because everyone else did. I had a harder time explaining to my high school friends because they couldn't see the logic of changing names. Said, "You have to go to city hall and do it right," which I never did.

MN: Jack, what is the first language that you learned? Is it English or Japanese?

JK: Well, I guess it has to be Japanese because without my brother and sister, I couldn't talk English. Yeah, I guess... mostly Japanese.

MN: And you communicated with your parents in Japanese.

JK: Yes. It was touch and go. I forget that I'm supposed to talk Japanese to them. But lucky thing we were going to Japanese school. They paid for the tuition and we did attend like we should have.

MN: Which Japanese school did you attend?

JK: It was called Rafu Daiichi Gakuen. It was the largest of the branches in the neighborhood.

MN: Did you go every day or did you just go Saturday?

JK: We were supposed to be going every day. Of course, our attendance in that school wasn't perfect.

MN: So were you sneaking out of class and playing football?

JK: Yeah. Well, we didn't attend because football or whatever sports which was in season took precedence over our needs.

MN: So all the boys were playing sports, and your parents were paying tuition, but you were out playing sports?

JK: Yes.

MN: What was unique about the Daiichi Gakuen, they had a yard, and what did you do at the yard?

JK: Well, we combined all the sports programs that our team outside the school, we played whatever was in season. And one thing that I was grateful for was because we played intramural -- is that the right word? -- for games with most of the Japanese schools that had programs, sports programs. And what made it work well was because we travelled, like to Venice, Norwalk, Long Beach. We made friends and teammates, and enemies, sports enemies, and we got to see the world.

MN: You know, you mentioned "sports enemies." Did you guys get into a lot of fights?

JK: Of course. [Laughs] Of course there were many disagreements with the umpires, with the other teams, and yes, we had trouble defining the rules. Sometimes the rules got too, well... we had a nice example of playing San Fernando in San Fernando. And I hit a so-called foul ball which hit the tree that was supposed to be the marker for the fair ball. And we argued and argued for hours. But it was finally settled, I had a two-base hit.

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