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MN: So your father didn't go back to get your mother. She had to come to the United States. Can you share with us about how your mother arrived in the United States?

TY: Yes. She came on the passenger ship to Hawaii -- no, no, excuse me, to San Francisco. I don't know whether it was direct or not, but she came to San Francisco in 1906. I don't know what month or year, I mean, what month or day it was, but anyway, 1906 when the earthquake, 1906 earthquake happened, and that's when she came back. And then they wouldn't let her off the boat because of the rumbles and the wreckage and everything on the street and all that. Then my dad had to wait, I don't know how many, about a week before she could get off of the ship.

MN: Now, your father also had a broken leg at this time, right?

TY: He had a broken leg.

MN: How did he manage to go to San Francisco?

TY: I really don't know that part. He might've went with a train, with a broken leg. He got kicked from a horse, poor guy, got kicked from the horse and then he had to go on crutches to meet his wife. [Laughs]

MN: Now your father and your mother, which prefecture were they from?

TY: They were from Kagoshima.

MN: And how many children in total did your parents have?

TY: My parents, my parents had seven.

MN: And where are you in the sibling hierarchy?

TY: I'm the second, second member of the family.

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