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SY: And I think you mentioned that your mom was sort of involved in making clothing in Japan.

YM: Oh, in Japan while my, when my dad was here in America, my mother, I'm sure they had a lot of chores during the day, but at night she had a loom, where they make fabric, and she would make this fabric they call kasuri, which is an indigo with little white patterns on it. And what she did was they tie-dyed the yarn in such a way that would make this design, and so she worked, my sister says she worked late into the night making, I don't know how long it took to make one... it's a, in Japan the fabric is a certain length 'cause the kimonos are all the same size, so I don't know how many, how long it took her, but she did that to help a little bit with the income, I guess.

SY: She sounds very labor intensive, because --

YM: [Laughs] Well, with the family she was with, there was, they made all their own miso, they made their own shoyu and tsukemono and everything for the family. It was a huge family by the time my mother joined them, so again, I'm sure they were pretty busy during the day.

SY: I see, and then this, this kasuri was actually woven?

YM: Yeah, and so she had the loom.

SY: So she dyed it first and she wove the...

YM: Right, you tie-dye it so that certain parts would be white and when the warp and woof come together they have little white designs. And my sister says she used to make very nice designs on her own, so she was very good with her hands.

SY: Yeah, but she gave that up when she came to the United States?

YM: Oh yes. That was just...

SY: So you never knew her as someone who was involved in...

YM: No. But she was very good with her hands.

SY: Did she make all your clothing too?

YM: Yeah, she did. And she, well, my sister used to always say that in Japan they, she wore her hair with a little knob on top like this, and if my mother did it, it would last all day, but if anybody else did it by the end of the day it would fall apart. [Laughs]

SY: So did you pick up these things from your mother?

YM: I don't know.

SY: But you obviously had a talent for dressmaking, because that --

YM: Well I liked to, I remember I liked to sew a lot, and I started young. And I remember my mother had a, in this little house we lived in, she had a little piece of yardage covering an orange crate or something to make a little table out of it, and I loved the fabric so much I wanted, I went in the back and I cut a piece off. And I was so afraid to cut it, it wasn't really good enough to make anything. I should've cut a larger piece, but anyway, I loved the fabric and stuff like that. I guess that was, I was pretty young, doing something like that. [Laughs]

SY: Interesting. But that's a, that must've been kind of an inherited thing.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.