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MN: Today is Wednesday, October 26, 2011. We are at the Centenary United Methodist Church in Little Tokyo. We will be interviewing Yukio Kawaratani, Tani Ikeda is on the video camera, and I will be interviewing, my name is Martha Nakagawa. So Yukio, let's start with your father. What was his name?

YK: My father was named Otokichi, and he was born way back in 1888 in the small city of Shingu in Wakayama-ken, Japan. And the reason he came to the United States was his older brother had stolen the mother's han and had squandered the family's fortune, so then they were rather poor. And so three of the brothers became youshi, which they married into families that didn't have any sons and they had to then become, adopt their name. My father was nineteen at the time, and he didn't have very many prospects, and he might have been ready to go into the military, so he decided to come to the United States. But of course he didn't know any English, so all he could do was work on the railroads. Then when that gave out, then like other Japanese Americans or Japanese farmers, they worked picking crops. They followed (the crops) up and down California, as the fruits or vegetables ripened, he would go and pick them. But then after about eight years, he decided he needed a wife, so he had his picture taken in a suit and sent back to the family in Japan and said he needed a wife. My mother's family didn't have any sons, so the oldest had married a youshi, but my mother was second and she was seventeen, so she was chosen as being the "picture bride." And so they were married by proxy. She, of course, didn't want to come. She was from a pretty well-off family, and she was even gonna be a schoolteacher. But anyway, she had to take the trip across. And then when she met my father, she was shocked because he was all sunburned and he didn't have any dressy clothes on.

When they went to the farm, she was even further shocked because they had to sleep in the barn along with the other workers. Of course, she was mortified. [Laughs] But my father was not to be denied, so he had a sheet and a, one blanket, and my mother to her dying day said, "We started very poor. We had one blanket between us." So that was the beginning. (...) Of course, that was my father's favorite recreation -- my mother was highly fertile and they soon had two sons. And then she wrote back to Japan saying, "(Things are terrible) here." They were in a little rooming house, and my father had to travel around. They quickly sent the money for her to go back to Japan. And then after being there about several months, my father said, "When are you coming back?" So they had to come back. My parents said, "Hey, if you go back with two sons, you can't work, so you'll never improve your situation." So she agreed to keep her two sons there. They said they'll raise them to be good Japanese sons, and (they became) what's called the Kibei. They were born in the U.S. but raised in Japan for fourteen years. Now, my mother --

MN: Let me stop you for just a moment. Can you share with us what your mother's name was?

YK: Oh. Yeah, my mother's name was Hisa Murata.

MN: Is she also from Wakayama-ken?

YK: Yeah, she was from Wakayama in the same city of Shingu.

MN: And you said she was going to be a teacher, so she had quite a lot of education.

YK: Yes, she went to a special girls' school. Their family had money because an uncle had been a samurai and inherited land.

MN: Very rare for women to have that kind of education at that time.

YK: Oh, yes, that's for sure.

MN: Now when your mother came to the United States, did she go through Angel Island?

YK: No, no. She came directly (as a wife). At that time, they didn't have an Angel Island. Now, my father, at that time, in 1907, there (were) anti-Japanese feelings. And so President Roosevelt with the Japanese government agreed on a Gentlemen's Agreement to limit the number of immigrants. So my father could have been a "wetback," (and) come through Mexico to California.

MN: There were many who came through Mexico.

YK: Yeah.

MN: So when your mother and father first started out, where in California were they living?

YK: Oh. They were mainly (in) Orange County. Well, that's where most of their farming was, in Orange County and L.A. County.

MN: When your mother gave birth to Tadao and Takashi, where did she give, did she give birth to them in Orange County?

YK: I don't really know. It could have been... probably Orange County. I think most of them were born in Orange County on the farm.

MN: And then you mentioned that she left Tadao and Takashi in Wakayama.

YK: Uh-huh.

MN: Did she ever share with you how she felt about having to leave them there?

YK: Oh, yeah. She really didn't want to. But she quickly had two more sons, a daughter, and another son and another daughter before me. [Laughs] And I was number eight.

MN: You had a really big family, I think a total of ten children?

YK: Right, there were two below me.

MN: I'm gonna read off their names, and you tell me if I got them right.

YK: Okay.

MN: From number one: Tadao, Takashi, Hideo, Yoshiko, Tsutomu, Kiyoshi, Fumiko, number eight, Yukio, yourself, Toshiko, and Chieko.

YK: Yeah. And they all survived -- Chieko died at one year old.

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