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SY: And your father's family and your mother's family?

YN: Well, I don't know too much about my mother's family. In fact, I just barely knew her because I was only five, turning near six, when she passed away. She was a victim of breast cancer and was in the Los Angeles County Hospital, so I just remember when she was home for a while and then in the hospital and seeing her. She was really quite a fine person, but I was nearly six and my sister was nearly five at the time, and I have a younger brother who was only two, so we were left with a father and my brother. My brother, being nine years older, became almost a second parent in our family, and fortunately for us he had very high standards in ethics and workmanship and he had a strong work ethic. He's somewhat kind of looked after us. And we called him Niisan. It was a long time before we got ourselves to a point where we were comfortable in calling him Todd. His name is Torao, but he took on the American name of Todd. So for a long time it was Niisan because he was (an older) brother and we respected him.

SY: He really helped raise you in a sense.

YN: Yes.

SY: Your father at the time was working as, in farm, doing...

YN: Well, my father had done various things before he turned into farming, and we had a farm in Rosemead at the time, and it was okay. I mean, it was a truck garden and what we did was grew the vegetables and harvested them and then distributed them, sold them to various stores, so it was almost like an agribusiness in the sense of, from seed to cultivation, growing and harvesting and then selling them at various places. And this particular farm happened to be in the pathway of the Rosemead Boulevard. If you go near Garvey Boulevard in Rosemead today you wouldn't know that there was a farm just north of there, but that was our farm, and it was cut in half when the powers that be decided that a highway had to go through there. So we could've still farmed, but we would have to cross at crossings and it would've been very, very complicated, so we moved then to El Monte. But when I was -- well, I should go back and mention that my father, as far as we know, we don't know a whole lot about his background because he did communicate with them but at the time, of course, we weren't quite interested in our family history. He had two brothers, and I understand one passed away, and he had a sister, and he had a little plot of land that somehow he had acquired and over the years he decided, "Well, I'm staying here in the United States," and so he turned over the property to his family. So that's about all I know about that part of the family.

SY: And he never indicated why he decided to come to the United States?

YN: I think he was a rather adventurous guy, maybe somewhat rebellious. You know, at sixteen he thought he could conquer the world, probably, and... [laughs] I don't know. But he was pretty healthy, fairly strong, and strong-willed, and so he thought he could make it here. And according to Grace, having been in Tonda, even in the rain she said the cryptomeria -- somewhat like pine trees -- are beautiful, the scenery is quite beautiful there, and so she could understand why not a whole lot of people from there would want to move. That's about it. It's a nice place, and I know that there is a Yamaguchi Kenjinkai in southern California -- I just read about it in the Rafu Shimpo -- and perhaps sometime in the near future we'll make connections and see if there may be someone from Tonda there. But according to the article, the people had a good time at the picnic where the various members who came from Yamaguchi ken assembled. And I know there are other kenjinkais because Hiroshima and Kumamoto and other places have these reunions.

SY: So I'm assuming that Tonda was really a small place if they were --

YN: Yes, I think it is. It probably is not a tourist stop because it's difficult to find, but the tale has some truth in it, so fortunately, Nick could read kanji, he can read very complex kanji, and once he saw the kanji then he could find it on the map. See, the maps are written in Japanese, and so if you don't know this complicated kanji you wouldn't find it.

SY: So now, when your mother passed away, there were the four of you and your dad, and you pretty much fended for yourselves?

YN: Yes, we did. I don't know just exactly how it all worked out, but my brother assumed quite a bit of responsibility and my father worked pretty hard, and we had some very good neighbors who helped us. I know there was a Watanabe family who kind of overlooked our family a little bit, so there were various families that kind of helped us out. But the hardest thing, I think, that was within our family was my sister, who didn't have a mother, and she was only five, and I know that my father thought, well, she should probably grow up where there is a mother. But my sister wouldn't have nothing to do with it, to be nurtured by some other family. So we all stuck together, and as a result, my younger brother and my sister had a very close bond because they really needed each other. My brother was only two, so he required quite a bit of attention. There were struggles and... but by working together we managed to survive. And it was during the Depression as well. So fortunately, when you farm you have food in the ground, so where some people, they went to school, had sandwiches with maybe sausages or something, we had tomatoes and cucumbers, that sort of thing. [Laughs] And when I was in elementary school I found out I couldn't drink milk, and the people couldn't understand why I would refuse the milk. They were giving out milk and I couldn't take it because I had lactose intolerance. I didn't know what the term was at the time, but I always preferred water or something else.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.