<Begin Segment 9>

TL: What are some of the values that your, that your mother emphasized... that, that you remember clearly?

YB: Well I think like all of the older generation, respect your elders, obey your parents, your teachers, and try to get all the education you can and always be kind to others. Well, I know that my real mother was always teaching kindness to others. And the one thing that I respected of her and nobody wanted to do was, cleaning the church lavatories and doing dirty work. And Mother says nobody seems to enjoy doing it and you can't blame them. But she said, "When the children go into kindergarten or into Sunday school in the morning they leave such a mess and nobody cleans it. And I don't want anybody going into our dirty church." [Laugh] So, she runs in there, early in the morning, and cleans it up. And she said, "A clean lavatory or a bathroom will surely" -- this was their saying -- "will help you to bring up a family of clean beautiful children." And I used to think, "Gee, do I have to clean up the bathroom all the time?" [Laughs] But this was their way of teaching you to have respect, not only around yourself but for others too.

TL: Was this a, a Japanese American church? Or was it a...?

YB: It was a combination of both. We'd have English speaking pastors and Japanese speaking pastors. They have that also right now, we have that going. And it was usually, either Japanese or English. But regardless they'd all go to the same service.

TL: And what religious denomination was this?

YB: I think the church there is Presbyterian, I'm not too sure, or Congregational. But I was baptized by an American church at the age of, I guess I was in the seventh -- I went to a Catholic school prior to that, because that was the only church that was in this little tiny country, area that I went to. On the hilltop, a beautiful steeple church, it was Catholic. I didn't join but I did attend their Sunday school and their services. So I'm very well acquainted with the Catholic Church. And later I joined a Presbyterian Church, became a member. Then when I moved to Santa Barbara, they had a Japanese church, which was Congregational. So it wasn't that I wanted to change religions, but in order to help the young people there, I had to become a member of the church. So I join, joined the Congregational church.

TL: Going back to your relationship with your, with your mother and your father. What expectations were you aware of, as far as, what they hoped you would do as you became more independent and grew older?

YB: Well I'm sure Mother never versed it but I'm sure, as a mother myself, that I would always want my child to remember her and remember my father. And that we always did, I'd evenly go between the two. But the, my foster parents died first because they were older. And she always said, "If you're coming to California to visit, I'd love to have you all the time, but be sure that you go there first, spend what time you can. And whatever spare time you have left, then come and I'll be waiting for you." So she felt the obligation was to them first. And after they passed away then I was free to come and visit as much as I could.

TL: About how much older were they, maybe ten years or possibly more?

YB: Just about ten. Because my Yamada mother died in her eighty-two and the Utsunomiya mother passed away at eighty-seven, she wasn't quite ninety.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.