<Begin Segment 21>

MN: Tell me about this meeting you had with your future husband, James Yamamoto.

YY: We went to dances with a couple of real nice-looking guys, and I guess they were buddies. He said, he just got back from the optometrist, eyes are all blurry, he said. So then that was the dance, the service that we used to go to. In about a week or two, somebody calls me and says, "Guess who?" And I said, "Jim Yamamoto." He said, "Oh, you remembered." [Laughs] So then he started coming over. He was in Boyle Heights and I was in L.A., the Jefferson area. So he used to come to see me.

MN: And that's how you got to know Hisaye.

YY: Uh-huh.

MN: Did she ever take you to the Los Angeles Tribune?

YY: No, never. That was, I think that was way before my time. It was way before.

MN: Oh, so by the time you met her, she wasn't working at the African American newspaper?

YY: Oh, no.

MN: What year did you marry James Yamamoto?

YY: 1950.

MN: And how were you able to afford a wedding?

YY: We saved. We had a little piggy bank, and every time we have spare money, we'd put it in there. And so my father offered to pay for the invitation, and his father, they gave us a hundred dollars, and so my obasan, Takahashi, and Mrs. Fukui, and the three of us went to Grand Central (Market), bought these colored breads, pink and yellow, so we made our own little sandwiches and rolled it for little dessert for our reception. And I bought little shaped ice cream, bells and angel and nuts, and I had my club serve it. That was our reception in our wedding. And I became a flaming bride, because my ojisan had two candles there on the altar there, and when I went, swung around to go down the steps, my veiling caught fire. And I was in flames, and I felt something hot. And then when I was descending the steps, my husband knocked the thing off me and stomped on it. Everyone was saying, I didn't know what was going on because I was in seventh heaven. I was just floating. And then he said, "Don't cry, don't cry." I said, "I can't cry, 'cause I'm meeting all these people." But everybody was stunned because it caught on fire.

MN: Well, it's a good thing you didn't catch on fire.

YY: Well, there was a little hole in my little gown, but yeah, that thing was really crinkled, you know, this nylon. Yeah, so Jim just knocked it off and stomped it out. But it was quite a wedding. [Laughs]

MN: Share with me, you said your club, service club did the, helped out at the reception. What service club was this?

YY: It was Double I they called, International Institute in Boyle Heights. That's where we formed a group, it was already formed and they invited me to join. So we had service dances and all that stuff. So I asked them if they would mind serving, so they did. It was just plain, just a small wedding, but they did it.

MN: And where did you get married?

YY: Union Church.

MN: Do you know how your father felt on your wedding day?

YY: I think he was quite proud.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.