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TI: But back to your mother, so she comes to Seattle in 1922, the next year she has you. I suppose the other thing that I know is that in 1923 was when your father went from pretty much living really, really more affluently, lost everything. He lost everything in the Tokyo earthquake. So how did your mother, how did she cope through all this? What do you know about your mother?

EY: Well, you know, she was a very brave person and determined. And she was always very supportive of my father. But she was a strong person, too, and she found that, I think this is where my, one of my story is... she didn't like to, she didn't like to go to public places and work. She was independent, and she liked to do things her way. And so... and also she was determined to cooperate and help my father in whatever he was doing. And so she wanted to give him a free hand so that he could do what he can. But my mother didn't want to trouble him in the support of the family, so she would maybe pretend like she's okay even when she was not. And so after the failure of the business, she said she wanted to make it possible for me to get, rebuild the business, and she wanted, didn't want the need for the family deter him from doing what he should in business. So she did things quite differently, and she was always not a weak person, she was a strong person. She had determination. And so she would make sure that he would go and take care of business. She even when, even when everything was very difficult, she made sure that he had an office space that he could go to and try to reestablish his business. And so that was my mother.

So she had difficulty with English, but she decided that she was going to sew some baby clothes. And so she went to the Bon Marche with samples. She went there maybe seven times before the buyer said, "Well, we've never done this before, but I want you to bring me a sample, a sample of baby clothes." And he gave her an order for about ten dozen. And I'm supposed to have been somebody that helped her carry some of the material, you know. And I was a source of problem for her as well as a support. I was a problem because I would bother her all day long, and she would have to stay up at night to do the job to have the clothes ready for delivery. But she went to the Bon to talk to this buyer about seven or eight times.

TI: Wow, so she was very persistent, I mean, she wouldn't take no for an answer, she kept going back and back.

EY: That was it. And she has a determination to accomplish it.

TI: And how did your father feel about your mother working so hard?

EY: Well, I think he got used to it. But I think, I think my father, I think he knew my mother. And people over in Japan, when he was going over there to get some things established, he said, "She's all right, she's all right." You know, the fact that my mother had the determination and the strength to get something done. She just didn't want to go and work anyplace, she was going to do it herself. And, you know, her determination and the courage, it really does cause you, cause tears to well in your eyes, you know? I can't help it.

TI: So there was one more story?

Off camera: Yes. He was, I heard that she really needed money, so she decided to work someplace, in a factory or something. So Eiichi's father left to Japan on the ship, and she, his mother, came back and quit the job. That was just pretend, you know.

TI: Oh, okay, right. So do you know that story, where she went to work in the factory when your father went to Japan?

EY: She quit right away.

TI: Yeah, so let's tell this story. So your mother was very determined, and I guess there's a story that at one time she worked in a factory? Can you tell me that story?

EY: Oh, yeah. Well, she was kind of a strict person, and she didn't like to see men and women kind of teasing and maybe doing something inappropriate. She just couldn't tolerate that and so she would, if she did go to work at someplace, she didn't last long. She would go and say, "I'm going to do my own thing." So that was the kind of person that she was. She was determined to be the support of the family if the need be there. And I think a lot of people look at her and say, "Gosh, she's really too strict."

TI: But it sounds like there's, she understood that the family maybe needed money, and there was a time when your father left for Japan? And so what did she do? I mean, even though she had this sort of, really didn't want to work in these public workplaces, when your father went to Japan...

EY: She quit right away.

TI: Well, but first she started working, because when he came back, she quit, right?

EY: No.

TI: Oh.

EY: No, my father arranged that so that she could work at a farm. The farm had some kind of job for women to do. So he thought that if that is done, why, then she'll be able to get by. But not my mother. She decided, "I'll let him go. I'll show him that everything will be okay." She wouldn't. She wouldn't stay with something that didn't satisfy her. You know, like the things that she thought that was not appropriate for people to be doing. and so she would be independent and persistent as well. Because when she was making the baby clothes, she went to the Bon Marche. And I would think about that when I, I thought about the Korean man, I kind of... I had an opportunity. I lived with my uncle and my cousin --

TI: Oh, we're going to get to that later, okay?

EY: But it's an important...

TI: Okay, go ahead.

EY: Yeah. It's important because this Korean junk man came around one day, and we had a pointer, a dog named Lucky. And Lucky would come around and sniff around, and the man was bothered, you know. So he said, "Yakamashii." Yakamashii is noisy.

TI: Noisy, right.

EY: And my cousin, you know, a boy and a girl, woman, she was in her twenties. But to me, to me, this yakamashii was not funny. Yakamashii is, you know.

TI: Right.

EY: And so me, I was... my thought about that is, gosh, when my mother had difficulties, she persisted, really. And perspiration was pouring down her side, you know. It wasn't funny to me, that the man was saying something about a dog coming around and he said, "Yakamashii," because it's not yakamashii. Urusai would have been the Japanese approach to it. So my cousins were laughing, but to me, to me, it really wasn't something that was funny. Because my mother had experienced all of that, with perspiration pouring down her side, but it was important to her that she conveyed her thoughts to this buyer. And persistence in the end paid out, because she was able to convince this buyer to buy the baby clothes from her. She further got other business through this man for embroidery work and things like that. And it was a true reflection of the result that she won from this man. If she didn't have the persistence, she surely wouldn't have had the business.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.