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BN: Okay. We are here in Los Angeles interviewing Hal Keimi. It's Tuesday, February 5, 2019, and the interviewer is Brian Niiya along with Emily Anderson, and on the camera is Dana Hoshide, and on drums is... never mind. And we're very happy to have Hal with us today, and thank you for doing this. And we're going to start where we often do, with your parents, and a little bit of the family history that you know. And wanted to start with what you could tell us about your father.

HK: I don't know too much about my dad other than he came from Yamaguchi-ken in 1918. And when he came over, he came over actually as part of another family. I don't know if this is to avoid some of the immigration laws, but he was a Harada when he came over, so he joined the Harada family, which I think was related. And so he lived with them for, I don't know how long. The Harada was a farming family in Orange County. And so I don't know when or how he became a Keimi again.

BN: This isn't the Haradas, the Riverside Harold Harada family?

HK: Harold Harada is not familiar.

BN: Okay. But they were related to your dad in some way.

HK: To my dad. So they were farmers in Bellflower, Downey area, Artesia.

BN: Do you know about how old he was?

HK: Yes, he was born in '98, so he was twenty years old when he came. On my mother's side, all I know about her is that her parents came to California, and I'm just guessing also from Yamaguchi-ken, lived up in northern Cal. And so my mother was born up in northern Cal, and I heard her say that she was born in that little town of San Juan Bautista. And so when she was still grammar school age, her parents decided to go back to Japan, and by then, I guess apparently my mother became accustomed to the U.S., so she said she did not want to go back. So she was able to stay with somebody and so she stayed here in the U.S.

BN: About how old was she when her parents and the rest of the family...

HK: I do not know how old, but I'm guessing maybe somewhere in the grammar school age.

BN: So did you ever know your grandparents and other aunties and uncles on your mom's side?

HK: Nothing on my mother's side.

BN: Because they all, they went and they never came back?

HK: Correct. And I do not know how my mother got connected with my father.

BN: Did your father ever talk about why he came to the U.S.?

HK: He never mentioned it, I have no idea how or why.

BN: So did he then work on the farm of this Harada family?

HK: That I do not know what he did at the beginning, I know that he went to a school or training to try to become an auto mechanic, but apparently that did not follow through. Because eventually my parents got together, got married, and they started a dry cleaning business in Hollywood.

BN: And then where are you amongst the children?

HK: I have an older brother that was born in 1928, so he's three years older than myself.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.