Densho Digital Repository - Norm Hayashi Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-468-1)

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VY: Okay. Today is Tuesday, March 12, 2019, and we're here in Emeryville, California, with Norm Hayashi. Dana Hoshide is our videographer, and my name is Virginia Yamada. So, Norm, thank you for joining us for this interview today.

NH: Thanks for having me.

VY: Let's begin by having you tell us when you were born and where you born, and the name that you were given at birth.

NH: I was born in Oakland, California, and on the birth certificate I believe it says "Makoto, Norman Hayashi."

VY: And when you were born?

NH: When?

VY: When?

NH: Oh, September 11, 1939, in Oakland.

VY: And do you have any siblings?

NH: I'm the oldest, and my two brothers (...) are two years apart, second brother (Gerald), third brother Patrick is four years, then I have a sister (Marilyn) nine years below me. So a total of four, four children.

VY: Okay, four children with a nine-year span.

NH: With the youngest kid, yeah.

VY: Okay, and how about your parents? What were their names and when and where were they born?

NH: My dad is Henry Taro, T-A-R-O, Hayashi. I believe he was born in Alameda, 1910, and my mother is Aiko Takemoto Hayashi. And I believe it was an arranged marriage, she's from Los Angeles, arranged marriage.

VY: Do you know how they -- oh, so they met through an arranged marriage, okay. Do you know how old they were when they got married?

NH: My dad was twenty-six, I believe, and my mom twenty, twenty years old.

VY: Do you know anything about their early life before they met?

NH: My dad lost his mother at the age of nine, took a trip to Japan, and another brother, they contract meningitis and passed away in Japan. So my dad was nine years old and he was without a mother for a while. Came back, that was just a visit to Japan. My mother, later, I understood, was an orphan or something, she was raised by the Takemoto family.

VY: Interesting. Do you know what kind of work they did before they met, if any?

NH: My mom went to school, designed clothing, how to sew and all that kind of stuff. And my dad, I believe, just worked in the nursery industry growing up, as we, a lot of us kids did.

VY: Okay.