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SY: And where was your mother and father?

YM: My father and mother had -- my father, I never knew too much of, but he went down to California. My mother hardly ever came to my grandma's place. Why? I don't know. There must have been some misunderstanding, but I think there were other cases like that. But, I never knew my mother as well as I knew my grandma.

SY: How was it that your grandmother took care of you and probably took you away from your mother, or what was the situation?

YM: Gee, I really don't know because they never told me what really happened, but I think my mother did not know how to take care of a baby. And so I think Grandma came one day and heard me yelling, and then she found my mother. My mother was quite young so...

SY: What was your mother doing?

YM: Huh?

SY: What was your mother doing?

YM: She had stuck me in this -- what do you call those? Big pan, and had it on top of a stove and naturally I would get red and was yelling because it was burning me. Well not really burning me, but it was hot. And when grandma saw that, she just took me home. But I was there, but I was too little, but I think, gee, about six months, seven months.

SY: So in many ways you've pieced together your infancy and really very young moments by just hearing what your grandmother has told you?

YM: Uh-huh.

SY: Or what other people have told you?

YM: More and more what my grandmother told me or what my uncle had told me as I got older.

Yukiko M. Interview - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved. - <End Segment 5>