Densho Digital Repository - Hubert Yoshida Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-506-8)

<Begin Segment 8>

TI: Okay. So let's go back to your mom growing up in the Watsonville area. Any stories about your mother growing up?

HY: Well, I think she had a very good life.

TI: You smiled there, you kind of brightened up.

HY: Yeah. I mean, I see pictures, mostly old pictures, and she was always dressed in a nice dress, and she had a nice big doll, a blond-haired doll. And I think she had a very good life, because by that time, I think my grandfather was doing very well.

TI: Was she the oldest?

HY: She was the oldest daughter, yes.

TI: Okay.

HY: And I think my grandfather liked my father, so they got married.

TI: Yeah, so I was going to ask that question. You mentioned, so going back, your dad was, graduated from Berkeley, and your mom went to Pomona? Where did she go?

HY: No, she didn't go to college.

TI: Oh, she didn't go to college, okay. But then you also had your uncle Kenji kind of vouching for your father, they met each other in Alameda.

HY: Well, my uncle Kenji, he worked, he helped to organize the Naturipe. He was also, I guess, in business administration. Anyway, he helped with a lot of the administrative work for that organization in the beginning.

TI: So your dad marries your mom, they're... I guess at that point your dad had already established himself as a farmer. So they got married and then that's about the time where Victor comes along, and then you. Any... you probably don't have memories of it, but do you remember any stories about that, right before the war started, what that life was like for the family?

HY: Yeah, I was very young then, I was less than three years old. I was three years old when we went to the evacuation. But apparently my older brother, Victor, was the first grandchild, so our grandparents doted on him. [Laughs] And then Uncle Kenji had a son and Uncle Mac, the older one, had a daughter. So there were some cousins, I didn't know them until we went to camp. And I guess that was a good thing about camp is we got pretty close, we know each other. It was a lot of fun in camp for us because our cousins were there, family was there and so it was good memories of camp.