<Begin Segment 19>

PW: Tell me about Francis Oka. Who is Francis?

PY: So Francis, I guess you would call mentor, role model in many ways. His father was a Kibei who spent the entirety of the Second World War in Japan. And if I remember correctly, was conscripted into the Japanese army and may have done time in Manchukuo, which was... his mother was a Japanese national. So Francis was born in Japan, as his brother Bruce was. Bruce suffered from cerebral palsy, they came back in '49. Mr. Oka was repatriated at that time with the whole family. But he was, had that kind of, Washington High School, Troop 12, that Japanese American thing in San Francisco at that time. How he became interested in poetry, literature, I can't recollect. But by the time I met him, he was an incredibly knowledgeable reader of a wide range of, not just Asian American, but advanced poetics and kind of a wide range of international literature as well as having this on the ground real time collection of Zap Comix. So he was knowledgeable about a huge range of things. How he came to City Lights has been lost to the mists of time. And Francis was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971. But meeting him through AAPA and just kind of working at City Lights at that time. And so George Leong and I would come down whenever we had opportunity to hang out with Francis. We'd sit there on the stairs leading up to the mezzanine and just kind of, just hang out when Francis wasn't busy and then literally spend hours just talking with them and just kind of absorbing City Lights. This is... during the strike, he was still doing shifts here. So whenever we could get away, George and I were here frequently. But Francis and George were kind of like, also great role models because they saw their Asian American identity as part of a larger Third World identity, and they were both kind of, didn't limit their contacts and activities just within the Asian American community. So that was a really important thing that I picked up from both those people, and it's to be able to move within the communities of color, with curiosity at the very least, for me, and for them, a whole range of comfort and knowledgeability.

PW: So one of Francis's bosses here at City Lights was a Nisei?

PY: Yes. Shigeyoshi Murao.

PW: Shigeyoshi Murao.

PY: So Shig is, at least within our minds here at City Lights, kind of, as important as Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Shig, in my opinion, creates the aura of the store. If the store is well-known now, Shig is really foundational to creating that aura that kind of shines over all of us who were associated with City Lights. So second generation established family in Seattle. By family reputation because he was kind of the rebel in the family. He was certainly, not just for Niseis, but for Sanseis, kind of unique in his individuality and this kind of ability to shape and form an idea, an opinion, and that included being Asian but not limited to that. Just talking to people over the years, he was a beacon for, like, people in Chinatown, the Filipino community as well as Japanese Americans. We just kind of like, the fact of his presence there, and the fact that he was so clearly, this was his domain, he radiated that. It wasn't just his constant presence or his organization, he just radiated that sense of knowledgeability and, I wouldn't call it ownership, but stewardship of this place.

PW: So what was the connection between Francis, the strike, and City Lights? Was there a way that it created a pathway for you to come here?

PY: Yes. And so both, that's kind of like the time that George and I were spending here, but because Francis was very, his leadership was not forceful but charismatic in the sense that people were drawn to him and just, he was incredibly thoughtful and generous in his time and sharing of ideas. Didn't dominate a space in the same way I would say Shig dominated the space just in his presence and how he radiated out. Francis was charismatic but he didn't, he didn't intend to, but he was incredibly thoughtful. And so he was the person who visited me in jail, taking his own time out. So I was in the county jail south of San Francisco for, I'll call it ninety days, I'm not sure. But I was transferred to Bryant Street to participate in this work release program. So this is, through my uncle John and through the whole Nisei connection, there was a Japanese American probation officer who was acquainted with members of our family. And there was other extended members of the family owned a laundry on Ninth Street south of Market called People's Laundry. So unbeknownst to me, they engineered this thing. So I'm, all of a sudden, taken out of San Bruno, the San Francisco County Jail, where I felt I had established myself. All of a sudden I'm called out, "You're going to Bryant Street." What? And so I didn't really have time to collect any of the stuff that I'd gathered or say goodbye to acquaintances I had developed. I wasn't happy about it. I was less happy that all of a sudden... this is something that is engineered by the family, and it's a... but Francis would come and collect me from People's Laundry, even go out for a meal or smoke a couple joints before he took me back. And he was a motorcycle person and so we'd zip around San Francisco, do whatever for an hour or two before he would drop me back off, before I was due back at Bryant Street. Many times, I mean... and to get out of that situation early, I needed somebody to say they would employ me. And so Francis went to Lawrence and Shig and Bob McBride, who was the manager at that time, and explained my situation. So on the basis of Francis' recommendation, they hired me sight unseen. Which, I'm sure, at various points, they regretted.

PW: What kind of work did they have you do?

PY: Well, Francis was, like, transitioning out of the store. So City Lights was doing its own distribution. It continues to this day, has its own publishing branch, and that's what Francis kind of was gearing himself to start doing more work with publishing. And as a transition to that, because we were doing our own distribution, we were packing up all those and sending out all those copies of Allen (Ginsberg's) books and Philip LaMantia's books and all the people who were publishing at that time. So Francis gave up his hours at the publishing thing even though that was his goal. I could take those hours, he went back full-time in the store. So he with Janice Mirikitani published and kind of edited the first Asian American literary journal of that period, Aion. There again, this is all stuff that comes out of AAPA. But that's where his orientation was. He really was not thinking of continuing in the store, but he wanted to stay literary and he thought, and he was gearing himself towards maybe getting a position with publishing. But he short-circuited that for himself to give me this opportunity.

PW: And I should ask, too, at that time, Shig Murao's, one of his main duties was as the book buyer?

PY: Yes.

PW: Correct.

PY: So he was everything in the store. He determined who was going to work here, when it was going to be open, when it was going to be closed. We had announced hours, but that was, Shig thought it was going to stay open later, it would stay open later. He was, really respected Francis a lot. I think he approved of me only to the extent that Francis approved of me. I think Shig and I were more similar then, so we didn't actually get to know each other better until after Shig left City Lights, which is the really only unfortunate part of our history here. To me, there's not a real... outside of the fact that it is empirically, like there's this Japanese American thread that's incredibly important to City Lights, starting with Shig and Francis and then myself, and also Andy who's just the general manager here. Why that's so... it's not really clearly apparent. The apparent part is that Shig was such a clear role model and kind of icon for all of us, that Asian Americans... for everyone Asian American that I've talked to from that period, the fact of his presence there kind of gave, it was an entranceway. Yeah, we can hang here, Shig is here. Even though he wouldn't acknowledge us.

PW: And how did the job itself just evolve over the years you were there? Because you celebrated, what, fifty...

PY: My guess is fifty-two years.

PW: Fifty-two years at City Lights.

PY: So I worked up at 1562 Grant for a couple years. Francis and I kind of rented a houseboat up at Gate 6 in Sausalito for the duration of his life. Then I left publishing for a while and just kind of bounced around the city, would pick up shifts at the bookstore, but I wasn't really officially on staff. I was somebody that they would bring in if somebody was sick or something or they needed an extra hand. So I did that, bounced around for a year and half, it was just kind of house the city has changed. Cities always change. But what's different now for younger people is that the economics make it impossible to live the way that I lived, to bounce around between part-time jobs, to live on Russian Hill. Younger people think it's science fiction that I could live up on Jones and Broadway for ninety dollars a month. And that same building now, I think, goes, or that same apartment, it was a studio, well over two thousand dollars. But I could walk down Pacific, there was a bean sprout factory, there was a tofu factory. You could pick up bean sprouts for fifty cents or less a pound, tofu for, a pound of tofu for less than a dollar a pound. Because you had your five-pound sack of rice at the house for... then you pick up some char siu in Chinatown, and you could put together a week's worth of meals for well under ten dollars. That's simply not possible anymore.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.