<Begin Segment 16>

TI: So, Lon, we'll start up again. And it's after the war, your dad and your grandfather returned to Yakima, they're starting up, and I guess the question was, the rest of the family coming back, and you were talking about that. So who else came back? And in some ways, at that point, where did they live?

LI: You know, that's a damn good question.

TI: You showed us the plot of land that they farmed.

LI: Yeah, that they came back to.

TI: They lived where they...

LI: Yeah, they generally did. And there was a house on that piece that I just showed you prior to lunch. And my guess is they must have moved into that house. And it was a two-holer, but they didn't have any indoor plumbing, so they had a two-hole outhouse out there.

TI: Yeah, I know what the term was, I was a little surprised. I guess, yeah.

LI: And so they didn't have indoor plumbing. I'm not sure... they must have built the bathhouse. So they had an ofuro in there, a wood fired ofuro. And I remember going there as a kid, this is quite a bit later, and then after just returning from the war. But she had a kitchen, and I think she had a wood stove in the kitchen for heat. But yeah, they had the outhouse. And until my grandmother moved to Los Angeles in the '60s, she did not have indoor plumbing.

TI: Oh, interesting. So your grandfather never had indoor plumbing?

LI: No.

TI: And so it was after he had passed away...

LI: Yeah, he died in, like, '65, I believe.

TI: Well, that seems actually a long time not to have indoor plumbing.

LI: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, they were poor. It's not like they had any kind of wealth when they came back. They just started over again and I think a lot of the extra money they had went into educating my dad's siblings. And I'm sure they got scholarships and things like that, but going to college even with scholarships is pretty expensive.

TI: Well, so the house, the home we are in now where your... okay, this is where your mother... okay, I'm confusing that generation. So we're talking about your grandmother, and so they were there. But going back to your father after the war, so picking up your family's story. So after farming for a while, he meets your mother.

LI: Yeah, at a Buddhist church convention, I believe.

TI: Yeah, in Spokane. And we won't go into that because we're going to interview her after we finish you, so we'll get that story. But I'm kind of fast forwarding to the children, you and your siblings. So why don't we pick it up there? You told us you were born in 1955, and you told me about your siblings. You're the oldest, so you're kind of a Sansei baby boomer that grew up in this area. And so let's talk about some of your early childhood memories of actually growing up in the house that we're in.

LI: Well, this wasn't the house that we grew up in, I grew up in. But when I was young, we lived in the house that was on the place when my dad bought this parcel of land in 1954. And so we did have a toilet, we did have indoor plumbing. And, but I think there was only two bedrooms, and we had, at the time we were living there, I had all my siblings except for Terri, she was the youngest.

TI: So this is a two-bedroom home, and how many siblings?

LI: Oh, yeah. We had four siblings -- I had three siblings and myself.

TI: So it got pretty crowded.

LI: It was pretty crowded, but we were kind of young back then. But we never felt like we were wealthy, I always felt we were poor. And we got on, but we still had plenty of food, we still had clothing. I mean, my dad would tell me a story when he was a kid. He said he was walking down the road with these tennis shoes, and the soles were falling apart, and Mrs. Furukawa had the store, and she gave him new shoes. And he was so proud, he said, "Oh, look at this." He goes, "All kawa." Kawa is leather. And apparently they couldn't afford leather shoes back then. And he and his brother were so proud to get those new shoes, they were all leather. But we had marbles and we had... we really didn't think that we were having it too hard. We went to a public school and I have a lot of tribal friends, and lot of Hispanic friends, a lot of Caucasian friends. This isn't an urban area or anything like that, so everybody in the rural areas didn't have a lot. And so I guess I never really felt that I was too underprivileged.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.