<Begin Segment 18>

TI: And as you were growing up, how much did you hear or know about the family history? I mean, now you could talk about your great-grandfather, your grandparents, your parents, the World War II experience. When you were going through, like, middle school and high school, how much did you know about what happened to Japanese and Japanese Americans in the valley?

LI: Well, very little. But I did know that they were evacuated, and I did know that they lost a lot of opportunities, they lost a lot of their wealth because of the fact that they were Japanese. And when my grandfather, I guess, when they could finally become naturalized citizens, my grandfather said, "What for?" He said, "I already lost everything I had three times." [Laughs] So, "This late in my life, why do I want to be a citizen now?" He wanted to be a citizen way back when, but they wouldn't let him. And so at that time he was not interested in becoming a citizen after everything that happened to him.

TI: So he decided never to become a U.S. citizen?

LI: He never became naturalized.

TI: And how about your grandmother?

LI: I think my grandmother did, yes, she did. But she's quite a bit younger, she was eighteen years younger. And so I believe she was naturalized.

TI: Growing up, how much did you know in terms of things like the relationship of your family with the tribes? The stories of some of the white businesspeople who helped your father and grandfather, things like that, how much did you know about those things?

LI: Well, I remember the Wilbur Logan story helping the family out, because they were extremely grateful. And Esther Boyd and Dan McDonald, I heard that through other people. They didn't directly help our particular family, but they were very helpful to the entire Japanese community. And so people... my dad made sure to let me know, "Don't forget these people."

TI: Yeah, you talked about before the war, there were over a thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans in Yakima, in the valley. And then after the war you said maybe ten percent came back.

LI: Right.

TI: And so when you went to school, and you talked about how some of the classrooms was a quarter Japanese. When you went to school, how many other Japanese Americans were there?

LI: I don't know. Maybe, at very most, maybe five percent, but probably less than five percent.

TI: So about one in twenty, so maybe a couple in that class, one or two in that class.

LI: Yeah, exactly. I went to Harrah Elementary School for eight years, and then I went from there to Wapato because that's where my dad graduated. But I went to school with a lot of the tribal members out here in the valley, there were more tribal people that went to school with me than anybody else. And so I had tribal friends, I had Hispanic friends, I had Caucasian friends. And so I didn't think I was anything special, but I didn't think I was below them either.

TI: So how in terms of earlier you said before the war, in terms of relationships, you said it was kind of like a hierarchy. It was, you had the white population, and then all the other nationalities and groups, for instance, were kind of all the same below that, this kind of hierarchy. What was it like during your time? Was there a similar hierarchy? Because you talk about having all these friends in different areas.

LI: Well, I don't know. I guess I didn't feel that much different during my time. Because I think the Filipino people came after the Japanese, and so some of the Filipino people worked for the Japanese farms, and some of them actually took over the Japanese farms when the Japanese were evacuated. But, you know, I guess we have a bunch of different colors out there, but I didn't really feel that I was any better than anybody, or like I said, I was below anybody else. I guess I kind of felt that everybody had some tough times. We didn't have the fancy toys that some of the other folks did with their larger farms. We didn't have snowmobiles or fancy hot cars or anything like that. There were certain families that did have money, and it was obvious. But there was a lot of other people just like us that really didn't have a heck of a lot. And we got along.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.