<Begin Segment 11>

MN: I wanted to ask you, what was it like living in South Central L.A.? Did you see a lot of street fights?

TY: No, there weren't a lot of street fights as such, 'cause this is 1947 when we moved to that area. So there wasn't that kind of gang stuff that we have now. I think the thing that was so funny was, for me, was the fact that I got to understand black women more because they could be assertive. I remember one day, I was totally amazed. I was standing on the corner of Tenth and Central, and here was this black woman chasing her husband out there. "I'll cut you, I'll cut you," and she was running down the street with this big butcher knife. And I said, "Oh, this is wild. I don't know anything about this, but it's wild." [Laughs] That made an impression.

MN: What about Japanese school? Did you go to a Japanese school?

TY: Okay. While we were there, my father did some work for a Japanese school teacher. And she's accredited in Japan, not here, and so he had asked if she wouldn't mind teaching Japanese school at our house. And so she said, "Okay," then she said, "could I bring some students?" which she did. And I think that was my first exposure to formalized Japanese school. And so the problem I had with that was it wasn't the Japanese we were using at home. And so it was little different and a little more stilted, but it was something I could understand, so we took all of us, from oldest brother down to my sister Kimiyo, we were all exposed to Japanese school.

MN: So at home, were you speaking a dialect?

TY: Yeah.

MN: How long did you attend the Japanese school?

TY: As soon as I could get to being in the Boy Scouts, 'cause that was my out. 'Cause she taught on Fridays, and Boy Scouts was on Friday night. So I said, "Oh, I'll join the Boy Scouts."

MN: Which Boy Scout troop did you join?

TY: 379, which was the Koyasan church.

MN: The well-known Koyasan 379. [Laughs]

TY: There you go. [Laughs]

MN: Did you join the drum and bugle?

TY: Well, you know, we all had to play that. My brother bought me one. I was a terrible bugle player but I blew on it to make everybody... I'm glad everybody was loud, otherwise they'd have kicked me out, probably.

MN: And you know, a little earlier you talked about your father working on the Koyasan stage. Did you go and help your father when he was building this thing?

TY: I think it wasn't like did I help, I think everybody in my family were obligated to help my dad. So all of my brothers and myself would go down and no matter were gonna do, if we pounded nails or not, we were there putting up the stage.

MN: Now did the Koyasan stage have the hanamichi also?

TY: Yeah. That had to be built. So if you go there, there's nothing there that resembles anything like that. They had to build it. And then I didn't understand this, too, but why they would do the stage in the main portion of the auditorium, they raised it about three feet. So I think, to me, at the level that it would normally be would have been more logical. But they raised it to three feet, so the hanamichi had to be up that high, too.

MN: So now the stage that we see at Koyasan now, is that part of the stage that your father built?

TY: I have to go and see. I don't know... I have not seen it.

MN: Were your parents a part of the, were they Koyasan members?

TY: Yes, because there were was no Zentsuji then. I didn't know that that's what my mom and dad were church members of in Japan. So when we came down here, the only one that was closest to it was the Koyasan and not the... nani. Which is the one down the street down here?

MN: There's the Jodo Shoshu... the Nishi Hongwanji?

TY: Nishi Hongwanji. So they were not gonna go there, so Koyasan was the closest one that they could find.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.