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TI: First, today's Wednesday, June 17, 2009, and we're in Minneapolis, and we have George Yoshino. But also in the room, on camera, we have Dana Hoshide. And I'm the interviewer, Tom Ikeda, and then also observing we have Steve Ozone from the Twin Cities JACL. And so, George, thank you for coming. And I wanted... the first question was I wanted to find, or ask you, when were you born?

GY: February the 25th, 1921.

TI: So this makes you eighty-eight years old?

GY: Yeah, an old man now.

TI: Okay, eighty-eight, and that's a special year. Did you have a, like a special birthday on your eighty-eighth birthday?

GY: No, no, nothing special.

TI: And George, can you tell me where you were born?

GY: Bellevue, Washington.

TI: And was that in a house or a medical facility?

GY: House, yeah. They had midwives then. [Laughs] The midwife was Shimomura, I forgot her first name, but she was from Seattle. She used to come up, come to the house. That's after myself, my brothers and sisters.

TI: Well, that's interesting. Shimomura, she's the grandmother of Roger Shimomura, who is a pretty well-known artist. And he did a whole series of paintings based on his grandmother's diary. So you were delivered by a fairly well-known person.

GY: Yeah.

TI: And what was the name given to you when you were born?

GY: Masao.

TI: And was there, like, a middle name?

GY: No, no.

TI: Let's talk about your father first. What was your father's name?

GY: His name was Toyoji.

TI: Toyoji, was it a family name?

GY: Yoshino.

TI: Okay, that's right. Toyoji Yoshino. And can you tell me where he was from?

GY: Tokyo.

TI: Oh, that's interesting.

GY: Tokyo, yeah.

TI: And what did his family do?

GY: [Laughs] I don't know.

TI: Do you know anything about his family? Did he have any brothers or sisters?

GY: Well, I know he was the youngest of the brothers, that's why he immigrated to the United States. Because as far as inheritance go, it always went to (...) the oldest person. He had no prospective interest in coming to him. That's what I understood.

TI: And do you know about when he came to America?

GY: Oh, about 1908 or something like that. Before the First World War.

TI: And where did he go when he first came to America?

GY: Beg your pardon?

TI: Where did he go in America?

GY: Bellevue, I think. According to the history that I read, it doesn't say where he went before. All I know is he came there. He could have worked in a lumberyard or railroad or something, but it doesn't say nothing like that. So the only thing I see is he came and joined the others, cleared some land and farmed, that's about all I can say.

TI: And do you know what kind of farming he did in Bellevue?

GY: Well, it was vegetable farms, strawberries, peas, lettuce and such, for the local market. By local market I mean Seattle, you know, the big city.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.