<Begin Segment 2>

TI: So I want to talk about your father. Before we talk about your life, let me talk a little bit about your father. And so what was your father's name?

SK: Kaichi Kaihara when he was born, I mean. That's the family name.

TI: Okay, so that's interesting. So Kaihara is different than Kobara. How did, how did, where did Kobara come from?

SK: It's the next... the village is more toward the mountain than by the ocean. 'Cause my mother came from Yanai, which is right by the ocean. And they're a little bit up in the mountain more. Not mountain-mountain, but higher ground.

TI: Sort of like the foothills?

SK: Yeah. And they have ranch up there and mountain. I guess they called it yama. And Kobara was next family. Because my father, my grandfather's name was Kaihara, but can't think of his name now. He was, that's what my father told me, that he was involved politically when, to get Tokugawa to take, take Tokugawa over and put in Meiji, King Meiji. So they were involved in that kind of thing with Kagoshima and Kyushu. Southern Japan wanted to get... because Tokugawa was an isolationist. He didn't want any whites to come into the country, so they kept them all out. But Dad said everybody was thinking that Western powers taking over China and all that, so they can't just sit back and be an isolationist. He says, "Eventually they're gonna surround Japan and take over the whole country." So they were, got, tried to get, change Tokugawa. Because Tokugawa controlled Japan for about 190 years. They had really a lot of peace then, no infighting and everything.

TI: And so it was your, it was your grandfather that was kind of involved in that transition?

SK: Yeah, he was.

TI: And so when you say involved, what way would he be involved? Was it like as a, as a soldier fighting, or more politically?

SK: No, I don't think it was... more of a political thing. 'Cause he was telling, my father was telling me that when Perry opened the, came in to open the door so Japan could be, get involved with the Western world, I forgot the name of the diplomat that went to Washington to negotiate. And they thought the United States would be the best place to negotiate because all other countries were Portuguese or Germans or French, they're all different countries. But they wouldn't negotiate, they said, "Who are you to say something, a little island country?" So they couldn't get any negotiation going. So they decided, well, Japan has to build up a military power. So they said that's why they went to Germany. They figured that Germany had the best military power, so they got involved with Germany.

TI: And so this was all during that, kind of that early Meiji era, when they really started going around and finding, like, the best in the world. Like the best army, the best navy, best technology, to bring back to Japan.

SK: Yeah. So that's when the problems started, he said, because it was strong military people and strong, and it was peacetime. But he said the Western world would not negotiate, so the people that were going for more of a military power were getting stronger and stronger.

TI: And where was your grandfather in all this? Did he have, was he on a certain side during this time?

SK: Yeah, he was for, go for, open the door and build up a country. And that's when my father so young. Because when he was young, being a second son, he had no choice. So the father told him, "You're gonna either, I'll get you in the military or in the police." And he says, "I didn't want to go to the military or police." So that's when he decided he's going to come to the United States.

TI: Okay. But before we go there, we started this trying to figure out, so how did he go from a Kaihara to Kobara?

SK: That's after he came to United States. I guess they were neighbors, they're good friends, so the grandparents gave him, negotiated that when they died, that he would take one of his sons, put it in his son's name. So that was my father, Kaichi.

TI: But the Kobara family was in Japan?

SK: Yeah. No, next door neighbors. But the ironic thing is, my, Kaihara, they didn't have any children, either. So when I was about twelve, they said, "Send one of the, either myself or brother or his daughter to Japan to take over that family." And my mother and father talked it over and asked us, one of us, "Want to go?" We said, "No, we don't want to go." We were kids yet. So we never left. So they adopted a girl from some other... I don't know who it was, I don't know. And then she got married to take over the Kaihara family. But after my father was in the United States, he was working in the railroad. He found out -- because those days, a letter used to take over thirty days to come from Japan to the United States -- he found out that they made a deal, so he had to change his name.

TI: And do you know how he would do that? So legally, did he go someplace and have his name changed from Kaihara to Kobara? And the reason I ask was, you showed me earlier, his draft card. And there, it was Kaihara. So he was using that name when he dealt with the U.S. government, at least during that time.

SK: Well, I don't know why, how they did it, but that was quite a few years. So he was in Nebraska, and he found out, and I guess they, I don't know how they did it.

TI: Okay. Well, that's not that important.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.