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AH: What I was asking you, Wally, was the last name, "Yonamine." Do you have any idea as to the origins of that name? It doesn't appear to me to be a very common Japanese surname, but it may be very, very common among the Okinawan Japanese community.

WY: Well, see, when I went to Okinawa, I was surprised myself because when I went to Okinawa, they had a whole block full of Yonamines around that area. I didn't expect that much Yonamine, but every house right around that block was Yonamine. So, even myself, I don't know why they have so much Yonamine right around that block there, but they did have a lot of Yonamines there.

AH: Do you remember what your grandparents on your mother's side's first names were?

WY: My father's name was Matsusai and my mother was Kikui. But their parents, I really don't know.

AH: Where did your name of Kanami come from, because I know later on you officially changed your name to Wallace.

WY: Well, my father gave me that name. See, but there's a meaning to that name, because, but I didn't know until I went to Japan. When I went to Japan, see, at first I had Wally Kanami Yonamine. And when I first went to Japan, they couldn't pronounce Wally, "So just call me Kanami." And then afterwards, I found out that, see, Kanami you have this, you know the fan? They have a thing here, and so they told me that name is a very important name, because once you take that screw out, the fan don't mean nothing, see? So, I could be a good leader. So I was really impressed with that name, Kanami. So right down the line, like my son, his second name is Kanami. My grandson is Kanami also. But then how I switched my name to Wally was, when I went school here at Farrington High School, the equipment manager... see, the school that I went to was Wallace Rider Farrington. And then the equipment manager, when I was playing football, he used to call me Wallace, Wallace. I don't know why, but he used to call me Wallace. [Laughs] So then, gradually, they started calling me Wallace, and so I had it legalized.

AH: You actually did that as a high school student?

WY: Yeah. At high school, but when I got it legalized, I had Wally, not Wallace. Wally K. Yonamine. But my, this equipment manager gave me that name.

AH: How did your parents feel about you changing your name?

WY: Oh, they didn't care. [Laughs]

AH: They didn't, they weren't offended?

WY: No, they, they didn't care.

AH: In what ways -- and maybe this has changed in the course of your lifetime -- in what ways are you proud of your ancestry, not only Japanese but Okinawan Japanese?

WY: Well, as far as, like my, Okinawans, like my father and them, I'm very proud of them in the sense that... like my dad, I used to see him work. And I guess he got, when he came to Hawaii, he used to work maybe twelve, thirteen hours a day and didn't take a day off for a whole month. And I guess something like that, he must have learned from his parents. You know, to survive you got to work. And being in Okinawa, the times that I went to Okinawa, spring training, I went to visit the relatives and see how they went through and what they went through, like during the war or whatever, you know, the house weren't that good and all that. And the living conditions weren't that good, but they survived somehow, so I really respected my parents. My, and I saw my father, how he used to work. So, when I started to play ball like that, I always was hungry [angry?] because I saw my father work practically all his life.

So, well, I'm going kind of away from the subject, but like, even when I was playing baseball in Japan, after the season's over I'd be reading the batting title. I come to Honolulu, I catch the next plane, I'll go to Maui and see the old house that I used to live or the cane field when I was twelve, fourteen years old where I used to cut grass and all that. Just to go see that place because, see, I didn't want to forget those things because I saw how my father used to work before and that gave me something that when I go back to Japan I could try harder. Give me a good incentive to be a much better ballplayer. So, you know, sometimes ballplayers, they do well, they make good money. They forget about how they suffered when they were kids. But, all my life, even today, even I'm retired but I never forgot that. It's always in the back of my mind. You know, I was talking to some of my friends, even last night, what I went through, how I, after the season I used to go to Maui and see where I used to work and all that. And that really helped me all my years because, see, in baseball, nothing is easy. You really have to work for you to produce. And I'm very sure that a lot of the great ballplayers in the States, they all went through that.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2003 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.