<Begin Segment 38>

AH: What words of advice or words of wisdom based upon what you've lived through for almost eighty years now, could you offer your descendants about life? And you've got a lot of descendants that you see on a regular basis. [Laughs] What would you offer them and what do you offer them in the way of advice?

WY: You mean the guys that are living today?

AH: Like your, like, say, your grandchildren, or if you're talking to...

WY: Well, I think, well, the way I think is, since I did well, the main thing is I always told my grandsons or my son, "Try your best, don't give up, give your 100 percent, whatever you do." And if you do that, the three things, this is what I did when I, my career. I always tried my best. Because there was many a nights that I went 0 for 4 but never gave up. Tried my best. Sometimes, in Japan, like from February until October, I didn't take a day off. I practiced from February until October every day. But by doing that, if you try your best, don't give up, give 100, even, like my, my granddaughter, she takes these tests and things like that, but I called her in Boston, I tell her, "Don't feel sorry for yourself. When you, sometimes you're going to do well, sometimes you don't. But don't give up. Always try your best. Give your 100 percent." I say, "In life," I said, "main thing is you got to be hungry whatever you do. Nothing easy is going to come to you. But, if you're hungry, you'll be okay."

AH: What's your opinion about the state of the world today? You're on the planet for a long time, and you're not only on baseball diamonds and football gridirons and basketball courts, but you're out there walking around the streets of Tokyo and Honolulu and down in Southern California. Take TV, everything else that you see coming into your life, you've lived a long time. What do you think about the world as it is now and where it might be going?

WY: [Laughs] That's a tough one. Well, you know, I don't know whether this is going to answer your question, but here, today, I think that, especially in Hawaii, there's so many different races here -- race, I mean, you have Chinese, Hawaiian, Japanese, haoles and all that. But everybody thinks different. Like before, when we grow up here in Hawaii, everybody was so friendly and kind and all that. But with all these nationalities coming out like that, they all think different. And so I made up my mind that when I'm driving a car like that, you cannot get mad. You just have to mind your own business and do what you think is right and try to help people in whatever you can. That's why, like me, like my religion, I'm a Catholic, pretty good Catholic, and when people do things to me, sometimes I get so mad, but in my religion, you got to forgive. So sometimes if I get mad like that, or if I say things about people, I got to go mass and go confession and say that I'm sorry I did something like that. But I think in this world today, you just, maybe it's hard, but I think that you have to try to forgive people if you can. Then by doing that, maybe the world today would be a much better place to live, I think.

AH: Probably it would be.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2003 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.