Densho Digital Archive - Wally Yonamine Interview (denshovh-ywally-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

AH: And did the family live throughout the childhood of all of your siblings in the same area near Lahaina?

WY: Yeah, they all, up until high school, but then after high school, they all kind of spread out. Even me, when I was, well, when I was a junior, I already came to Honolulu.

AH: Right, and I want to ask you a little bit about that. And where you grew up as a child was this little village outside of Lahaina. And did you have a lot of work that you were obliged to do? Last time we were doing our pre-interview, you were talking a little bit about some of your chores and stuff, but maybe you could tell us about it now.

WY: Well, when I was twelve, fourteen years old, we used to, all the kids used to work in the cane field those days during the summer. You worked for about maybe two and a half months during the summer and try to make as much money as you can. In those days, you work a whole day and they pay you only 25 cents a day. But we all had to work to help because my father was working in the cane field all day, twelve, fourteen hours a day, and maybe he'll come home and make only about seventy or eighty dollars a month. So, and when you have seven kids, you know, that's not enough. So during the summer, my brother, myself, my sister, we all try to help out to try to make as much money we can. So, I used to work in the cane field, get up maybe 4 o'clock in the morning, and go to cane field and cut grass. And I used to hate that job because, you know, the leaves would cut you and all that. So, but after that, that was my freshman year. My sophomore year, then I worked in a pineapple field because they had, you could make more money working in a pineapple field. So I started to work in the pineapple field where we made, used to make about $15 a day. And my job was to... see, the ladies that put the pineapple in the box, and the box would weigh about 50, 60 pounds, and you have a team with three on, team one on one side, and there's a guy on top of the, on the truck and he would load about twenty, forty boxes on the truck. And each box you throw on the truck is 1 cent, see? But we used to make good money. And that, and the reason why I took that job was because it was good for me when I used to, for football, and when I played that next year, develop. So I used to do that, but we used to make pretty good money when, at that time.

AH: In some Japanese American families, when you had a job, you brought home the money and you just gave it over to your family. Did you do that?

WY: Yes, yes. Everything, whatever money we made, every, we gave it to our parents.

AH: Would you say that comparatively, not absolutely, but compared to the other people living around you, that your family was economically deprived, or about average or above average?

WY: I would say we were about average, yeah.

AH: And what would an average family live in with seven kids and the parents? What kind of home did you have?

WY: Well, wasn't anything great, but at least it was clean, you know. You have enough food because, when you live in the countryside, you raise your own chicken, ducks, and your own vegetables and things. So my father used to take care of all of those things, too. So, in a way, as far as having food on the table, we had a lot of food on the table. But to buy clothes, we didn't have that much money to buy clothes. So naturally, we have to, I have to use what my brother had and all the way down like that. So I used to go to school, sometimes you have a patch in the back here like that. And I used to be so embarrassed with things like that.