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RP: This is an oral history for the Manzanar National Historic Site. This afternoon we're talking with Kan Yagi and our interview is taking place at the Marriott Residence Inn in Portland near the airport. The date of our interview is July 24, 2010. The interviewer is Richard Potashin and the videographer is Mark Hatchmann. And our interview will be archived in the Park's library. Kan, do I have permission to go ahead and conduct our interview?

KY: Uh-huh.

RP: Thank you very much for coming down here today and sharing some of your experiences before, during, and after the war. First of all, can you give us your date of birth and where you were born?

KY: July 31, 1926.

RP: And where were you born?

KY: I was born in Kelton, Utah. And it's a place that's no longer on the map.

RP: What happened to it?

KY: The railroad came through there and they made a cut off that went across the Great Salt Lake and that bypassed that area and during the war they took up the railroad tracks to reuse the rails for war. But that's why that railroad was taken up. Dad was working on that practically since he came over.

RP: From Japan?

KY: Yeah.

RP: What was your given name at birth?

KY: That's it.

RP: That it?

KY: Yeah, seven letters.

RP: Can you spell it for us?

KY: K-A-N, that's first name, Yagi, Y-A-G-I.

RP: You mentioned your father, where in Japan did he come from?

KY: Okayama, Japan.

RP: And what was his first name?

KY: T-O-K-U-T-A-R-O, Tokutaro Yagi.

RP: And what brought him from Japan to the United States.

KY: Well, he always told us that when he got to be near eighteen years old that he just wanted to come to America and he says, he told us several times that when he left he knew he would never go back. I don't know what... he never did tell us why he left, new adventure or what I don't know. But he was eighteen years old.

RP: When he came to America?

KY: Yeah.

RP: Was he the oldest son in his family or do you know anything else about him in Japan?

KY: No, I think he was the oldest. He had a brother but I don't know whether he was younger or older.

RP: Did any other members of his family come to the United States?

KY: No.

RP: Just him?

KY: Just him.

RP: And when he came here he originally settled in Kelton?

KY: He was... yeah, I guess that's where they settled after they were married, yeah.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.