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RP: Your mother, her first and last name, maiden name?

KY: Her first name is Riyo, R-I-Y-O and her last name is Mizote, M-I-Z-O-T-E.

RP: And she's also from Wakayama?

KY: Okayama.

RP: Okayama, sorry. And do you know if your father went back to Japan, well, he didn't go back to Japan, you just said he never went back.

KY: Yeah, he never, not even to visit. He wouldn't go back.

RP: So your mother came here, was she a "picture bride," do you know?

KY: I don't know that, never said anything about it. I don't think it was a kind of a thing where it was... it must have been somehow arranged, whether he knew her before they got married I don't know. He was ten years older than she was though.

RP: And where did he work on the railroad before he got married?

KY: There were several locations east of Reno and I can't remember the names of the towns now but Lovelock...

RP: Winnemucca?

KY: Winnemucca.

RP: Battle Mountain?

KY: Battle Mountain, right. He used to talk about them and I used to know quite a few of them but I forgot 'em now.

RP: Did he work as a section hand or do you know what he did on the railroad?

KY: I guess he must have started as a section hand but as far as I knew he was always a foreman. But he must have started as a section hand.

RP: Can you tell us a little bit about your dad, his personality, what type of a man that you saw him as?

KY: Oh, gosh, I don't know, he's pretty liberal person. He didn't ride us very much about parental control, no, there wasn't much of that. We lived out in the sticks. There's only no more than seven or eight families there at any one time. I think they were all employed by the railroad. Anyway, he liked to go fishing up in the mountains and at that time, well, in my recall it was kind of a depression, 1930s. And so he did about anything he could to get food. And that was one of the things he did fishing and he didn't do any hunting to speak of. He had some friends who had come hunting but he didn't do that too much. He always had a big garden and I don't know, we just kind of grew up ourselves.

RP: How about your mother?

KY: She was just a housekeeper, housewife and she was really a good cook. And that's about all she did but she was a very frugal person, in fact my dad was too. I think us kids took after that, we're the only ones that picked fish bones and chicken bones clean. [Laughs] And we all did that. But out there in the country we just, I think everybody (living there) was pretty conservative, especially with the Depression.

RP: Tell us about your other siblings. You had two older brothers and two older sisters?

KY: Yes.

RP: Who was the oldest?

KY: They alternated. The boy, the oldest brother was a boy and then the next one was a girl, next one was a boy, and the next one was a girl and then it was my turn.

RP: Can you give us the names of your siblings?

KY: The oldest brother was named Taro, T-A-R-O. And the sister's name was Kazue, K-A-Z-U-E, we called her Kathy. The next one was Jiro, J-I-R-O, we called him Jeet. And the next one was Fumiko, F-U-M-I-K-O, she's the one that's in California and she's still alive. But the three older ones are not, they're dead now.

RP: How much older is Fumiko than you?

KY: She's four years. All of the kids were born between May 6th and June the 2nd and that was the last one that was born (June 2) and I was born in July. I'm the only one that's born out of that span. Oh, the youngest one was, her name is Chieko, C-H-I-E K-O.

RP: You mentioned that your father had never... had no intention of returning back to Japan. Did he eventually learn to speak English?

KY: When he and my mother were married, I don't know, the way they were they said when in America, be American. And so they learned to speak English real soon. Of course Father had to learn it as foreman of the crew because they were all Caucasians and anyway they... even speaking to us children, they used English. Primarily English, Dad rarely spoke Japanese and in fact later on when he came to meet more Japanese people, he had a heck of time talking to them. And in fact he couldn't (write it), had to sit down and use the dictionary to write home to tell everybody that Mother died. I remember him sitting at a table with a dictionary trying to write to people in Japan.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.