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AL: Now what about your mother's family?

GY: I really didn't know too much about her side. And it's funny 'cause as I was growing up somehow I just never got very close to my mother and father. 'Cause I didn't speak Japanese and they didn't speak English, so we had a lot of problems communicating.

AL: Do you know your mother's maiden name?

GY: Fukuda.

AL: How would you spell that?

GY: F-U-K-U-D-A.

AL: Fukuda, okay. And when they came, or when your dad came to the United States, do you know where he arrived?

GY: Seattle. And when he passed away I got all the family records, I mean his side, so I still have it and I couldn't read it, it's all in Japanese. So I had someone translate all that and I made it, translated into English.

AL: Do you know why he came to this country?

GY: Strictly to work and that part kind of confused me because he owned land in Japan and I say, why would he come to the United States whereas that time I guess things weren't that great living in Japan.

AL: Do you know where he was in the order of his family, oldest son, youngest son?

GY: He was in the middle, he had an older brother and three younger brothers.

AL: Did any of them come over when he did or did he come by himself?

GY: Yeah, the one just below him, they came together to work on the railroad and they decided to go back and as I said when the ship docked at Honolulu the other brother just kept going back but he turned around and came back.

AL: Do you know your uncle's name?

GY: No, that one thing I....

AL: Do you know what year your parents married?

GY: It must have been, let me see, my oldest sister was ninety-two when she passed away so if you go back ninety-two years. They were married a couple years when she was born.

AL: And when did she pass away?

GY: About five years ago.

AL: Okay.

GY: Today she would be about ninety-seven or ninety-eight.

AL: So around 1903 so probably sometime before 1903, 1901 or 1902.

GY: Right.

AL: And did your mother come to Seattle also?

GY: No, San Francisco, because my father was living in northern California so I guess they arranged it so she could get off in San Francisco and go meet her.

AL: Do you know how he made his way from Seattle to San Francisco or why he came down?

GY: Well see the thing was he... I guess he came on some truck that someone arranged to take... there were a number of them that... he didn't come down by himself, there were I think about a dozen people like him.

AL: Do you know why he came down?

GY: Well, after he quit the railroad work he was looking around for something to do besides that, and he went to work on a farm. And what they call, what do they call that, sharecropping or whatever, and he was doing that and then I guess he saved a little bit of money so he decided to get his own farm.

AL: And what was he farming?

GY: Well, that was a big problem was that he started to grow strawberries and in those days, the soil, after three or four years the strawberry plants wouldn't produce anymore so that's why he kept moving around from one farm to another.

AL: And when he finally bought his farm, where was that?

GY: In San Jose, and so I guess I grew up in San Jose more than where I was born.

AL: Do you know how he was able to purchase land since he was Issei?

GY: That's something I didn't really get into but I know that after he passed away, my older brother took over everything and he bought I think about fifty acres in Mountain View. Of course I don't know if you're familiar area but there's a place called, they built a naval base called Moffett Field and we were right next door. I mean our farm was right next to Moffett Field so we had a lot of problems with the military.

AL: This if before the war?

GY: Yeah, even before the war there was a lot of suspicion about it and I remember they used to come over and my brother would tell them, "What are you talking about? We were here before you built Moffett Field." [Laughs]

AL: You mentioned a brother, sister, how many children did your parents have and if you can recall their names and approximately years of birth.

GY: I had one brother and four sisters and the only survivors now are myself and one sister just above me.

AL: Okay, and what were their names, of your brothers and sisters?

GY: Well, yeah, their English name, Mary, and the oldest one was Shiz, I don't know why we didn't call her by her English name and Suiki and Kay, that was my brother and May, Mieko and it's getting to a point where I can't... when somebody asks me a point blank question I have to think a while.

AL: That's okay, if you think of it later we can always come back. So when you were born, you said you were born in Redwood City but grew up in San Jose?

GY: Well, I grew up in about four different cities because we kept... from Redwood City they moved to Gilroy and from Gilroy we went to Sunnyvale, that's where that Moffett Field thing is.

AL What is your earliest memory?

GY: Of what? [Laughs]

AL: Of anything.

GY: Well, I got to a point now where I don't have too many memories. The only thing was I guess more since the evacuation, those are the things that stay in my mind. And especially during my military career you know. One of my friends volunteered and I told him, "Why are you volunteering?" He said, 'Well, I got to get out of camp." So he went from one camp to another but he was killed in Italy. And so I waited until I was drafted so when I took my basic training, infantry for the replacement of the 442, I was trained in Camp Blanding, Florida. And then just about a week before our basic training was over, four, what we called Kibeis, the Japanese Niseis that were raised in Japan, and they were instructors, Japanese language instructors at Fort Snelling, they came down to interview all the guys. They gave us a test to judge our Japanese ability, and my Japanese was zero so one of the guys that came down says, "Who you trying to kid?" he says, "No Japanese American be so illiterate in Japanese." And I said, "Well, that was me." So then a month after we finished our training, our CO said, "Okay the following twenty guys step forward," and they called my name. I said, "What is this?" And then they said, "We're shipping you out to a counterintelligence school." And I said, "How come?" He said, "Well, all you guys are proficient in Japanese." I said, "No I'm not." But the guy says, "Well, the instructor said that you were faking it so you wouldn't have to go to the Pacific war." But that's where I ended up. [Laughs] And the funniest thing is when I got overseas and they captured a Japanese general, and the commanding officer of our unit said, "Call Yoshinaga over, I want to interrogate this general." So I told him I don't speak Japanese. He said, "What the hell are you doing here then?" I said, "I told everybody but no one would believe me." So finally my CO says, "Well, what can you do?" I says, "Well, I could shoot a rifle but you guys don't want to use me for that."

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