<Begin Segment 3>

RP: Let's talk about your siblings, your other brothers and sisters.

KY: Uh-huh.

RP: Can you... you had an older sister?

KY: I had an older sister, picture I showed you.

RP: Uh-huh.

KY: She was the oldest.

RP: And how, what was her name?

KY: Yoneko.

RP: Okay.

KY: Yoneko, Y-O-N-E-K-O.

RP: And she was what, about, how old?

KY: She was...

RP: Much older than you?

KY: ...almost two years older than I was. But she was very bright. So she did well in public school and in Japanese school too. She was the smartest one in Japanese school. And by the time she graduated Japanese school, all her classmates, they all quit. When, when it was time for her to graduate, she was the only one left. She was a graduate of one. That was her. That's how smart she was. You saw, you saw how pretty she was. She was not only pretty. She was bright.

RP: Brains and beautiful. Yeah.

KY: Yeah, yeah.

RP: Did she, did she eventually go to college before the war started?

KY: No, she didn't, she didn't dream of going to college. And, but she went to secretarial school right here in Santa Monica before we, she went to camp. She graduated from... so, when she went to camp all the kids like my sister, they got a job in camp working for someone and, as secretaries and she was ideal for that because she graduated from this secretarial school. So she, everything was for her.

RP: And then you came along.

KY: Yeah. I went to high school but I didn't graduate because I was a senior when war broke out. Yeah, I was in the, I was in camp. I went to, for my senior year in Manzanar High School. And you met my brother, who was, followed me. He was another two years behind me. So, he spent his entire three years in high school in camp. And he graduated from camp, the first graduating class.

RP: And his name?

KY: Ken. His actual name is Kenichi. K-E-N-I-C-H-I, Kenichi. And then my youngest sister, Eiko, she was five years younger than me. And she graduated in Chicago, high school that is. But she was the youngest.

RP: And who were you closest to?

KY: Who was I closest to? Well, my brother for one. But my older sister was very close to me. Yeah. My older sister and I got along beautifully. But unfortunately when she got... when she came back to camp and to get married and found my folks, and then went to Chicago, it was eight months later she passed away. Eight months later. She had a brain tumor and she died in Chicago. That was devastating for the whole family. You can imagine why. 'Cause she was so bright, you know. And unfortunately, eight months later she passed away. And when my brother, brother-in-law was left without a wife, his father and his brother and somebody else, when she got sick, they were in Long Beach and they drove non-stop to Chicago, you know, to attend the funeral. And my brother-in-law decided to go back with them. And he moved back to Long Beach. That's where he lives now. And my sister is buried in Long Beach.

RP: Now, you said that they got married in Chicago. Was her husband also in the Manzanar camp?

KY: Uh-huh, yeah.

RP: So did they meet there?

KY: Yeah. She was goin' around with this, her fiancee from camp. And when my sister decided to go to Chicago with her friends, he tagged along and he had a friend of his, the two of 'em found an apartment. And they lived in Chicago. And they found some work which was the only thing they could do. He wasn't trained for anything else. So, he found, he found a job. I don't know what it was, but he worked there as long as my sister was there. And then of course, like I told you, they went back to camp to get married.

RP: What was his name?

KY: Who?

RP: Yoneko's husband.

KY: George. George Tani.

RP: George Tani? T-A-N-I?

KY: Uh-huh.

RP: Okay.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.