<Begin Segment 3>

AL: Do you know how they met?

YN: Well, there's two stories, but they both involve my father's sister Tomi. It was either in a dressmaking class or a flower arranging class that she was taking with Tomi. And my father would come to pick her up after class, and he would give my mother a ride to where she lived.

AL: And the rest is history, huh?

YN: That's right. [Laughs]

AL: Do you know what their religious backgrounds were as they were growing up?

YN: Well, my father is from a Buddhist family, but when the children were young, my father could go to any church that he chose, but basically I think he was Buddhist. And then my mother was also raised in the Buddhist church and eventually we made it to New York after the war, after internment, and he... the neighbor across the street took my sister and I to Sunday school. And eventually both my parents became Christians.

AL: Do you know which sect of Buddhism they grew up... was it the same, I don't know if sect is the right word, but the same... I know there's Nishi and there's Higashi and there's...

YN: Oh, no, I don't.

AL: Did they describe at all their wedding? Was it a large affair, small, do you know anything about that?

YN: It was quite large, I think. They got married in the Buddhist church downtown that is now the Japanese American National Museum on First Street.

AL: So it was Nishi Hongwanji?

YN: Yes. And then I believe the reception was at the Far East Cafe, where, typical wedding reception.

AL: Did they take any pictures of it?

YN: I'm sure there were. I know they had formal pictures taken by Toyo Miyatake at his studio.

AL: Many generations.

YN: And he took ours, too, my husband and I, when we got married, Toyo Miyatake took it.

AL: Your family was even then, though, from West Los Angeles?

YN: Santa Monica.

AL: Santa Monica, okay. So your parents, did they live with your father's parents, or did they build their own house? Do you know what their living arrangement was in the early years of their marriage?

YN: I think they all lived together.

AL: What year did they marry?

YN: They married in 1938.

AL: Do you know if your father had ever visited Japan as a young man?

YN: I don't think so.

AL: Or your mom?

YN: I don't think so. I think it was either the twenty-fifth or the thirty-fifth anniversary where they went to Japan together.

AL: Just stepping back a little bit, of course, I'm sure some people who hear this interview will know that your father's a very famous artist. Do you know when he began developing as an artist? Was it something he was doing from childhood or something he started as an adult?

YN: He started quite young. I don't know when, at least by high school, I would say. And he had a one-man show at what became the Los Angeles Museum of Art. And that has been documented in the Los Angeles Times. And I think that he was too busy, really, working, since he was the oldest son, providing for the family, and his younger brothers and sisters, and helping his father, that he didn't have time for his art. And so it was at Manzanar when he had some time and he was on the surveying team that he was able to go out to different places that he was able to sketch. And so he kind of took it up again. And my uncle Jimmy says that that art was the way that he got out of the camps, out of Manzanar.

AL: Did he have formal training in art that you're aware of, or a mentor?

YN: He went to Otis. He went to Otis for a while. But then he realized that he could not continue to pay the tuition, so he had to drop out.

AL: And your mother, did she, how far did she go in school?

YN: She finished high school in Hawaii.

AL: Do you know what school she went to?

YN: Uh-huh, McKinley High.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.