Densho Digital Archive - John Young Interview (denshovh-yjohn-01-0001)

<Begin Segment 1>

RM: Today is May 22, 2015, it is John Young's ninety-second birthday, and he's allowing both Kristen Luetkemeier and myself, Rose Masters, to interview him in his home in San Gabriel. And John, I want to ask, do I have your permission to record this interview for Manzanar National Historic Site?

JY: Yes.

RM: I appreciate that. I want to start way back with both of your parents, and let's start with your dad. What was your dad's name?

JY: Young. They Americanized it when he said, "My name is Yun," so they spelled it Y-O-U-N-G. Biu, B-I-L-L, Lung, L-U-N-G, and he was an herbalist. He came over around 1878, and he got married in 1906 during the San Francisco earthquake.

RM: Do you know, did you say what part of China he immigrated from?

JY: Yeah, Canton.

RM: And do you know what his family did there?

JY: No. He never mentioned much about his family. He was the seventh child anyway.

RM: What year was your dad born?

JY: My dad was born... well, you have to subtract that from 1954 when he died in '97, so take three years, so 1854, I guess, it comes out to, roughly.

RM: Okay. When he immigrated to the United States, did he ever tell you why he decided to do so?

JY: I don't know why. I was proud of him to take a chance like that, coming to America without knowing the language. But we live in the ghetto where the Union Station is, that's the old Chinatown, so near the plaza there.

RM: Did you say he landed in San Francisco?

JY: Yeah, he landed in San Francisco. He was there first before he came down here.

RM: And did he come through Angel Island?

JY: Yeah, I'm sure he did. They wanted people at that time, there was no papers and all that. So anybody from China came during that time was legally accepted.

RM: What did he tell you about his experience of first landing in Angel Island and then moving into San Francisco?

JY: He never mentioned much about that. He was like a grandfather to me. He must have been in his eighties when I was born, so he was pretty old.

RM: What was San Francisco like in the 1870s, 1880s?

JY: Well, they survived the earthquake in '06, and that's when he won a lottery down here and donated a hundred dollars to them and two hundred dollars for my mother, and the rest he kept. Five hundred was a lot of money in those days, 1906.

RM: What was his, did he continue being an herbalist in San Francisco?

JY: Yeah, he was an herbalist in China.

RM: In San Francisco, where did he work?

JY: That I don't know, but we had a store right across from the Buddhist temple on Ferguson Alley, that's where I was born. That's where the whole family was born, 212 Ferguson Alley, right off of Los Angeles, between Los Angeles and Alameda, it's just a brick street leading down to Alameda from Los Angeles.