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RP: I wanted to have you give us a little bit of a, a portrait of your parents, starting with your father. And can you give us his, his full name?

YW: His name was Kazuyoshi Ichiro Hasui. And I understand that if you look at the kanji for Kazuyoshi, you can also read it as Ichiro. And I remember he always signed his name as K. I. Hasui. I thought that was kind of interesting.

RP: And where in Japan did he come from?

YW: Oh, he was, he was born in January 5, 1894 in Kagawa-ken, Okawa-gun, Nagao-ochi.

RP: Would be the village?

YW: Yes. Ochi? Is that the village? Does ochi mean village? I can't remember what those ken and gun and ochi means. But both my mother and father were Kagawa-ken.

RP: Now, your father had an interesting path to, to America. He originally went with his father to Peru, is that correct?

YW: Well, that's what I heard. But when I was reading his Who's Who article, it said that his father was already in the U.S. so he called my father over to join him in January 11th of 1910. So that makes my father about sixteen years old. So he came to Seattle first and then went to Santa Ana where my father, where my grandfather was farming. And he helped him on the farm. And then my father became independent and he went to El Centro to farm in 1915.

RP: Did your grandfather remain in the United States or did he eventually return --

YW: He eventually went back to Japan. Right.

RP: Okay. And so your father's father called him to come over at age sixteen. And what can you tell us about your, your father in terms of his personality and some of the values that he instilled in you as a kid growing up?

YW: He was a... I remember him as being a very quiet person. But he must have been the leader in the community 'cause I, I remember him being in these kind of a church uniform or costume or whatever you wanna call it during Buddhist holidays. So I think he was one of the original founders of the Buddhist temple in El Centro. And he, with a friend, developed Mutual Shipping Company in El Centro and he had the shipping company for like nine years before he moved to Niland to farm.

RP: And that was a company that was probably set up with other Japanese...

YW: He had a partner in the Mutual Shipping Company.

RP: So he would ship --

YW: Produce.

RP: -- produce for the area.

YW: And he said, they said that he was, he created and became the chief of an association. So that must have been something like a co-op. So, reading about these things, he seemed to be a leader.

RP: Right, very much so. A community leader and maybe part of a Japanese association that covered that area.

YW: Right. And I think that's why the FBI approached him.

RP: They had interest in him, eventually.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.