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RP: Sus, can you tell us a little about your, your father? First of all, his name?

SY: My father's name is Utaro Yenokida.

RP: Okay.

SY: Born in Japan, 1857.

RP: '57?

SY: Yeah, 1857. In Japan he was a, he was apprentice to a physician and he was, he was promised to be the, the... what they call... he was promised the practice that the doctor had, had at this time. But I think Dad, when Dad was there somewhere like twelve or thirteen years, instead of giving him the practice, he gave the practice up to somebody else. So through his anger, he came to United States at that time, yeah.

[Interruption]

RP: Did your dad have... first of all, where in Japan was he born and, and grew up?

SY: He was born in Itoshima-gun, Japan, Fukuoka, which is the southern tip of Japan. And Mother was in that also vicinities, too. Yeah, Itoshima-gun.

RP: Same, same area?

SY: Right.

RP: And did he have other brothers and sisters that...

SY: My dad, my dad was the youngest of, I think, five brothers. So, he... there was, with him, it would be six brothers. But Dad was the youngest and also the shortest of the six. They were saying that they could drink the wine from, from the eves of the, in Japan, his brothers can, they were that big, without any assistance of... you know, just sipping wine. Your sake, not wine.

RP: Sake.

SY: And, yeah. But then I have no ties with my, my father's side in Japan. I have no ties with him. I don't know why we drifted apart. But we do have ties with my mother's side in Japan.

RP: But you've, you've still relatives on your father's side in Japan?

SY: There is, but then it's the strangest thing. Japan has what they call central highway, it's called the Tokaido, and when it goes into, into Fukuoka, there's a little curve like this. It drops down into it. The first off-ramp into that city is Enokida, Enokida off-ramp. I never, never knew why. But evidently, we were, they were quite prominent at one time. So, I would like to have... I wish I could read the Japanese language as well as English, but then, I cannot. So I'd like to have somebody research that for me. But then, at present, I haven't done it.

RP: Can you give us a little, a little background about your father? The type of guy he was when you were growing up. Was he a strict man?

SY: No, Dad was a fairly easygoing person. However, he was, he had the strength of a bull. Which meant that in Japan they have a, they call it a "bull nigiri" which is, they have a, a staff of so long, and then between the two people they try to twist it, twist it out of their hands. But my dad was so strong that they couldn't, they couldn't twist it at all. They couldn't, they couldn't even budge it. That's how strong he was at one time, yeah. And Dad, I don't know where he learned to play pool. My dad was a pool shark. And when I was young, he never, he never explained to me why he had learned to be a pool shark. But when he was in Chico, they were running a laundry beside this pool hall. And my brother Min was a three-year-old or five-year-old then and they had a, he had a colored man babysit the, the boy and he'd go play pool. And there, he used to give these guys something like three to six balls and he'd still win the game.

RP: That much of a handicap?

SY: My dad was an ambidextrous person who could shoot pool equally with the right had or with his natural left hand. So there was no, there was... the angles that he could play is, is tremendous because of his ambidextrous ability. It was, it's amazing.

RP: So, so he picked this skill up in the United States?

SY: I would think so. I really don't know where.

RP: I don't know if pool was, was much of a game in Japan at all.

SY: Not at that time.

RP: At that times...

SY: Not at that time. But Mom always said that he was so accurate with his spear, that after coming down from Chico they used to farm or live right beside the Sacramento River near Walnut Grove. And he, Mom would be on the levy or something on the Sacramento River and they'd see porpoising salmon coming out of the river. And they'd... Mom would tell Dad, "Hey there's, the salmon are coming so let's go get some." And they'd actually spear the salmon out of the boat and his accuracy was tremendous. One, one salmon that he picked up must have weighed at least 60 pounds or better. Because they skewered it through the gill so that they could carry it with a pole and it was still dragging on the ground. So that's some, some fish. Yeah. I always remember hearing that when I was a youngster.

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