Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: Lilly Kobayashi Irinaga Interview
Narrator: Lilly Kobayashi Irinaga
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: April 27, 2013
Densho ID: denshovh-ililly-01-0018

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TI: So you grew up in Portland before the war and then returned. I'm trying to get a sense of how the Japanese American community in Portland changed from before to after. When you look at Japantown, where it was before the war, how did that change after the war?

LI: The south side didn't change all that much, but I think the north side changed a great deal. Well, they had a lot more stores and things over on the other side. On our side or the south side, a lot of the parents had leased other hotels so there were quite a few on this side, but I think on the north end, they had even more. There were more Japanese people living on the other side.

TI: So in Seattle, for example, before the war, there were thousands who lived in our Nihonmachi. And after the war, a lot of them didn't return. It actually was, became a lot less populated with Japanese. And I'm curious, did that happen in Portland also, or did they return back to the same size?

LI: It's really hard to tell. The north side, I just mentioned that they had a lot more Japanese families, and they leased so many more hotels over there.

TI: Okay. It's always interesting, because I think it varies from community to community.

LI: Oh, I'm sure.

TI: And I just know Seattle changed quite a bit. And part of it was, it was hard coming back to Seattle, because a lot of times Japanese didn't own the property because they couldn't. And so other people moved in, and they couldn't return.

LI: The lease just ran for so many months or so many years, right.

TI: And so because of that, housing was in such shortage because of the boom of the World War II.

LI: Right, sure. Your dad must have told you quite a bit about evacuation and Minidoka. They were in Minidoka for some time, too, about three years (...).

TI: But then my dad left and worked in places like Chicago.

LI: Oh, I see. Did he go to school outside also?

TI: After the war he went to the University of Washington.

LI: Oh, I see. Oh, that was good.

TI: Because he went into the service, which many of the Niseis did, men did. Which kind of like, I want to kind of now segue into your husband how you met your husband, because he was a...

LI: He was a volunteer from camp.

TI: So tell me about him. What's his name and where was he from?

LI: His name was Fred Irinaga, and let's see... his father passed on at forty-nine or something, very young. And so his, there was a sister who was the eldest, and then (two) brothers, but she had to quit high school in order to help my mother-in-law at the vegetable stand in the new market that was down by the river. And the boys were able to go through high school, but the oldest brother, who was just a couple years younger than Shiz, he had to learn how to drive early and he got his driver's license, because he was the only one that could drive to the market to sell vegetables and fruits and whatnot. She had a hard time with four (children, one daughter and three sons).

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.