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VO: Today is November 15, 2013, and we're in Portland, Oregon, interviewing Yoji Matsushima. Assisting today is Marlene Wallingford, observing is Lynn Longfellow, our videographer is Ian McCluskey, and I'm Valerie Otani. We are going to just go ahead and start, Yoji, by having you introduce yourself with your full name and where and when you were born.

YM: My name is Yoji Julius Matsushima. I was born January 31, 1933, in Portland, Oregon.

VO: And any significance to that, to your names?

YM: My middle name, I was named after the governor of Oregon at that time, Julius Meier, so I should be very proud of the name. But I changed it from my first name to my middle name in my adulthood.

VO: You were always called Yoji?

YM: That's right.

VO: Tell us about your father, where he was from and when he was born.

YM: My father is from Okayama, Japan, a village called Hirata. And he came at the age of fifteen, worked with his older brother on the railroad in central Oregon. His first job was a waterboy when they were building the Crooked River Railroad Bridge. And later he joined my great uncle in his business as an employee.

VO: That Crooked River Bridge was very high. Wasn't it over a steep canyon?

YM: That's very high.

VO: And what was his, as a waterboy, what does he...

YM: He had to carry pails of water up and down the hill all day. But I guess he wasn't very big for his age, so it was a good job for him.

VO: So then you said he joined his...

YM: Teikoku company, which was owned by my great uncle. He adopted my mother, and later my father married into the family.

VO: And your father's name?

YM: My father's "maiden name"? [Laughs]

VO: Yes.

YM: Was Yasui. And he was the second-born male in his family, so in Japan, in those days, you don't inherit anything. So therefore he married into the Matsushima family. And my uncle, great uncle, not having any children, he adopted my mother, and then later my father married my mother and changed his name to Matsushima.

VO: And what was the age difference between --

YM: Ten years.

VO: So your mother was how old when she married?

YM: I think she was about... let's see, legally eighteen, I think.

VO: Legally? So you think she was a little younger than that?

YM: I think so.

VO: Okay. And, let's see, your mother's... what kind of family did she come from?

YM: They were farmers in Japan, Okayama, village called Narazu. And they had one male and two female siblings. And later, the elder male passed away. Then the complication in the family, my mother was adopted by my great uncle, but had to go back to her family to head up her family. And my aunt went over to my great uncle's house and took over his house. So that's the background of the family.

VO: Your aunt, your mother's sister, took over your great uncle's house in Portland or Japan?

YM: Japan.

VO: And when your mother was adopted, was she already in Japan and then brought...

YM: No, they were both here, both my aunt and my mother. But I think on paper they did that in Japan.

VO: Well, that's a tradition in Japanese culture, to marry into a family if they have...

YM: Yeah, if the male was the second or third born, lot of times they'd marry into a family that'd have a female, all females. I think that's called youshi. It's not a very good status in Japanese culture, from what I heard.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright (c) 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.