Densho Digital Archive - Jim Onchi Interview (denshovh-ojim-01-0016)

<Begin Segment 16>

SG: During this time, you had how many children?

JO: How many children?

SG: Yes.

JO: Well, I had five boys, all was when I was living in North Portland there. I raised all five of them, and they all went to Benson. And so when my oldest got to be around, he was finishing college there, then he went to service. That's when I lost him over there when I was living over there.

SG: He was in Vietnam?

JO: Yeah. I don't know what year Vietnam was. But anyway, what year was, they had Korean War and then came the Vietnam, I guess, yeah. I was still building home then, yeah. And then here come the colonel on the job. Oh boy, I knew what happened, you know. It really upset me, but what can he do. He came, told me they were notified that you lost your son.

SG: Did you want your son to, were you against him joining the army?

JO: My son?

SG: Yes.

JO: Well, he joined, and I went to see him when he went oversea. But I miss him so much because when I was still working weekend night job, he would come back on furlough, and he'd come back and help me on the job. And then our Curtis, we got Curtis, another grandson named Curtis after him. So we do have, and that Curtis that I... I raised him. I changed his diaper and all, the Curtis we got now, our grandson, and he knows it. He's still doing, he does judo. He's been all over the country, going judo, so I support him in judo.

SG: So you raised five --

JO: Five boys.

SG: Five boys, and how many grandkids have you raised?

JO: We got six grandkids, and now we got two great-grandkids. And I just learned just a couple weeks ago that we're going to have another great grandkid. So it's all boys too. And I told them, "You're going to have another, a boy."

SG: What was it like raising a family in North Portland after the war?

JO: Well, we have no trouble there. I built home over there on North Portland, not way over to Saint John, but it's near I-5 there and Denver Avenue where they call the Kent district. So anyway, that's where I raised all five boys. They're still here all together in the Portland area. They all got a job, so I'm glad of that.

SG: Did your wife work also or, during this time?

JO: No. She didn't work. She was raising the five boys, so she couldn't, she couldn't get away to work, no. Well, she always says well, it's a work for her too. She says, you didn't do all the work. She says, I did all the work also. Anyway, that's the way it is. We, yeah. It's quite a job raising family. Well, like I tell my grandkids, you know, we worked hard, and our folks, the kids that coming out, Yonseis, you know, Yonseis are fortune rich. They got grandparents, grandmas, so many of them. When I, Nisei didn't have, very few had grandparents, you know. We didn't have nobody to back up on; we just didn't.

SG: It seems like --

JO: The kids now, they got all kind of support. If the, my son, Gary, is a grandpa, but he's got a great grandpa like myself. So if he can't do it, I'd do it. So they got all kind of support.

SG: You think the struggle that the Issei and Nisei went through really has helped the Sansei and Yonsei?

JO: Who help what?

SG: The struggle of the Issei and Nisei has really made life easier for Sansei and --

JO: I believe that, that's what I told, you know. That what made it easy for them, I think, a lot of it. The thing is that a lot of them don't know that. I think that's what they're doing now to get the Yonseis and people to know a little bit about what we went through, and that would help them. Some kids don't realize that.