<Begin Segment 8>

PB: So soon as my military discharge, I was discharged at, in Fort MacArthur in Los Angeles, and immediately started my, you might say my living in Southern California. And the first place was on, the house that I had bought on Fifty-first Street. We then moved to a little place in, I think it was Matthews or somewhere near, a little bit more, farther west. And then from there we thought in terms of, the area was changing so we then decided to look for a place in the Gardena area where there were a lot of Japanese going. And that itself is another story. I had a hard time finding a house down there because of the, at that time there was still a lot of animosity against the Japanese. And if I went looking for a house in other areas where there were no Japanese, they would not sell a Japanese family a home.

AI: So for example, Boyle Heights, where you had lived before the war, there wasn't as much animosity...

PB: No.

AI: ...and you were, it seemed you didn't really face housing discrimination in Boyle Heights.

PB: Yes.

AI: But then when you tried to buy a house in Gardena, what happened?

PB: Well, Boyle Heights, I could've bought a house. The only thing is that after the war the Jewish people moved out, and it became a Mexican community. So my thought was then to go south into Gardena. And the first house I looked at was on 124th, -5th, -6th Street. And they would not sell me a house. And I would ask. "Well," they said, "Because it's, we don't want Japanese Americans in the area." Eventually I went to 146th Street, and there was a builder there building a tract of homes. The realtor told me, he says -- that was handling the sale -- that he couldn't sell me a house. I talked to the builder, and eventually, I told him, and he says, "All, most of these houses are going to be sold to minorities, especially Japanese Americans. You might as well start selling houses, because you're going to get the best price, and the best buyers are going to be Japanese." So...

AI: Excuse me. You told that to the builder?

PB: Builder. And he accepted it. So...

AI: This was a, the builder was white.

PB: Yeah.

AI: And he --

PB: It was between Normandy and a hundred, it was a 146th Street, I remember because I bought one of the first houses right on the corner. It's still there and in pretty good shape. But that tract eventually, I would say that out of every ten houses, eight houses were bought by Niseis, Japanese Americans. Eventually at the end of the street, there was a couple of lots, so I bought a lot down there when I became a real estate agent, and I built my own house. I built two houses there, sold one, and I lived in one because I wanted a bigger house. But the whole town eventually became a center of the Japanese community in Southern California. Gardena was known for that. But...

AI: But at the time that you first tried...

PB: Right.

AI: ...to purchase there, were, now, when you first tried to purchase a house in Gardena and you faced this discrimination from the realtors, were you surprised at this prejudice that came up?

PB: Very much so.

AI: So you didn't really expect it to be so negative at that time, is that right?

PB: Uh-huh. Well, primarily because Gardena originally was an area in which they used to grow strawberries, Japanese nurseries were there. It was a farming community with a lot of Japanese Americans there.

AI: From before the war.

PB: Right, before and...

AI: And after.

PB: ...after the war, they were still there. After they started to build the homes and these fields were cleared, the Japanese started to move back in there again, and the businesses and things. That's why when I went there and saw this, I went into the real estate business with several companies. And we did more business selling homes to Japanese Americans that wanted to buy a home than any other community that I could think of. So Gardena became a Japanese American community. We built a community center. We had a shopping center. My, one of my first businesses was a sporting goods store, and I would say that 80 percent to 90 percent of our business was done with Japanese Americans. So it became a Japanese American community, Gardena.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.