Densho Digital Archive - Sharon Tanagi Aburano Interview I (denshovh-asharon-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

TI: And this was, again, during that 1925 to '29.

SA: He made it, the bulk of it, evidently, from '25 to '29. And then when the Depression hit, this was interesting because I just found a letter of his, and evidently a lot of people he extended credit to during the '30s. We were having a hard time ourselves, but, and he couldn't collect. Consequently, from the China Gardens (restaurant), my mother and I went at night -- I remember that, 'cause I was still young, I think I was between eight, nine, around there. Mother and I would go out after dinner and we would have to go to China Gardens and we just stood and asked them and all they would give us was a dollar or two. Because after 1933, unfortunately, Japan invaded China and we had this big media on the "rape of Nanking." So the Chinese in Chinatown boycotted us.

TI: That included the restaurants, too, the Chinese restaurants?

SA: Yes. I don't know where they went to get their things, but we had to go and pick up the money from them. They weren't going to come down, so the only way we could do it was to go to them.

TI: So these were prior customers who had bought things on credit, they still owed you money, and then when, after this media about the "rape of Nanking" happened, they started boycotting the store. So you and your mother would go up there to collect whatever you could.

SA: We had to.

TI: And when you say "China Gardens," what does that mean?

SA: Well, it's the big restaurant they had. I don't know what the name of that place is today, but it's next, near the Chinese school. We had other customers, but they didn't owe us as much as that one. That is why we didn't go to (some) of the others, but to that one we went.

TI: And how did that feel, or what did that, what was that like to go stand there waiting for money? What was that like?

SA: Well, it was awful. That's why it stays in my memory. I just stood there, and of course my mother's trying to get, and we never got enough. It was (a very small amount), a pittance. I guess it just stood in my mind.