Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mary Hamano Interview
Narrator: Mary Hamano
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: May 14, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-hmary_2-01-0003

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MA: So I wanted to go back a little bit and ask you about your childhood in L.A. And what grade school did you attend?

MH: I went to Tenth Street Elementary School. And I moved from there, we went to southeastern part of L.A., what we called the Central area, where I went to McKinley Junior High School, which is totally more black students than there are Caucasians.

MA: At McKinley?

MH: McKinley. Then I went to Thomas Jefferson High School. And also that's considered more of a ninety percent black students.

MA: So when you went to Tenth Street Elementary School, what neighborhood were you living in at that time?

MH: Oh that is now it's called the Korean area. It's right there on Tenth Avenue, we called it Tenth Street then. And it was only about three blocks from where I lived. But I went back to look for that place and they told us there's no area there. The Harbor Freeway has taken over that area, so you wouldn't find your home there anymore.

MA: And you said that growing up, it was a mostly Caucasian area.

MH: That was up 'til I was, until I was, I went there for fourth grade. The fifth grade I already had moved to another area. This other, the last area before the evacuation.

MA: But the Tenth Street area you said was a mostly Caucasian neighborhood?

MH: Yes, mostly Caucasian. We had a few Asian, maybe six Asians, and one black, one Chinese boy. When I was in kindergarten. But of course, that's different now. But, I don't know if the school's still there or not, I'm not sure.

MA: And what was your father doing when you were living on Tenth Street?

MH: He was repairing, that was all he did after he learned the trade, since he couldn't do labor, hard labor work. But he thought farming would be easy enough to do that, but, since my mother couldn't take the farming, so we had to move back to the city. And he went back to the trading, of what he originally learned.

MA: And was he self-employed? Did he own his business?

MH: Self-employed. And then, of course, my two brothers came. And then, in the '30s, early '30s, we had a family friend that was running a grocery store. And they were going to leave for Japan, and they wanted to know if my parents would take over the place. But we'd never been experienced in grocery business, but he thought with the two boys, it might help to get with the people and the surrounding and learn English better, too. So we moved to this, Avalon and what was it, Forty-eighth and Avalon. Twenty-fourth, was it Forty-Eight? Twenty-four... 4228 was our address.

MA: So that's when you moved from the Tenth Street area to this new area.

MH: Uh-huh. I lived down between Eleventh and Pico, that was in the downtown area. There was a Pico Junior High School on Pico and Santusa, I guess, where I lived. And it was a little shopping area there too, and a theater, so that's what, where I went to see the movies. And after I was, after the boys came, we moved about 1931 or '02 to the last residence where I was living. And we lived across the street from the Wrigley Ballpark, it was considered the Pacific League in Los Angeles, they called it Los Angeles... I don't think they would call them Dodgers then. And there was a San Diego group, and there was San Francisco, and then there was Oakland, and there was several teams there. What we called the Pacific League. And then we had to leave in 1941, so after that, they say they tore down the ballpark, there wasn't any ballpark. So when I went back in 1950, I went to try to look for the place, they said it's not there anymore. So, I don't know. It became a public housing area, I hear, afterwards.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.