<Begin Segment 14>

MA: So I'm curious about when your family moved to Denver, what your impressions of Denver were.

LS: Well, Dad bought the home in east Denver where there were hardly any Japanese. They were all whites around there.

MA: And how were you accepted by the whites in that area?

LS: Some were good, some weren't too friendly. And then we had to take a bus to East High School, 'cause it was quite a ways. And then other than that, I don't, can't think of too much incidents, not as much as when the war first began.

MA: So you lived in east Denver, then. And what was your house and your neighborhood like?

LS: Well, it was an old, old house, it was a two-story old house, when Dad bought that, he had about three quarters of a half a block. It was all empty lot there, and then he built a little greenhouse there. In fact, he made it so that we had little chickens. That's about it.

MA: And your father, you said, kind of did more gardening, landscaping work. Who were his customers there?

LS: I couldn't tell you, but they were on the higher end.

MA: So he had a good business going.

LS: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

MA: After the war ended, did your parents ever talk about moving back to Santa Monica?

LS: They might have, but we more or less stayed here, my dad decided not to... and it wasn't just that, but the fact that those that went back real early ran into a lot of prejudice, so he wanted to avoid that.

MA: Did you hear stories about that type of thing?

LS: I heard how they were threatened and this sort of thing. So he just didn't want to go back. And besides, he had a thriving business here, he didn't see the point in going back there, starting all over again.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.