<Begin Segment 5>

TI: In Los Angeles, when you went back to Los Angeles, where did you live?

KK: When we moved to Los Angeles, we moved to West L.A. Not Sawtelle kind of West L.A., but the west part of Los Angeles.

TI: And were there other Japanese families in the neighborhood?

KK: No.

TI: So why were you living in this neighborhood? What was the draw, or why?

KK: Well, I never heard them say why, but I figured that he did not want us to grow up among drunkards and all of that, which downtown in L.A., that was, it was not a nice place to raise kids, anyway. So he didn't want us to grow up among that kind of thing. So he decided to move way out there. That was right next to a celery field, if I remember right.

TI: So who were your neighbors in this area? So if they weren't Japanese, were they mostly Caucasian?

KK: Yeah. One was a Norwegian family, I think, Norwegian, and the other... I kind of think they were Jewish, but I'm not sure. That was one of those houses that for some reason or other, people didn't stay very long. I don't know why, but I do remember the Jewish ladies that lived there.

TI: And what are some, just, memories of growing up in this neighborhood as a child? What kind of things did you do after school, for instance? What would be some activities?

KK: Well, I think I must have been around ten. Yeah, I was ten years old. I had to take care of Arthur when he was born. So after school was baby tending. Shizue had to tend to Mickey.

TI: So a lot of chores, being busy, kind of.

KK: Yeah. But they didn't say we couldn't have any activity. In those days, it was quite safe for children to be playing in the yard. Of course, we, I think the children kind of congregate to the place where there's a lot of kids, so they used to come to our house. And we played on the front lawn until it got bare, and then we'd get out in the street and play out there.

TI: So when you would play with the kids in the neighborhood, what kind of games, what games would you play?

KK: The older, the older kids, I remember they played Run Sheep Run, and all those group kind of games. I can't remember whatever else there was. But then when baseball season came around, they want to play baseball and so forth.

TI: And so did the girls play baseball also?

KK: We tried to. The boys didn't like to have us, but we tried to.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.