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MA: And what are some of your earliest memories? You grew up in Boyle Heights, what was, what were some of your earliest memories of Boyle Heights and of your neighborhood?

GK: I remember (...) it was a multiethnic neighborhood, there were Japanese, Chinese, Hispanic, Jewish, even Russian people there. So I think that was helpful to get along with all sorts of people. So there were a lot of Jewish shopkeepers, I remember, and so we learned to eat gefilte fish and pickled pigs feet and things like that. And one of my best girlfriends at that time was a little Jewish girl who looked a little bit like Elizabeth Taylor. So we used to pal around and she'd come to our home or I would go to her home, and our mothers were very nice to the children.

MA: So, that's interesting. So you would socialize with, like, the Jewish girls and the different ethnic groups would socialize together?

GK: Yes, yes, very much so.

MA: And what did (...) do you know what most people did? Like their occupation in Boyle Heights, was it sort of a working class community, was it more middle class would you say?

GK: I would say sort of between there. It was sort of working class and middle class. So I'm not sure what the fathers did, what the Japanese fathers did. I know one man was a newspaper man, and I'm not sure what the other fathers did.

MA: Was there an area of Boyle Heights like where there were shops or like a commercial area at all?

GK: No, not in Boyle Heights. But in Little Tokyo, which was a little distance away, (...) then there was the Little Tokyo community of Japanese shops and restaurants and businesses.

MA: Okay. So Boyle Heights was like, mainly residential?

GK: Yes.

MA: And what did your house look like, what kind of house did you grow up in, and the street you lived on and who were your neighbors?

GK: All right, we moved about three times when we were in Boyle Heights. And, well, I used to have some good friends there that we played with, and we would play games like jacks, we'd sit on the sidewalk and play jacks 'til my fingers were bleeding. [Laughs] Or we'd play hide-and-go-seek or kick the can. And one thing I remember we enjoyed was we'd wear roller skates and form a long line with our friends and go all the way around the block holding hands. So we had a good time. And I remember we had a pet called Happy, a little fox terrier, so we enjoyed watching him. My sister loved him so much that she kind of took care of him more than I did.

MA: Did you attend Japanese language school?

GK: I did. After regular school, I went five days a week to the Japanese language school. And the school was right in the church where my father was serving, the Evergreen Baptist Church.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.