<Begin Segment 18>

MA: I wanted to ask you about Carson, and what it was like when you first moved there.

JH: Carson was not incorporated when we first moved. I moved there in '65, before that I lived in Los Angeles city. We moved into a tract home, see, it's a Ray Watt home. And most of the places around us were still agricultural. Roads weren't fixed or anything, we had no sidewalks. Now it looks like anyplace else because the roads have been built up, more homes have cropped up. But I've been there for... how old is Jeff? Forty-five years?

MA: What was, when you first moved, what was the ethnic makeup of Carson? Were there any Japanese?

JH: No, it was very diverse. I think we had one of the most diverse cities. There were equal amounts of Asians, whites, blacks and Hispanics living there, it's amazing.

MA: And does that carry over for these forty years? Is it still...

JH: I think there's, I think it's still about the same, except that now the Asians are Filipinos. There's a little tract just below Cal State Dominguez Hills. Around it, a bigger one was built, but right in the middle there's these older homes. That place, a lot of Japanese Americans lived there. I'm not sure if they're still there or not, because you know how, what's happening is as the black people started moving, these people would move out. Now the Hispanics are moving down, and so the blacks have gone. It's constantly changing. My tract, I think, now has a lot more Filipinos. And I have a Cuban next door, across the street a Hispanic family just moved in.

MA: So very diverse still.

JH: Very. And on the other side is a black family whom we're very friendly with, 'cause they've been in there a long time, too. But we were original owners, so we've been in there a long time. I guess we got too lazy looking for another house.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.