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MN: And how long were you at Elko? Do you recall that?

RO: Well, fortunately, some ACLU lawyers represented my parents, and they prevailed, and they were not subject to deportation. So they were allowed to remain in the country, they had four children. So I don't know how he got back to Elko. [Laughs] But in order to go back to L.A., he went and bought an old, dilapidated car. And he loaded up the whole family, and we were gonna make it across the Mojave Desert. And what happens? We get a flat, and there's my dad with his four kids in the middle of the desert. The first car that came by stopped, took the inner tube, which was all patches, you couldn't even see any tire, and took it into town. And sometime later, somebody else came and brought us a new inner tube. And so we were able to make it. We recently went through Mojave, 'cause we went up to Manzanar for the Block 14 dedication. And I always, I always think, "Oh, my god. We had kids in the desert, flat tire." But that period that people, even with the war and even an "enemy," "face of the enemy," that there's this pioneer spirit of taking care of one another out there, and I'm very appreciative. We were fortunate.

MN: And so somehow from that you managed to get to Los Angeles?

RO: East L.A.

MN: So you returned to East L.A. Do you have any idea how your parents were able to find a place to stay?

RO: I get the feeling we were on our own. We had, my father had a nice home. They had their own home. And he found a place in East Los Angeles. We shared a house with two other families.

MN: These other families, were they relatives of yours?

RO: One, one family was this man we called "Uncle," and he's just a co-worker of my dad at Mutual. And the other is my father's cousin -- actually, her family. So there were three, and they had two daughters.

MN: Sounds like it was very crowded.

RO: Very crowded, but very supportive. And my, our cousin's husband got a pickup truck and he'd go try to get gardening. My father, every day he wore a white shirt, dress pants and a panama hat, a tie, and he'd go out looking for day work. And he was just a very dignified-looking guy.

MN: That's very unusual.

RO: But he had, you know, went to university and he had worked in an importing business before, so this is very unusual for him to have to go out and do hard labor. But fortunately, he was hired by Capitol... is that Capitol Records?

MN: Is it Capitol or Columbia?

RO: Columbia Records. Columbia Records. And there were a lot of lessons from his good fortune. He said that some of the workers were very hostile that a "Jap" should be hired with so many people looking for jobs. And I was a young girl, but somehow I know that he explained to me that the black employees protected him. And black employees... my father is the same size I am, 5'7", about the same weight. And it was the black employees that taught him how to press records. He said it was, required a lot of skill and strength. And so he said to me very, on many times, "Be nice to black people." They were very helpful to him. And the other benefit was we'd get all these defective records, most of 'em were classical. So there we are, in the middle of East L.A. with the front door open playing Chopin or whatever, Tchaikovsky. [Laughs] Probably our neighbors thought we were nuts. But I do have enjoyment of classical music from that.

MN: Now, your father eventually left Columbia and he went back to the trading business.

RO: Yeah. I guess some of them then, some of the former friends and business associates got organized, and so he went back and pretty much the rest of his life, he remained with different successive owners and all, he had been in importing, Japanese importing. And the last, last boss was Noritoshi Kanai, and he's quite a leader in Little Tokyo Mutual Trading.

MN: So your father, last place was with Mutual Trading?

RO: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.