<Begin Segment 26>

TI: So I guess at this point let's leave Manzanar and talk about life after Manzanar.

HU: Yeah, okay. So we went to Mr., we tagged along with Mr. Muro, and Mr. Muro had, had this lease on this hotel, so we stayed there. At that time my mother, my sister and I, we stayed in a room probably no bigger than that, maybe twelve by twelve or so.

TI: So it's a small room, twelve by twelve.

HU: Small room and they had one sink, and that, you had three stories and we, and our story had one toilet and it's an old fashioned toilet where the tank was up on the ceiling, on the top and you had the chain and you pull the chain and the water will come and flush down, and they had one bathtub and we had to get, we had to have Mr. Muro open the bathroom every time, every time we wanted to take a bath, so I think we, I only took a bath maybe twice a month or somethin' like that, you know, kind of enryo. So compared to that, I remember Manzanar was a luxury, like Hotel Hilton actually. So anyway, it was in skid row and every time I went down the stair, by the entrance there was a bum or there's vomit, (I had to) jump over the vomit and that kind of stuff. It was just... and we lived there about three and a half years, and anyway, after we (left) Manzanar, my sister got married shortly after that, so it was Mother, my mother and I lived there for, for three and a half years.

TI: So when you left Manzanar were you, had you graduated from high school yet?

HU: No, I still had junior, eleventh and twelfth grade. I just finished, completed (tenth grade). I went to Roosevelt High and I was supposed to go to Belmont, but there were a lot of guys from East Side, Boyle Heights area that was in Manzanar who were my friends that I knew and then they were going to Roosevelt, and I think one of the principal or vice principal, Mr. Fox (from Manzanar High), he became, I think, principal or vice president at Roosevelt High, so there was this principal or vice president from Manzanar at Roosevelt High and there were a lot of (Japanese) students that were attending Roosevelt High, so I faked my address. In those days they had, they had hostels, like Evergreen Hostel. In the beginning there was Koyasan right downtown, that was a hostel, so we used to, and there were other guys from the Belmont area, we used to use the Evergreen Hostel address, so that put us into the Roosevelt High district. So I attended Roosevelt High, and the graduating class, I think (had about 67 Japanese).

TI: Well let me explain, ask a question, though. So at Roosevelt High, you wanted to go to Roosevelt High instead of Belmont because, one, you mentioned the friends, you had friends there?

HU: Yeah.

TI: Was it also because of this principal, too, that he was --

HU: No, not, not as much as the principal, but mostly the friends. So in the graduating class I think there were about sixty somethin', sixty-eight or somethin' Niseis graduating, so it was, I think at that time it was the biggest Nisei class in the nation probably, so it was, it felt like home. I mean, with all the friends and people we, I knew.

TI: And how well were the Niseis accepted by the other students?

HU: Oh, it was, that area was mostly, what, predominately Mexican, Mexican Americans and there were Jewish and Russians and there were, there were a lot of, there was a concentration of Japanese before the war, so actually after the war it was just, blended in. Like nothing happened, actually. So we didn't have any, anything.

TI: Okay. So tell me, so you, after Manzanar you lived in this room. What, what was the location of this room? When you say skid --

HU: Four, four seventeen and a half, South Main. That's Fourth and Main Street. In fact, right down the, right down here. Yeah.

TI: And so do you have a sense of how this area had changed during the war? Because before it was predominately Japanese, the war happened, and then coming back, what was the difference between before and after the war?

HU: Well, see, before the war I didn't know, but I think it was, when we came to Manzanar, Little Tokyo, there was still black people during the, during the war a lot of black people took over the area, but then by the time I came out it was -- we came out in August and then the ban was lifted in February. So February, April, May, June, so people, the Japanese had relocated, I mean come back and they had opened up their stores again -- so by the time we came out, I think, barber shop was open, there were cafes and I remember oyako donburi or something for thirty-five cents or something like in those days. And also we used to hang around corner of First and San Pedro. There was this Taul Building that you probably heard of and we used to hang around there, and so I guess, I imagine it was back to the old Little Tokyo days, but today, I mean, it's entirely different. I came down Fourth Street and I couldn't even recognize any of the buildings there. It's, today and those days, I mean, it's just like black and white.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.