<Begin Segment 18>

MN: How long did you stay in Piedmont before you came down to Los Angeles?

TS: Probably six months or so.

MN: When you told your parents you want to come back to Southern California, did they protest? Or what did they say?

TS: They said, "We're going with you." I said, "You people can stay here, but I'm going. I don't like it up here."

MN: Now, Southern California, like Northern California, had a real bad housing shortage, so where did you folks stay when you got to L.A.?

TS: We joined two other families. (Our family) shared one bedroom. They had three bedrooms and we had one bedroom. I think myself and my brother Henry, we slept on a couch in the living room of that house.

MN: You were eventually able to find housing near your prewar home. Where was this at?

TS: I believe it was on Thirty-Seventh Street between Normandie and Vermont. Somewhere around there, I don't recall.

MN: Now, which high school did you enroll in?

TS: First Manual Arts and then I was the only Japanese guy there, so I went to Polytechnic and it was full of Nikkeis, (...).

MN: Now, what did your parents do to get back on their feet? Did they go back into the nursery business?

TS: (...) They may have, at first, I think, they went into gardening, and then later on they went into the nursery business.

MN: Now, when they eventually went into the nursery business again, did they join a tanomoshi?

TS: I think so.

MN: Can you explain to us what a tanomoshi is?

TS: Kind of like a credit union where people would pool their money and they'd loan it to whoever needed it the most.

MN: And, and now the current Japanese credit union is really an outgrowth of the tanomoshi?

TS: I think it is.

MN: After the war there were a lot of Nikkei clubs or gangs. Were you involved in any of them?

TS: No.

MN: What did you, what do you remember of the gang fights during Nisei Week Carnival?

TS: Oh, they were always having (fights at) First and San Pedro. They were always having gang fights. Especially the guys from Hawaii, they didn't get along with the First Street boys and they'd have wild fights (...). Hawaiian guys liked to fight. [Laughs]

MN: Now, before the war your brother Tunney was also a well-known street fighter.

TS: (Yes).

MN: Was he involved in any of the prewar gangs like the Exclusive Twenties?

TS: No. He may have, but he was a well-known street fighter. He was always getting into fights with people. I never saw that in his character in the home. He was always a calm guy, never shouted at anybody, wasn't aggressive, but apparently he was a real fighter. And when we went to camp and Santa Anita he had quite a reputation. All the Exclusive Twenties guys knew about him. (...)

MN: Now I'm gonna ask about your education. You were able to attend Pepperdine University for free. How did that come about?

TS: (Yes). George Pepperdine, he used to come to the Church of Christ and I told him that I'm going to register at UCLA because it costs ten dollars a semester. He said, "Forget UCLA. You're coming here." I said, "I have no money." "We're not asking you for any money." And they never asked me for anything, not a penny.

MN: Now, why was this very rich man, George Pepperdine, doing in a Japanese American Church of Christ?

TS: I don't understand, although I later found out that he was associated with my cousin, Ryohachi Shigekuni, in Japan, and they were trying to evangelize Japan through the Christian Church, and they had set up a lot of churches north of Tokyo, George Pepperdine and my cousin. (...)

MN: Do you remember what year you graduated from Pepperdine University?

TS: I don't remember (exactly sometime) in the '40s.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.