<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So anything else before the war we should talk about? 'Cause the next section we're gonna talk about the war starting, but before that, anything else about the neighborhood or your friends or anything else about the neighborhood?

HM: Okay, we visited the neighbors. Of course, we had to take... and my dad was a social type of man. We went and we introduced ourselves, then we went to Sakugawa? They had pigpens, so you can see pigs and the flies, so they would say, "Have tea and go home." And you know the spout of the tea pot? You couldn't find it with all the flies, but it's amazing, we never got sick. With all the flies, we drank tea and whatever they offered we ate and here was the flies, but we never got sick. It's amazing. I don't know why we didn't get, I always wondered about that, because now at home you find one fly in the house, everybody goes crazy. But you couldn't find the spout because here was all the flies.

TI: And you didn't say anything? You just drank the tea?

HM: Yeah, we drank the tea because they offered you the tea. Obachan would offer. It's, we're taking their time out, because they're raising pigs, so you take what they give you. We didn't talk back or anything. We didn't think it was dirty.

TI: Now, did your parents entertain during this time? Did anyone come to your house?

HM: No, everybody's too busy to entertain. We just went around introducing ourselves, that we moved, and then Mr. Charlie Nishioka was across the street (from Sakusawa) we didn't associate with Nishibatas, but, this Okinawan family.

KN: How many families were in the neighborhood?

HM: I don't know because we couldn't see the neighbors, but if I look at the map, lot of people bought the property but they weren't living in it.

TI: And how many non Japanese were in the neighborhood?

HM: I knew of two, Mr. Zane and the other one had a Hawaiian name but they were Portuguese. But my mother loved their home. It was built in a U-shaped type. It wasn't like a farmer's home. It was a U-shaped type, one side was kitchen and bedrooms, and the living room, and they had a little patio in the back. My mother loved that house.

TI: And that was the Zane house, or which?

HM: No, Mr. Zane was a, these Portuguese people had, they had, I think they were, intention of being of being a truck farm. I'm not sure.

TI: Good. So anything else before the war, before we go to December 7th?

HM: Well, we, I, when we moved to the house I was very happy. I was very happy we had a house of our own. But I didn't think that the mortgage, the... you know, when you are growing up, everything is for me, myself, and I, you don't think about anybody else but yourself. But I was very, very, I was a very happy child.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.