<Begin Segment 13>

SY: Well I, we're gonna have, we're skipping a whole bunch, we'll definitely cover more on that 'cause I think it's fascinating, but getting back to Centennial, now, so you were in Norwalk and then what? Where did you end up after Centennial, or did you, did you move from there, Norwalk?

GN: We did, but going back a little bit, when I was in the elementary school in Norwalk one of the teachers asked me, "Gee, you should be in a higher grade," so I explained to her about camp that I was at, that I attended Japanese school and got behind. And so she accelerated me one year. I think should've really been accelerated two years, but...

SY: So when you got out of camp they immediately put you behind.

GN: Yeah.

SY: And you never had a problem with English? Did you, were you, I mean, having spent all those years speaking, or learning in Japanese --

GN: Well, I had some difficulty with English because both my parents didn't speak English. They spoke Japanese, and then being the oldest, I didn't really have someone in the house to really spoke, guide me in terms of the English language.

SY: So your English...

GN: Although I would talk English to my younger sister.

SY: So you were basically an English as a second language student. But, so that, did you notice that when you started school back in, after camp?

GN: I didn't have any problem conversing. I think where I had some difficulty was when you had to write something.

SY: That's amazing. So then you went from Norwalk and went all the way through intermediate school, which is considered, what, junior high school now? To Centennial and then what happened after that?

GN: So when I was in the eighth grade, I think it was the eighth grade, we moved to Boyle Heights.

SY: Back to Boyle, well, you actually had a house in Boyle Heights.

GN: And that was an apartment, dilapidated apartment that we lived in.

SY: Can you talk about the area then, back then, Boyle Heights?

GN: Yeah, it was like two blocks south of Aliso Village, which is a federal housing project, and I think the condition of those homes, I think, were far better than the apartment we were living in.

SY: So it, you, Boyle Heights was kind of a mixed area?

GN: Yeah, there were areas in Boyle Heights where you had a lot of single family homes. The street that we lived there were a few single family homes, there were some duplexes and triplex across the street, there was one place where the gypsy was living, and we had an African American that was next door to us. To the north of us were all Latinos.

SY: How about --

GN: But it was a very poor area on Gless Street. Eight houses south of us were, was Dolores Mission, which is the poorest Catholic church in Los Angeles County, and I think that's where the Father Boyle spent some time there.

SY: So the area had a lot of Asians but not in your neighborhood, is that --

GN: There were a few Asians across the street from us that were living there.

SY: So you would characterize this is as a --

GN: But their homes were much better than ours, I remember that.

SY: So you were in a very poor neighborhood. And your father was at that time doing what?

GN: Gardening.

SY: So he took on gardening as a business. And then you had to transfer schools?

GN: Yeah, so I enrolled at Hollenbeck Junior High School at that time.

SY: And it was a very ethnically mixed.

GN: Mixed, yes. Lot of Jewish kids, lot of Latino, and lot of Japanese Americans.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.