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SY: So I guess we should get around to when and where you were born.

GN: Well, I was born in East Los Angeles, in Boyle Heights, on November 24, 1935. I think the street was Gleeson. I was delivered by a midwife. And one of the things that're interesting is, of course, George Yoshinada had a column where he mentioned that there were so many Japanese Americans who were delivered by this Katow, the last name, spelled K-A-T-O-W, that delivered many of the Japanese Americans back in the '20s and the '30s. And what was interesting is that I was in the Boy Scout Troop 379 for a year, and they had an anniversary, seventy-fifth anniversary, that took place, and the descendant of Katow was there and somehow he knew that I was delivered by, I guess his mother or might've been grandmother, I'm not sure. And so he gave me a copy of the certificate that she had to become a midwife, so that was kind of an interesting...

SY: Yeah, everything comes around. Now, when you were born your parents had lived here how long, in Los Angeles?

GN: Okay, they were, I think, married in 1932, and they initially went to work at a place called Reeder's Ranch in Marysville, and I was born in '35.

SY: And they came here, obviously, to work as farmers here as well as...

GN: I know my father eventually drove a truck, picking up produce from the San Diego area and delivering to the produce area in L.A., so there's a photograph of him by the truck that we had.

SY: And then how did they manage to come to Boyle Heights? Do you know?

GN: That I don't know.

SY: So they were there just a short time in Marysville, and you were born in Boyle Heights.

GN: Yes.

SY: So you started off, your schooling and everything was in Boyle Heights. This is all prewar.

GN: Yes, and then about a year before the war started they moved to the uptown area, which is closer to Koreatown today, and I attended a Hobart, it's written, the form that I see, it's written Hobart Boulevard School. I think they call it Hobart Avenue right now, but I'm not sure.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.