<Begin Segment 13>

SY: And in the meantime what were your parents doing?

FK: My father was commuting every day to Los Angeles to get this business in order. And he started on Second and San Pedro, he rented a storefront and he also rented a storefront about five stores down and that's where the family, that was our living quarters. And it was right under the Alan Hotel, it was an all-black hotel, lots of music... maybe that's why I still remember a lot of it, every night 'til two o'clock in the morning... music.

SY: So the Little Tokyo that you returned to was still peppered with --

FK: I'd say it was more blacks than Japanese

SY: At that time.

FK: Yes.

SY: And your father had to take the bus to go back and forth?

FK: Yes, and once he established himself he called all of us back and we started living on Second Street.

SY: In a house?

FK: No, no it's a storefront that was a makeshift house or living quarters.

SY: I see, so he managed to buy... lease.

FK: Lease two lots.

SY: And when he came back to Little Tokyo were there still nine kamaboko shops?

FK: No, at that time there was only one and this kamaboko, Marutama Kamaboko, the Yoshiwa family, they had their kamaboko business in Fresno and after camp they came straight to Los Angeles and he was the first to open and we were the second.

SY: And you don't know what ever happened to all those others?

FK: The others because of the hardship before the war, they probably thought, well, this is not the business to get into and they didn't except a few years later a Nagamoto company which was the company before the war, he opened up and so there was three and then a number of years later Ono Kamaboko from Honolulu, Hawaii, came and then there were four kamaboko factories in Los Angeles.

SY: So your father then was able to get most of the Japanese American business then?

FK: Well, yes, so we shared the markets with Marutama and the two companies did a pretty good business.

SY: You noticed it growing?

FK: Yes, it was a good business at that point.

SY: And that's when you started having to help out.

FK: That's when I used to come home from junior high school and whatever was not done I had to participate and help and clean up and so forth.

SY: And so you got a taste of what it was like working?

FK: I didn't like working in the family business, no. That was a fishy business and smelly and no, I knew this is not something that I would want.

SY: It was fishy in what way? You actually had to wash the fish?

FK: Well, we literally behead the fish, gut it.

SY: The fish came from the fish market?

FK: Yeah, in those days most kamaboko factories, in Japan as well, they utilized the species of fish that was closest to their proximity. In other words for us San Pedro was the closest and so whatever they bring into San Pedro we would be able to get that as freshest fish and whatever was not available here we would get it at San Diego or Santa Barbara but mostly from San Pedro. And what we used to get mostly, the barracuda was the species that was most abundant at that time and so you know what a barracuda looks like? It's a long slender fish it's probably about maybe three feet long, average, and so you cut it and you slice it, fillet it and then you spoon it, spoon the meat and wash it and rinse it. And then the belly portion, that would be the second, we call it the second grade because it has more fat, actually it's more tasty. When you go eat sushi you eat toro, that's the fatty part. The fatty part of the fish is more tasty and that would go into the tenpura, the fried tenpura and that's why tenpura to me has always been more tasty than kamaboko.

SY: I see so you took the not so great parts of the fish.

FK: Well, it's not that, it was just that it was a second because it was darker meat and you can't use it for kamaboko because it has to be white. Kamaboko and chikuwa uses the white meat and then tenpura was the better portion of the fish but it was darker so in the eyes of other people it's a second grade but it's the better part of the fish.

SY: And you actually had to participate in all of those stages or was it more for clean up?

FK: Well, it's mostly clean up because that's when I would come home from school. But on Saturdays I would be in the fish cutting the fish and so forth and scraping the fish off.

SY: So you really knew the business, knew how to do it?

FK: Well, you really don't know how to do it but you know what your chores are. You know if you're a gardener's son, well, you know you got to go and mow the lawn and do this. That's not learning the business but you know what you're supposed to do or you'll get it.

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