<Begin Segment 17>

MN: So, now, Rafu has all this heavy printing press equipment. How did they move all that into Los Angeles building?

TN: I don't know. I guess they got a moving company to do it.

MN: So this is the year, '79 is when you also had an accident with your eye?

TN: Yeah.

MN: What happened?

TN: I guess I bumped my head somewhere, couple times. That was before we moved. That must have been early in the year. No, wait a minute. Oh, it must have been after we moved. I don't know what it was. But I bumped my head on one of those shelves that carries the lead type. Because I was working on a lower shelf, and I guess somebody came and pulled out the top shelf to take out something and forgot to put the shelf back, push it back in. And then I was working the bottom and I heard the phone ring so I stood up and banged my head. Really hit my head hard, saw stars. I guess that happened a couple times within a week. But then about three or four days later I started seeing stuff in my eyes, but I didn't attribute it to that bumping my head because it was a few days earlier. But then I found out I had a torn and detached retina, and later on a hole in my retina, and that also led to a cataract, all in my right eye.

MN: Has it affected your ability to work at the Rafu?

TN: No.

MN: Because you were reading, you do a lot of reading at times.

TN: I guess I did it out of my other eye, my left eye.

MN: So when you started at the Rafu in '65, were all the workers Japanese Americans?

TN: You mean in the editorial section or all, the total of the whole company?

MN: Well let's start with editorial.

TN: I think it was all Japanese Americans. Well, one woman was half Japanese, half Italian.

MN: And how about the press room?

TN: I don't know. I think some of the part-time people were, might have been Mexican Americans.

MN: How about the paper boys?

TN: Yeah, I think they were mostly Mexican Americans. I'm not sure. There was a Japanese kid that delivered in Little Tokyo.

MN: What made the Rafu stop having paper delivery boys?

TN: I don't know. Just noticed one day they weren't there.

MN: Do you think that was in the '60s or '70s that they got rid of the paper boys?

TN: I don't know.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.