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SY: And your parents meantime were, were still working in the produce business?

YM: Yeah. My brother, older brother, we were always in produce until the war. Even after that he did the same thing.

SY: And then what, I mean, do you have any memory of, besides being fired from your job? Then a couple months later, right, you had to start packing?

YM: Well, let's see now...

SY: Between the time, Pearl Harbor and then the time that you ended up going to camp.

YM: Yeah, we, I found another job after that.

SY: You did?

YM: Uh-huh. It was a lady who used to import -- my family did a lot of home work if it was available, and this lady used to import beads from Czechoslovakia or something like that and when the war broke out she couldn't get any more of what she needed, so her brother started a, he dyed elbow macaroni and we strung them and they made necklaces out of them.

SY: Wow.

YM: So I went to work for this company, made macaroni. [Laughs]

SY: And it was a big business? Or...

YM: There were about four or five of us girls, and then her brother, this lady's brother would make big needles out of coat hangers, pound this end to put a little eye on it so we could string, use it for a big needle to string the macaronis. That didn't pay as well as the other job. [Laughs] And so I think ended up, the family ended up braiding the macaroni. You know, you have three or four strands and you braid them. And I remember the family, my older brother, he had -- oh, in the meantime my brother, who had a market in Santa Monica on Third Street near Wilshire, which today is a promenade, and it was a very nice market and the, after Pearl Harbor the butcher, who had the master lease anyway, he said to my brother, he says, "You know, Sam, I like you," and all that, "but my customers are not comfortable with your being there." So he wanted my brother to sell the business. So then my brother was home without work, so here he was braiding the macaroni necklaces with us. [Laughs]

SY: I see. You could take it home and do it.

YM: Yeah, it's a home, the lady would just deliver the stuff and my mother would help, my sister-in-law could help. We could all do it.

SY: Wow. Do you, did you save any of these?

YM: No. And I always wondered how it sold. [Laughs] Well, he had to figure out how to dye the macaroni so it won't stick and all that, and the brother was, he was thinking all the time.

SY: That's amazing. And then, yeah, so anyway, so your brother had, like a small produce business inside this larger market?

YM: Yes. In those days the, one of the, either the butcher or the meat department or the grocery would have the master lease and then they'd lease out either little flower shops or little produce department or delicatessen or whatever, so whoever has the master lease has the ability to choose who has a shop there. And it was a very nice market 'cause it was small, we didn't have to have two, three grades of apple or whatever. You'd just sell extra fancy because the clientele was very nice. So in a small area you could do as much business, I guess, in a big one where you have three, four kinds of oranges, different sizes and all that. We didn't have to do that 'cause it was very small. We couldn't do it, anyway, to begin with. It was a nice store. And it was the beginning of frozen food and my brother was talked into putting in one of these electric refrigerators, and I remember trying to get the customers to try at least peas. That was, that was the best beginning of frozen, frozen vegetables, from Bird's Eye, I think it was. They had some corn, but anyway, peas were very, very good, and they still are one of the better frozen vegetables. But I remember that was something very new at that time, which was 1941, I guess, '40 or '41.

SY: So you bought the frozen food from, from whoever was the supplier.

YM: Yeah. I'm sure some salesman came along to put their ware in your store, so we had a little tiny refrigerator there with the -- and that was really something new.

SY: And the clientele there was probably more, were they more affluent?

YM: Yes, it was. It was. We used to have some, I remember there was a lady named Alice Cooper. She's an actress. She was a very good actress. She'd come in. You'd never know she was an actress, in a T shirt. But it was, and then some chauffeur would come with her.

SY: So you really sold, being a Japanese American, you didn't have other Japanese Americans that you were selling to. It was really, you were just the produce people within a more Caucasian...

YM: It is. It is, right. But the thing is, very often the Japanese did the vegetable part, fruits and vegetables in a market.

SY: I see. Always, that was kind of their specialty.

YM: Yeah. Right. That was their, their specialty. That's right.

SY: And now, your dad, was he also involved?

YM: Not at that time. He was until he passed away. He was, they were all in the business together.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.