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SY: Oh, so you moved, then when did you move to Los Angeles?

YM: Yeah, my brother was in school in Seattle, but I think they kept thinking we're gonna move, so they just never put me in school. So when I came to L.A. I was already six going on seven.

SY: I see. And how did you get to Los Angeles?

YM: Well, first my brother and my sister and her husband got in their Model T there and they drove down to Los Angeles -- [clears throat] sorry -- and I think it took them almost a week, 'cause the roads are, they're up in the mountains they have to go through and they had some brake problems, and it was, they had a rough time. But they made it, and in the following year, in 1928, my dad, my parents and Tak and I came by ship from Seattle to Los Angeles. And my brother, older brother had rented a house, or it was a back house and it was, in that area there were a lot of more than one home on a lot, there'd be back, rentals in the back, so that's what we had. And it was a very small, it was a duplex in the back of a house, and I think it was just one big room with a kitchen and a bathroom. But then we didn't stay there too long. The front house opened, so we went to the front house, which was a two bedroom house. And then after that the landlord wanted to build a new house there so we had to move again, so we moved about another five blocks away, still in Uptown area.

SY: I see. That Uptown area is where you originally came and decided to live there.

YM: Uh-huh. I don't know how my folks, my brother found the area, but that's where we started and we lived there until, until the war years.

SY: And your brother was sort of taking care of the finances too?

YM: Right, I think.

SY: He worked when he first got here?

YM: Well, our family's always been in the produce business in Los Angeles, so I think my brother already had some kind of business going. And my dad was there too, and my mother would go once in a while. And my brother-in-law would go. It was sort of a family business, so we had several, moved from one store to another. We had quite a few stores, not at one time, but we moved around a lot.

SY: So you kind of sold your produce.

YM: Yes.

SY: Were you still farming, raising?

YM: No, no. That, in L.A. we did not...

SY: Do any farming.

YM: Do any farming, no. Wasn't any farming, just go to the wholesale house.

SY: And so it was more retail.

YM: Yeah, it's retail. It's called retail.

SY: And did it have a family business name?

YM: No, not really. No. It was, one of the stores, early store was in, near Culver City, near La Cienega somewhere, I remember, and it was called Robert's Public Market because it was near, I think it was a street called Robert somewhere around there. I remember that store. That was one of the earlier ones. And I think they had another one earlier, but I don't know exactly where it was.

SY: So they supported themselves just, that whole time, prewar, with doing this retail business?

YM: That's right.

SY: And in the meantime, you were just going to school?

YM: Right.

SY: You went to elementary school?

YM: I went to Hobart Boulevard School, which was very close to where we lived, and then Berendo Junior High School and Los Angeles High School. Then I went to a trade school. It's called Frank Wiggins Trade School, which today is Trade Tech, and I took up dressmaking and design.

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