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MN: And then is it around this time that your parents tried to enroll you in the Japanese language school?

Mo N: No, no. From there, we moved down to my parents' home, it was on Tenth Avenue and Jefferson, which was a part of the beginning of the Japanese ghetto there in the avenues. And at that time, I'd go from grammar school, I'd go to Sixth Avenue, then I'd go to Foshay junior high. And Foshay, I think he tries to... well, he does, he enrolls me in Senshin Gakuen, so I go there for a little while. And we used to have this mean old priest there who was the teacher, and he used to walk around with a big stick that they had, and you're supposed to stick out your hand and he'd swat you on your hand, and I put up with that for a little hot minute. But my friends used to come up and we'd be hanging out outside the window, "Come on." [Laughs] So I didn't last too long there, needless to say. Then I went to Japanese school at Centenary, Christian Japanese school. Didn't last very long there either. And by the time I got into high school, I took some private lessons with my auntie's mother, she was a Japanese school teacher. So me and my friend took lessons in Japanese from here for about I think maybe a semester. I don't think I ever got above the third grade if I got up that high. So today, most people that listen to me, I speak Hiroshima-ben, Japanese children, female children's Japanese. [Laughs] Since I learned it from my mom and my grandma. My Japanese is kind of yasashii. Those guys, the guys who learned it from their dads and stuff like that learned market Japanese, people working in the produce market and stuff like that, so they're pretty tough guys, or plantation Japanese. First time I heard a Hawaiian man talking Japanese, I thought, "Wow, what kind of Japanese is that?" [Laughs] Then I was told, "That's just plantation Japanese. That's the way all Japanese talk." Then I heard some of the guys from the produce market or listening to the fishermen. Didn't feel like Japanese no more. [Laughs]

MN: Now you also joined the Seinan judo dojo also.

Mo N: Yeah.

MN: What was that like, and what prompted you to join judo?

Mo N: Well, because everybody was going to judo. This is I think '48, '49, and the dojo had pretty much just opened up. Everybody I knew was going to judo, so naturally then I should go too. It was pretty exciting. And it was something that was us.

MN: Who was your sensei?

Mo N: Kuniyuki.

MN: So when you were growing up, what was your attitude towards Japanese culture and language?

Mo N: Well, I guess I looked down on it or I didn't think I was gonna need it. I mean, one of the things that I remember pretty distinctly -- and it wasn't told to me directly but it was told to the older bunch, older people in our community -- but the WRA solution to the "Japanese problem" was to disperse us, one family in every little nook and cranny in America, and in one generation the "Japanese problem" would be solved. Meaning that we would intermarry and disappear. Maybe for white people that might work, but we were people of color and, you know... America's colonial history, I mean, no way. So anyhow, okay, so a lot of us grew up not wanting to speak Japanese, looking down on Japanese culture, so we're looking down on our Issei parents or feeling kind of ashamed of them. And yeah, yeah, I mean, there's a reason why me and my friends didn't want to learn Japanese. I think that's a strong part of it, that thing about not feeling that it was any use, of any use, and that we were ashamed of it. So, yeah, so there's this inferiority complex that was just beat down into us in a strong way. And we lived it out by... my dad was involved with the kenjinkai, I never got involved in that. My dad was involved with the credit union, I never got involved with that. My dad was involved with the Japanese school, I never got involved with none of that stuff. Only thing I got involved in was judo, and I was glad I did that, at least I did that. Yeah, so I didn't know the consequences of all that for sure. I regret it now. And so with my son, we tried to involve him as much as possible so that at least he'll have some experience. So later on when he decides on his own what he wants to do, then he can decide, he has some experience. But very definitely we had inferiority complex. In Japanese they call it chikokenno, self-hatred.

MN: I know your father, when you folks eventually settled in the Los Angeles area, he became a gardener, is that right?

Mo N: Right.

MN: Can you share the story of how he first started to get his equipment?

Mo N: Oh, yeah, sure. When he was, after he got here, he knew that gardening was the easiest way for him to find work, that he had to, he had done a little bit of it before the war with his dad, so he had to, first he had to get a hold of a car so he could get a route, right? So he picked up an old '36 Dodge, and then he had to, this is when everything was still kind of rationed, too, right after the war. So then he had to go through all kind of ways to try to get a hold of this lawnmower. And he got the lawnmower and then to get an edger, got that edger, then he was ready to start his route, buy a hose and all that, and rake and stuff like that, those were pretty easy to get. But then as he started to get his route together, then he needed a power mower. So that's when it got real interesting. He had to go the, some police, there was a cop that was involved in it that gave him a connection, then they have to pay the guy for the asking price, then had gifts behind that, get the guy to give it up at that price. There was a... it was real interesting 'cause it wasn't straightforward just going out and getting the equipment, you had to go out there and get to know people and to make the connections, then you had to kind of bribe 'em to send it to you. So, yeah, but he finally got all his stuff together and he was driving around this old '36 Dodge going gardening. [Laughs]

<End Segment 14> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.