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MN: Let me ask about your mother a little bit.

Mo N: Okay.

MN: You mentioned earlier how your father, when he came over, 'cause he came right before the Immigration Act of 1924 went into effect, and he had problems becoming a citizen, your mother had the same problem, too, right, becoming a citizen? Because she didn't have a passport?

Mo N: Yeah, yeah. They both had problems. They didn't have problems with the technical part, going to class, the questions and stuff like that. But they had problems in terms of the research to find verification of their travel. My dad was finding out what the name of the boat was that crossed over the last time. And for my mom was that she was so young when she came over, she didn't have a separate passport. So her passport was her mother's passport which just stated that she had a babe in arms. I think we found that passport, so we used that to get her verification, yeah. But, you know, both my parents were educated over here. My mother, mainly, right, over here, all the way through from first grade to twelfth grade. My dad came over here, and he did the compulsory school he went to the eighth grade in this country, too. So he actually might be considered an intellectual at that time because he'd been educated up to the eighth grade in both countries. But so they didn't have any trouble with that.

My grandfather was the one that was bullshit because he, by that time, he became disoriented. I think it might have... I don't know if it was Alzheimer's or whatever, but I think he had a stroke, slight stroke. The place where he had the shop used to be next to this dry cleaning place, and they use a lot of the steam and stuff like that, things get, place gets real hot. And the heat would go through the wall and come over to my grandpa's side, and they think that that might have probably affected him. But anyhow, so he's an old man, he's had three sons serving in the United States army, and he wants to become a citizen for, like, his kids. So I'm his interpreter, I'm in high school at that time, so I'm his interpreter. So I go with him, and I feel, I think I probably messed up. I didn't know how the system worked. I was still pretty naive. So I answered exactly the way my grandpa answered questions. And sometimes he'd get it right, sometimes he wouldn't. I mean, he didn't go to school or none of that stuff. So he flunks the first time, so he's really sad. So he said, "Come on, let's go try again." "Okay," and we went again. And then some of those interviewers were pretty cruel, I think. 'Cause I've heard of other people who just passed 'em. If they're old enough, hell, they're not gonna hurt nobody. They just passed 'em in sent 'em through. Either that, or whoever was interpreting lied. [Laughs] That's where I fucked up, I should have lied. I should have gave the answers that I knew were right. But, so he died an alien in this country after forty, fifty years here at least. So it's always been, the way I see it is the... how should I say it? The heartlessness of the racism and the colonialism in this country that created people who want to hold shit over other people's lives, and knowing that they're there? What can they do to harm them? So, yeah, that's another mark.

MN: Let me go back to before the war years. Can you share the story about how your mother... how your mother found out who she was gonna get married to?

Mo N: Oh, yeah. I asked my mom about that, and how she had met my dad and all that stuff. She said, well, she used to work, help out at the shoe repair shop. My grandpa had a shoe repair shop on Western Avenue, right two blocks south of Jefferson. The Japanese community just had a business kind of thing there, Case Hardware was there, Nisei Drug Store was there, the Yoshi gas station was there, the Watanabe Nursery was there, all that. So right in that area there before the war. So she said that this guy used to come in and get his shoes fixed and talk, and she realized this cat was checking her out. But she didn't think nothing of it, 'cause she was sweet on somebody else. Then they had a, were told to attend a party, so she said, "Okay." So she goes down there, and they're milling around. The person that -- everybody knows who the baishaku is, right? Everybody in the community. So the baishaku comes up to her and tells her, "Hey, you want to meet the guy you're gonna get married to?" [Laughs] And she says, "What?" This is the first time she'd heard about it. But anyhow, so she goes, she meets my dad, and then she asks her father, "What's going on? What is this?" And she was at that omiai party or something like that, she realized that that's what she had been attending, and it was for her. [Laughs] But yeah, so that's how she says she met him, she met my dad and she's gonna marry the dude. But damn, all the marriages at that time were like that, I think.

MN: So do you know where your parents got married in? Did they get married in a church?

Mo N: Yeah.

MN: Centenary?

Mo N: Yeah.

MN: And this is when Centenary was on Normandie.

Mo N: Normandie, yeah.

MN: So after they got married, where did they live?

Mo N: Well, they lived on the old Furukawa properties that was right across the street from Foshay junior high. We lived right in that area until the war broke out, then went to camp from there.

MN: So before the war, how did your father support the family?

Mo N: My dad was a salesman for this crate yard, Three Star Crate Yard. I don't know what the hell that means. But before the war, if you were a worker working for Japanese people, no way in hell you could get married and support a family. They wouldn't pay you enough. So that's why there's so many of the Isseis stayed single that worked for the Japanese people then because of segregation and all that racism, couldn't find work. Only place where you could probably do fine work was in gardening, possibly in gardening, and then in the produce market. And usually you were working for some rich Japanese cat. Or in the greengrocery part of markets, or you're farm laborer, only work jobs that were open. Unless you went out to sea, fishermen, San Pedro, Terminal Island folks were doing business. But I guess Terminal Island probably, fishing probably had a pretty decent shot because I think they went by, they went by percentages. When you had a good catch, you got a percentage of the catch. They didn't go by no regular wages kind of stuff. If you had a good catch, then you had a chance to make some money. So I think some of the fishermen probably had families. But you know, our community originates with, I think, under thirty thousand women that came here. So...

MN: And then, well, your mother, did she have to work? Or what did she do?

Mo N: No, she didn't, as far as I can remember, before the war.

MN: Took care of the kids?

Mo N: She was, yeah, she was basically a housewife.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.