Densho Digital Repository
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Alan Nishio Interview
Narrator: Alan Nishio
Interviewer: Brian Niiya
Location: Gardena, California
Date: November 12, 2018
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-450-3

[Correct spelling of certain names, words and terms used in this interview have not been verified.]

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BN: You'd mentioned earlier, you had talked earlier that out of camp, the family then moved to, around Inglewood area, near an uncle. Do you remember that?

AN: No, I don't remember any of that. I know that's where we moved, because my uncles came out of camp earlier, and we didn't leave camp until December. And I think part of it was because I was born then, but also they were waiting for my uncle to kind of settle things and have a place to live in, so it ended up being Inglewood where he was able to purchase land for, there was a store there and there was some extra property, so then they built some additional cottages there. My mom and then my uncle, aunts and uncles, a number of them were living there.

BN: So you actually lived in, a number of these families all lived on one property.

AN: Right near the store, yeah. So my uncle was fairly, he was able to kind of set up there, I don't know how he got his money, but yeah, was able to purchase the land to do that.

BN: And then later on, your family then moved to their own place?

AN: Yeah, right. So we moved in end of '45, '46 to Inglewood. We lived there for three years and then in 1949, we moved to Mar Vista, Venice/Mar Vista area, which was largely, at that time, kind of farmland. So my father was gardening, and they'd saved enough money so they were looking to buy a home. So they went and were looking in Hawthorne and Westchester, and both of those places, when they found out it was Japanese, they wouldn't sell. And so one of my dad's customers who lived in Westchester, when he found out that they wouldn't sell, was upset about that. And he was a contractor, and so he was actually building a home in Venice where he was going to, as a rental kind of thing. So because of that, he sold it to my father. So that's how we ended up there. So he paid eight thousand five hundred dollars for this home, and there was only like two other homes on the block when we moved there, so it was pretty much all farmland. And so that's where we started, and that was in 1949.

BN: And did they stay there? Did you kind of grow up there?

AN: Oh, yeah, we still have the house. So, yeah, it's where my mom lived there until last year when she had to be moved to a board and care.

BN: Not farmland anymore.

AN: It's not farmland. And it was funny, 'cause later on, I knew it was part of a farm, and so the family that owns the farmland around was the Kita family. They offered the land to my father and others at fifty dollars an acre for developing. But my father said that was too expensive, and so we just kind of... because fifty dollars was, the monthly mortgage was fifty dollars a month at that time.

BN: The land's probably worth double that now. [Laughs]

AN: At least double, I think, per foot, probably. But it was, we were one of the first ones moving into that community, and it's close to the community center there.

BN: Because that became kind of this west side Japanese community.

AN: Yeah, it did.

BN: A fair number of people from Hawaii. Did you grow up kind of amongst that group?

AN: Not really. I mean, where I grew up, probably in the mid-'50s, then they developed this housing project there called Mar Vista Gardens. And so we were like a block from the housing project, and so when I was growing up, most of my friends, where we grew up, that area was not as middle class and well-to-do as a little further north, where most of the Japanese Americans lived. So ours was kind seen as more projects related, so most of my friends either lived next to or lived in the projects. I went to Japanese school, so I met people through Japanese school and through the church that was there, the Free Methodist Church. But in terms of hanging out with folks, it was primarily African American, Latino, white, poor folks living in the projects, and so it was kind of a different experience. So I wasn't involved in any of the JA community things other than Japanese school. And my whose reason for going to Japanese school is it allowed me not to have to go gardening with my dad kind of thing. Anyways, so that was kind of life. But I remember most of the people that I hung out with, they were known as kind of the "project kids," and so that was kind of my peer group at that time, and we were just into all sorts of mischief and things like that.

Yeah, just moving on, we went to the elementary school right there, Braddock Drive, but then when it came to junior high, at that time, there was not a junior high near us. But the closest one was Orville Wright which was in Westchester, but they wouldn't accept us because of the project. And so we were bused to this other, Palms junior high school at that time. So it was an interesting time, because there were like two or three buses that would bring kids there. And Palms at that time was primarily ninety percent probably white and probably seventy-five percent Jewish. So they would see this bus drop off primarily folks of color, and we were known as the bused in kids from the project. This was early versions of busing. So that was kind of the experiences of that time.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.