Densho Digital Repository
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Hal Keimi Interview
Narrator: Hal Keimi
Interviewers: Brian Niiya (primary), Emily Anderson (secondary)
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: February 5, 2019
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-458-3

<Begin Segment 3>

BN: Where did you go to school?

HK: The grammar school was, I would say, a quarter mile, maybe a third of a mile east of our shop. And I remember we walked to the grammar school called Grant School, which was on Wilton Place, between Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard. So I was there all the way up to part of the fifth grade.

BN: And then, at that point, you were...

HK: Then Pearl Harbor took place.

BN: What was the demographics of the school as you remember?

HK: Well, on the east side was the kindergarten, so I spent a year there. And the rest of the ground was the elementary school, and the grounds were mainly dirt, and I remember playing marbles on that area, so it was in a dirt area. And the playground area was dirt, because I remember playing kickball in that small area. I think I've driven by there years ago, and I look at it and amazingly, it's a very small elementary school.

BN: And then who were the other students? Were there other Nisei kids, white, other nationalities?

HK: I think it was mostly all white. There were some Japanese kids. One of my friends was Kazumi Yoneyama, because he lived a few blocks away, and we were in the same grade. But we were never in the same class, but then I knew him. And there were a few other Japanese kids, one boy named Kaihatsu that I remember, same age, same grade.

BN: Now, the surrounding community wasn't a heavily Japanese American area, but were you part of, did you go to a temple or other kinds of Japanese school, other types of organizations in the area?

HK: There was not a Japanese organization in the immediate area, but my folks eventually sent my brother and I to Japanese language school at the language school in what is now known as the Virgil district. And so we used to spend most of the Saturdays there at Virgil district Japanese language school. Otherwise, in our immediate vicinity, there were, I don't know if you'd say several Japanese families that we knew, and so we would visit them. I mentioned this Yoneyama, I would actually walk to his place to go visit him and the other, Kaihatsu was only a couple blocks away and I would go visit with him. Another family, the Fujioka family was only a couple blocks away, so we had close proximity with some Japanese families.

BN: How long did you end up going to Japanese school?

HK: Well, at that time, you started with what they called Book 1, and then two, three, four, five. I don't know if I got past Book 1, so I must have started in 1940, maybe started in '41, beginning of '41, because I didn't get very far. So that's why I know very little Nihongo.

BN: Now, in your home, since your mom is Nisei, did you speak mostly English, then?

HK: Okay, because my mom was Nisei, she was English-speaking, and I don't know how, but my father learned English also. So at home, when I was growing up, English was my home language. Very little Japanese was spoken.

BN: Were they involved in other kinds of community activities, kenjinkai, any kinds of business or professional organizations, that kind of thing, that you know of?

HK: I do not think they had any connections, really serious connections with any Japanese organizations. My recollection is that their main interest was they liked to play tennis, both of them. And so whenever there was a chance, on weekends or even some weeknights, we would pile in the car and go to some local tennis courts. And they would play tennis while we sat around or maybe played around with the tennis balls.

BN: Did you play sports yourself at that point before the war?

HK: Before the war I was never engaged in any particular sports.

BN: That came more later?

HK: Came later, mainly in camp.

BN: In terms of the clientele of the business, who were the customers as you recall?

HK: The customers were hakujins that came in for business. Or you mentioned about customers, I can remember one celebrity that was Fletcher Bowron, who was the mayor of L.A. That I remember because there was one time where my dad said, "Okay, hop in our panel truck, we're going to make a delivery and we're going to go to Mayor Bowron's place. And so I can remember driving up Highland and almost all the way up to the Hollywood Bowl, then we'd turn off and go up into the hill somewhere and made a delivery to Mayor Bowron's place. So that was one of our customers, I don't know why, because supposedly he was anti-Japanese, the records indicated.

BN: Interesting, okay. Did you actually meet him?

HK: No, I did not.

BN: You were just in the truck.

HK: I just stayed in the vehicle.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.