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VY: Okay, then how about when your parents met? Do you know what their early life was like?

NO: Well, let me start with when they met. My father was a Japanese language school teacher and also a martial arts judo teacher. So he came on a Model T Ford, all the way to Lancaster, there were no freeways, to teach in a one-room schoolhouse on the weekends for the thirteen farmer families and their children. And so my mother was one of his students, and she was a rascal, she was very difficult to control. And I think that was very appealing to him that she had spirit, she was very funny, and her sisters were probably more obedient. I know they are because they continued to write diaries themselves and were very disciplined, but my mother was not like that. So they met as a teacher and student, and he married her at age seventeen. And they went on a six- or seven-month honeymoon, and they went to Japan to meet his parents, to Korea, and to the Great Wall of China and back. And they came back, and after that, my oldest sister was born. So one of the things I wanted to do in my life was to go to the Great Wall, and here I have all the technology and everything, and it wasn't that easy to get there, but we have photos of them on the Great Wall of China.

VY: So your mother was seventeen when they were married? How old was your father?

NO: He was about twenty-two.

VY: So once they got married, then what? Where did they live?

NO: They lived in Boyle Heights, and my father opened a grocery store called T. Inouye grocery store, which kind of indicates his self-confidence. It was basically a hilltop market, and my mother has this great personality, and people would come to shop there. And he was a great businessman, I have the stamp that she would use to go to the bank, this is Lily Inouye, and that store still remains today.

VY: Does is still have the same name?

NO: No, it's gone through several other owners after the war and thereafter.

VY: So both your parents worked in the store?

NO: That's right. The store work is, like, 24/7, because they have to buy the merchandise, sell the merchandise and so on and so forth. Just a little point of reference, they used to have little tablets, so people would buy on credit. And as a result of this way of doing business, that's how they picked the Gomez family to take care of their home during the war when everyone was evacuated, because they were very, very trustworthy.

VY: So they lived in Boyle Heights, so they owned a house.

NO: Yes, my father bought a house, and it was two thousand dollars. And the reason why it was so reasonable, is because the owner wanted to go back to Japan, and my father had cash, and no other buyer had cash, so he paid cash and it's a house that starts on Folsom Street and goes all the way down the hill to another street, and it's a beautiful place that I grew up at.

VY: Do you know how long they lived in Boyle Heights before the war started?

NO: Well, from the time that they got married, from about 1934 all the way to the day that EO 9066 was issued by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

VY: So when that happened, do you know what they did to prepare for that?

NO: Well, my father had to sell the equipment in the store for very little, and leave that. And he, as I said earlier, gave the responsibility to the Gomez family to pay the property tax. So they lived in that house from that period on. So when we came back, they were still there, and we lived together.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.