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BN: Now, your family stayed on, minus the three siblings that have left, it's now just your parents and you, right?

AM: Uh-huh.

BN: You stayed not quite to the end, but almost, and returned. Was there any doubt that you were going to go back?

AM: No. We didn't know what was going to happen to us, but if we had the choice, it was clear we could go home.

BN: And then do you know how the management of the property, the house went? You may not know this, how rent was handled and all that kind of thing?

AM: I don't know how it was, but I had the impression it was clear they paid. It was just a regular business deal, there were no problems.

BN: And then when you went back, they were already, the tenants were already, had vacated?

AM: I don't know. Probably so, because I remember just going straight to the house, and they weren't there anymore.

BN: Was the house pretty much as you had remembered it?

AM: What?

BN: Was the house kind of in similar condition as you had...

AM: Yeah, we didn't have any trouble. Yeah, I can't remember any trouble around it. I think it was hard on the people who had to leave, because housing was so hard to get.

BN: And then you'd mentioned that you had another family that stayed with you eventually.

AM: Yes. Again, this is my father's best friend. His sons were in the penitentiary, and so their daughter, who's like two years older than I, and Mr. and Mrs. Sumi and Yoko came and stayed with us. My parents rearranged the facilities and put in a kitchen and one of the bedrooms so that they could have their house, their apartment there. I have to tell you about how my father and Mr. Sumi became best friends. They were both in Seattle to work on the railroad in Washington, anyways, and when the men would go into town on payday, Mr. Sumi and my father became best friends because they stayed in camp and read books. And the funny part of the story is... I always thought that was a nice story, and I told Yuji Ichioka when we were together at UCLA in the Asian Studies program. And he said, "Oh, Amy, they all say that." [Laughs] And I always believed my father, I thought, "Oh, that's terrible." Then about five years later, I was able to talk to Ojisan's brother-in-law, and I told him this story, and he said, "Oh, don't worry, Amy. Your father and Mr. Sumi really were that kind of..." so I told Yuji, and he laughed.

BN: They weren't gambling and doing all the other stuff.

[Interruption]

BN: Now, returning to your old house and old neighborhood, was it your sense that most o the other Japanese American families, that you describe kind of this small community there, did most people come back, in your perception?

AM: Probably, I think so. Because I had Japanese American friends in that neighborhood.

BN: And then the things that your father was involved with, judo and so forth, did that pick up again after the war?

AM: I think so, yeah. I think maybe the Japanese school, it took a longer time. Like I said, I would take the bus and streetcar to go.

BN: But now you're going to one not in your neighborhood, right? The Japanese school, you said, if you're going across town.

AM: It was in Boyle Heights, across town.

BN: Did you and the family have any occasions to go into Little Tokyo for things?

AM: Oh, yeah, that was one of my favorite trips, to Little Tokyo, where my mother bought whatever she needed, and my father would... but this must have been before the war. My father would take me to Mikawaya and get me shaved ice with the beans on it. So certainly before the war, we went regularly. After the war, we went, too. I think, yeah, I'm sure we did, because Mr. Shimizu had his shoe store, and we would go there. I can't name the people who had Fugetsu-Do, they came from Shizuoka-ken, and so we would go see them. There were just lots of people that we would see regularly there. So I think after the war, we would visit Little Tokyo, and we would visit Boyle Heights, because the Sumis lived in Boyle Heights. Both my uncle, the one who went into the FBI camps, moved there and bought a business there. And my other uncle bought a business there, he lived in the Seinan area, but, so we saw friends there.

BN: What did your dad do after the war?

AM: Oh, that was really interesting because he came across, he met a man that he had known from before the war. And the man was younger than he; he was kind of in between my brother's age and my father's age. And he had just, he was an Italian, probably second generation Italian man, and he had just gotten a contract for Chiquita bananas, and he wanted somebody to sell it for him in Grand Central Market. So he asked my father to set up a business there for him, so my father did. And then expanded to a couple of others, maybe two or three other booths also. It was kind of like he was back in Seattle, at Pike's Place. So he was able to get back into business, and that was really fortunate because most of the produce people that we knew weren't able to start. And it was just really luck because somebody came to him asking him to do this.

BN: So your family was pretty fortuitous both in terms of housing and occupation.

AM: Yes. When I hear what most people went through, I just feel we were really fortunate. And then as a child, I thought it was really great because Sam, the man, lived with his older sister and niece in a fancy house in Pasadena, and they would have wonderful dinners on Sunday that were just many course, many Italian courses and delicious. And I always felt so bad that I didn't, I was so full by the time that dessert came, I couldn't eat it all. But, no, so I know how hard it was for so many people, I think we were really fortunate.

BN: Now, your older siblings, did they come back to L.A., too?

AM: Yes, they did. Nails came back and finished at UCLA, Fumi worked in Missouri, but then she eventually came home and got a job in Inglewood in the school district there and taught school, kindergarteners and special ed. for the rest of her career.

BN: And then Shogo?

AM: Shogo came back, they all came back to L.A. Well, let's see. Shogo went to Stanford to finish his schooling, he hadn't started at a school in California.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.