<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Earlier you talked about how people started to leave Crystal City, so fewer and fewer people were there.

JN: Yeah, people were leaving. I didn't know why they were leaving, but the camp was getting smaller and smaller, so we had to all move to another area.

TI: And so when you were there at the end, who was left? Was it just mostly Japanese Peruvians or other groups?

JN: Well, there were Japanese Peruvians, there were Niseis, yeah, that's about it. This is 1947, yeah, 1947.

TI: So this is quite a bit after the war had ended, and you're still in camp.

JN: Yeah.

TI: And so why are you guys still there?

JN: In our situation, we didn't know where to go. Peru was, we lost everything, my father, all the business, everything we owned. Japan, it was starving, Japan, right after the war. There's nothing there. This is later I heard, when we went back to...  (Japan), fourteen of us went to Japan to meet our relatives for the first time. I met them once (before), but oh, everybody else, the first time they met our cousin. In camp, or in San Francisco, we didn't have anybody to go to. I'm sure people, they left camp, they had homes here already, or they had some friends, but we didn't have anywhere to go.

TI: And so those were the people who left Crystal City.

JN: Yeah, at the end. And Reverend Fukuda is the reverend that teaches Shinto, Konko church in San Francisco, he probably was the only one, a church that would be available for everybody. So we happened to go there when they had some church classes, and at the time, he found out that there was no place for us to go. He had a lawyer, attorney, right? Took all care of all his business. He wrote a letter to the INS saying that they'll sponsor us if we come to San Francisco and find them a job. So that was the reason we came to San Francisco. We stayed at one of these homes that he owned for a little while. We settled down, after we settled down, then they found an apartment for us. All of our family had to pay for the rent, so we all found some kind of job, whatever. Let me start with my father and mother, they would do housework. Later on, my mom would work for a laundry, Japanese-owned. My older sister decided to live in Los Angeles and marry over there. My second sister had a flower shop. My youngest sister had a, they used to call them schoolgirl, they would go someplace where she'd have to do some cooking, cleaning, at the school, and then come home. I think, at the time, Tony, he was too young, but we all had newspaper routes. Somehow we had to do something. So I remember delivering Japanese paper, it's called the Nichi Bei Times, and there was another one called Hokubei. So we were getting along with just so much. Later on he found a job as an import/export. I guess they were still too young for going to import/export. But later on, we ended up all working. And one place that I worked with the Hosoda Brothers, that was also an import/export. And my time was up, so...

TI: And, Jimmy, before we go there, I want to back to more like 1947, '48. So you're eleven years old.

JN: Exactly.

TI: And so at this point, you also have to go to school, too. Earlier you talked about how Crystal City, you didn't really learn much English.

JN: Yeah, I'm sorry for jumping.

TI: No, that's okay. So talk about what it was like going to school?

JN: Again, leaving camp was another, I shouldn't say a ballgame. Things changed around completely. We all went to school, my sister, myself, and two younger brothers. I don't know how we were introduced to go to grammar school. We went there, I was eleven, we went to different classes. I started at third grade, and not even able to speak, not even one word of English. People were asking questions, I didn't know how to answer. I would always shy away or just smile and move away.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.