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BN: So after a few weeks, some time at the church, you mentioned then moving in with your uncle. Is he also in Boyle Heights?

RO: Yeah, he was in Boyle Heights. But it was a different school, it's a little far away from where I...

BN: And then did he have, like did you have cousins also?

RO: They were a lot older than me. And he's the one that lost his business.

BN: Right, right. So they're not in the house?

RO: Right.

BN: Okay, got you. And then from there, where did you go?

RO: I think we went to another, I think we rented a place on the east side which didn't work out, so we went to the west side for a while and then ultimately we wound up back on the east side. We had a little house.

BN: And then you mentioned in your memoir that your mom was searching all over for a house to buy, and she was able to find something, I gather. This is also in Boyle Heights, right?

RO: Boyle Heights, yeah. She wasn't allowed to buy. She went to other parts of the city, but they said, "No Japs here." But as it turns out, it wasn't so bad for me, because what do I care? It was good for me in the sense that I got to know Latinos and Jews, so that helped me as I was growing up.

BN: In order to buy a house, the family, your family must have had some savings?

RO: I don't know, but that would be logical.

BN: Yeah, because that you were able to do that was fortunate. And then what happened, you mentioned that you had a neighbor who was looking after some of your possessions from before the war. Were you able to reclaim some of those things?

RO: Oh, yeah, they were terrific people.

BN: So they watched over... this is like furniture and that kind of thing?

RO: Exactly.

BN: Yeah, you were fortunate, there weren't a lot of people like that. And your dad was able to drive the same truck?

RO: Sure. But he lost two.

BN: Right. And then he starts, kind of, the smaller scale business. Did your mother also work?

RO: Yeah, she worked as a, in a high school fixing food. So she wasn't... she needed to work, they needed both parents working because they needed that much money. She had never worked before.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.