<Begin Segment 3>

BN: Growing up... obviously you're very young, so now, where was the family home at this time?

RO: It was in... I know the names...

BN: You mentioned Gardena.

RO: Gardena, it's in Gardena.

BN: And at that time, it's pretty rural, right? Or was it?

RO: No, it wasn't as large, probably. But we had houses all over the place.

BN: And he still worked at the...

RO: He worked in L.A.

BN: In wholesale produce, so he commuted.

RO: Yeah. And he had, I think, three people working for him, and they would all go out to collect the... see, unfortunately, I'm sorry for those of you who are listening, but I don't remember things as well as I used to, especially names. But anyway, they would go out to buy the stuff and then they'd haul it into the... what did we say earlier?

BN: The wholesale.

RO: The wholesale.

BN: He's basically buying vegetables from, I assume, mainly Japanese farmers.

RO: Probably, yeah. And he would either, then he would deliver to the large stores, but the smaller stores would buy off there.

BN: Yeah, that was a big occupational niche for many of the Japanese at that time. In terms of your household as you're growing up, given that you have an Issei father and Nisei mother, was English...

RO: Yeah, we spoke English a lot.

BN: In the house.

RO: When my parents didn't want us to understand what was going on, they would speak Japanese.

BN: And did you get sent to Japanese language school?

RO: I just started when the second World War came along, and then you don't do anything Japanese after that, and of course, we were sent to a camp shortly thereafter.

BN: So you had very little Japanese. Did you pick up the language just from your parents?

RO: Not much, no.

BN: So you probably speak less Japanese than the average Nisei.

RO: Oh, definitely.

BN: Well, because you have a Nisei mother, in part. And I should ask, we didn't note this, what year were you born?

RO: '35.

BN: '35. So you're six or so when the war starts.

RO: So I was just starting Japanese school and then, bam, no more Japanese school.

BN: Do you remember which Japanese school?

RO: No.

BN: But in the Gardena, South Bay area.

RO: Right.

BN: At that time, were there a lot of Japanese in Gardena at that time as well? And after the war, obviously, it became a big Japanese...

RO: Yeah. I really don't know.

BN: Yeah, you're so young. Do you have other memories of family life? I mean, were your parents involved in churches?

RO: Yeah, my mother played the piano for a church, and my father didn't go to school, or go to church at all.

BN: So it was mainly your mother's.

RO: Yeah, my mother.

BN: And do you remember which church?

RO: No.

BN: But they were... were they Christian?

RO: Christian, yeah.

BN: At that time, do you remember, who were your friends at that time?

RO: At that point, they were mostly white because we were so, we were young and we only played with the kids in our immediate area.

BN: Who were mostly white?

RO: Who were all white except for us. And I remember when the war started, one of our neighbors stood in front of his house with a gun. He was ready for something to happen. And the kids were no longer allowed to play with us.

BN: Oh, wow.

RO: Yeah. And, of course, shortly thereafter we were sent to Manzanar.

BN: Did your family have pets?

RO: Let's see. I think we had, yeah, I think we had a dog. And the woman who rented the house to us took it. She was great. She was white and she, during the war, she just took all of our stuff and put it away for us. Whereas other JAs really got, they lost all of their things.

BN: Yeah, that was very fortunate.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.