<Begin Segment 10>

PW: This is the beginning of the rise of Crenshaw as a pretty solid Japanese American hot spot.

PY: Right. And so he was in that building for about ten years and then moved a little further south into this, just slightly up the hill from the Holiday Bowl on the west side of Crenshaw, there was a whole large development with medical buildings and office buildings  and moved his office into there.

PW: Did your family do shopping or hang out around that neighborhood or the district much?

PY: Only to visit family. I used to make house calls with my dad. He put on about... until he retired, he did house calls. He put on about thirty thousand auto miles a year. And so I got to know L.A. fairly well, we just kind of...

PW: Were there other community types of things that you guys did, did you go to, like, I don't know, picnics or Obon?

PY: We went to church picnics in the St. Mary's... so most of it was Yamazaki-related, St. Mary's related. And so my image of the Japanese American community at that time is that all Japanese Americans were Episcopalians, they were all doctors and dentists, and they all knew my uncle and grandfather. So I had a very limited sense of what that was. And so our activities were almost all family-related, mostly around the Yamazaki family, but we did not go to church on a regular basis. And so we showed up on the high holy days, Christmas, Easter, whatever. Partially my dad was busy and partially he kind of had his belly full. I never asked him why Van Nuys. Was that just kind of what... availability? Because a lot of their friends, they had gone to UCLA or had been part of the St. Mary's thing, ended up in Silver Lake. A few went down to Gardena, but Silver Lake was really kind of just a lot of the old St. Mary's folks that Mom and Dad went to UCLA with, and just ended up around Silver Lake.

PW: What was the general feel for the Japanese American community at that time? Because, again, the Sansei are starting to come of age. I'm kind of curious, what did it feel like in L.A. at that time, particularly this community?

PY: Just... I'm the grandson, so we're fucking spoiled. It's just like, just so... and come out in these ridiculous ways. So we don't go over there very often -- my cousins, some of them lived there, others, like Pete brought and Joy brought their kids every...so they were part of that community. I knew my cousins, and that was just about it, and some of the other family friends. But the Yamazaki grandkids, all the kids would get these Easter baskets, our Easter baskets were twice as big. It was kind of like, what? [Laughs]

PW: Did your family also still celebrate things like Oshogatsu or things that were...

PY: My mother did not... my Auntie Joy was an amazing cook, and she did amazing Oshogatsus. I think one of the reasons why she liked me is because I ate whatever she cooked. And my cousins, when they were kids, didn't like that traditional Japanese food. And so I think it really... because you know how much preparation goes into, that's like three or four days of straight work and prep days before that to get ready for that three days of intensive cooking. And so I think Joy was hurt by the fact that the kids didn't appreciate all that work and just... not that I was that appreciative of that, but I was just a chowhound. You put food in front of me, I was going to eat it, and a lot of it. [Laughs] But it was really good. And I just, over the years I got to appreciate it more and more. And as did my cousins eventually, but in our family, the unfortunate thing is that none of us would know how to recreate or even begin to recreate what Joy did at Oshogatsu, which is really unfortunate. So that particular line of food and cultural transmission went with Joy, just because none of us were quite together enough to really sit down with her and at least get the rudiments of what it would take to put together a meal like that.

PW: I'm kind of curious to hear just more about, like, what you did for fun. Like what were, especially first when you were a child, were there games that you were especially into?

PY: It was like a suburban... I mean, kids were pretty free outside of, like you grew up in the suburbs, everybody, there was only a couple blocks at that time, and so there wasn't that many places you'd go to, and you ran around the streets with, like, the neighborhood kids, and you went home when you got hungry. But as you get older... so everything was in walking distance. The grammar school was about a mile away, and just after first grade, you walked every day. My big decision every day, was I going to spend the quarter for lunch money on the doughnuts and go hungry at lunch?

PW: Tell me the name of the elementary school that you attended?

PY: It was Gault Street. Gault Street elementary in Van Nuys. I thought you were going to... I know the name of the doughnut shop.

PW: Tell me the doughnut shop.

PY: June Ellen's.

PW: And what was your favorite doughnut?

PY: Chocolate. But days I was a little bit smarter, I'd get a dozen doughnut holes for like a dime or something like that, and be able to stick that in my bag and sneak them out during the course of the day. Most times I'd just get a chocolate doughnut and be hungry for the rest of the day. It would be gone by the time I got to school.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.