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BN: So we are here on November 29, 2022, we're interviewing Doug Aihara at his office in the Kajima building on First Street in Little Tokyo. Evan Kodani is shooting the video for us, so thank you, Doug, and let's get started.

DA: Thank you.

BN: So what we usually do is start with asking you to talk about, a little bit about your parents and their families first. And as I mentioned earlier, we won't do too much on your mom because there's already an interview with her in our archive, but we do want to spend some time with your dad and his family because we have not, unfortunately, interviewed any of them. So I wonder if you could start by talking about your dad and his family.

DA: Okay.

BN: And start with his name.

DA: Okay. So my parents were Luis and Yae Aihara. My dad was the second oldest son in the Aihara family. He had two brothers and a sister. The oldest brother was Sam, then my dad, and then he had a sister, Daisy, and then the youngest brother was Henry, who I think you know as he became a USC track star. They were raised out in Garden Grove, my grandfather was a farmer and farmed asparagus, tomatoes, oranges, and strawberries. And he spent summers out there helping do whatever, and had a cousin out there, Ted. He was the oldest cousin, son of my auntie Daisy. And Daisy lived with my grandparents, so she was on the farm with my cousin. So apparently there was a separation early on, and she ended up having to move in with her parents, so got to know her very well. And yeah, so my dad, I guess, moved out. He didn't like farming, and upon returning from the war, he decided to move into the city, and that's, I think he started going to church at that time. That's where he met my mom at Koyasan, and soon later they got married and then moved into an apartment somewhere in East Lost Angeles, I believe, it was on Marina. Not long after that, my sister was born about a year and a half later, and I think that's when we moved to East Los Angeles at First and Woods right on the corner where it had a mailbox, right on the corner, and it was where First, where east met west and north met south. So on one corner was 101 South, the other one was 101 North, 102 East and 101 West. So it was an interesting corner. It was later we had to move because of the Pomona freeway, and that was in '62. So that's when we relocated to Montebello and that's where I spent my junior high and high school years.

BN: And before we go on, I want to just circle back a little. On your father's parents side, do you know where they were from in Japan?

DA: I believe my grandfather for sure was from Hiroshima. I'm not sure about my grandmother, because I believe my grandmother was a, one of those photo wives where she came over and met my grandfather and married. So pretty sure that's true. Yeah, and there's, apparently there are still some Aiharas in Hiroshima that were off the coast of Hiroshima that I guess they are, some kind of island, another small island. So never did figure out, or visit them, even though we had one or two chances to do that when we were younger. But it was never to be.

BN: Okay. And then during the war, now, what happened with your grandfather? Because he was one of the ones, one of the Issei who were arrested and interned?

DA: Well, I think both of my grandfathers...

BN: Right, we'll get to your mother's side.

DA: Yeah. So on my dad's side, he was, I think, taken away from the family for a while, while the rest of the family, I believe, was relocated into Poston. My dad, I believe, enlisted prior to all of this, and so he was never in camp, from my knowledge. And my grandfather was soon brought back, I think, to Poston to be reunited with the rest of his family.

BN: Did you have a sense, or did the family have a sense of why he would have been among the Issei who were separately interned? I mean, were there things he was involved in?

DA: I believe, well, he was instrumental, I believe, in establishing a couple of, well, the Japanese school, language school, plus he was a judo teacher and had a dojo, which my uncles were all involved with. They were all judo people. My uncle could have been an Olympic, I think, that's what I was told, an Olympic quality guy, I mean, he was like fifth dan or something.

BN: This is Sam?

DA: My uncle Sam. Big guy, yeah, kind of not your typical Nisei. And very, very nice gentleman, calm guy. Never got mad at us, we'd be running all crazy all over that farm and he'd just haul us in and say, "Come on." [Laughs] "Quit your fooling around, come on over here and help Grandma and Grandpa."

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