<Begin Segment 27>

MM: But ima goro no young people, are more, professional in life than business no konna, ne? Retail business. I think there's Vietnamese and the Koreans are the ones who are more into business now.

AM: The Koreans are very...

MM: Very aggressive.

AM: Aggressive.

DG: So...

AM: And they are quite different from the Japanese.

DG: So the landscape of this area was -- you started in business and there were a lot of Japanese for awhile, when you first started the business.

AM: Quite a few Japanese.

MM: Mostly.

AM: Uh-huh.

DG: Like maybe a couple hundred businesses?

MM: Oh, I don't know exactly how many, but most of the, ano, one...

AM: Groceries.

MM: ...groceries, and the restaurants and stores were all Japanese.

DG: Right around you.

AM: The Japanese population has fallen down quite a bit.

MM: They moved outskirts like you folks, moved Valley View and things like that.

DG: Then the war came along...

MM: Before the war it was almost, lot of Japanese business trade, ne. But after war, some came back but eventually they moved to outskirts. Dakara, it's changed a lot. And I think after we go out, it's, be some other. But... I don't want to sell the store. I mean, I'll close it maybe. But I don't want to sell this, I don't know. I don't want anybody to carry the name Higo. 'Cause we took all these years to get a good rating, and good nanidakara. I don't want someone to...

[Interruption]

MM: What do you think about Japanese American?

AM: Oh, yeah.

MM: Well -- we can't, osewa anmari dekinai kedo mo, I (wish them) more power to, my hat's off to the JACL and those people who work for the Japanese community. Nihonjin no ho ga motto shikkari shiteru...

AM: Nihonjin, you can't beat them.

DG: Okay, thank you very much.

MM: You're most welcome.

DG: Right, that was wonderful.

MM: Sumimasen.

AM: Nihonjin.

MM: The end. [Laughs]

AM: Nihon, ano. The more I know Japanese, I respect the Japanese, ne. Because ano they're more stable and more deep-rooted in their things.

MM: Ima goro no wakai Nihon kara kuru hito, they're little different, though. They're getting kind of Americanized. And that I feel kind of sorry that, that they're copying the wrong things. You read a newspaper, I don't know where I read it. Couple years ago, two Japanese students, boys, came. And the second day they bought a snazzy little car to go to school. And the third day they were killed for it. It was in the paper. Down in California. And the hakujin envious narundesho?

DG: I think so.

MM: They come loaded, so...

AM: We have many races (of people) coming in now.

MM: Sometimes you don't know. I (asked), "Which country are you from?" Pitch black man. And then (said), "Aruba." Did he say Aruba or something? I said, I told my sister, I said, "I hate to see him in the dark, 'cause you can't see him." Real dark. But some of them, you talk to them, they're very yasashii, so...

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.