Densho Digital Archive
Friends of Manzanar Collection
Title: Kenji Suematsu Interview
Narrator: Kenji Suematsu
Interviewer: Sharon Yamato
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: April 19, 2012
Densho ID: denshovh-skenji-01-0014

<Begin Segment 14>

SY: So the, at that time your father was, he was still ill?

KS: He was ill. He was not employable at that time, so he had, totally lived off of the social security. I mean, not security, welfare at that time. I don't know how long it was, probably enough that I graduated from there, out of, and was in Lafayette Junior High School, so it must've been better part of three years, two or three years anyway.

SY: And do you remember what he did during the day?

KS: I have no idea.

SY: When he was home, 'cause he wasn't --

KS: Well, I imagine he was, he had developed some friends there in the hotel. I recall on weekends this gentlemen called Tsuboi, they used to go fishing. And they used to take the Red Car and go all the way to San Pedro and fish there all day and then come home, and they would have pompanos. [Laughs]

SY: Nice. You would cook it?

KS: He would cook it. They would cook it and we would eat it, yeah. So that was one fresh meal that we would have.

SY: Nice. And your mother, what was she doing?

KS: Jeez, I really don't know.

SY: Can't remember.

KS: I can't remember.

SY: Yeah. Didn't she get a job at some point?

KS: Yes, she did get a job at the cannery in San Pedro, and she stayed there for, at a hotel I guess, while she worked daily there for several, the cannery season. And she would come back and then she would work at a local restaurant here as a waitress, the best she could. And as far as I know, I mean, she, I know she complained a lot. [Laughs]

SY: And did you feel like it was a struggle? I mean, was it a struggle for you to, in terms of the fact that you had a hard time getting food or getting...

KS: I don't recall it having, having a problem getting food. I mean, it wasn't where we were noticeably starving or anything. We had food. It's the condition, we had no comparison to having a better condition to compare it against, so it was the circumstances of what we had. We tried to do the best we can with what we had. And we listened to the radio and that kind of thing, and that's about all the entertainment we had. As far as getting around in this general area, there was no place to really go.

SY: What, I remember, well, I remember you told me something about what you recovered from, when you went into camp, your, there were certain things that your father owned, right, certain property?

KS: My father had, as far as my recollection, as far as your common household stuff, utensils and all that stuff, I know she had, he had a refrigerator, or icebox. He had a car. As far as the bureaus and tables and all that sort of thing, I have no idea what we had in actuality. I mean, they could've been a table that existed in that ranch house, so it could've been a tablet that... whatever the situation. But I know the refrigerator was ours, and as far as the car, that was ours. As far as clothing and some of the other household equipment and pots and pans and stuff, when we came out of camp none of that, other than the refrigerator, I don't know where he got, he contacted a friend of ours that was supposedly watching the refrigerator for us, he managed to get that back. And as far as all the rest of the stuff, it was nonexistent.

SY: So the car --

KS: The warehouse or wherever they had stuck it, nothing was left.

SY: And the car you think he might have sold? Or did you...

KS: I have no idea.

SY: 'Cause that was a car that they drove, you drove --

KS: No, I, yeah, the car I attempted to drive.

SY: Right, exactly.

KS: But the gentleman that, my father's friend -- I'm assuming that he was a friend -- he was a Christian man with a finger missing or something like that, but he always carried a Bible with him. And that's what I, I mean, that's how I relate him too, and he's the one that took care of us, who drove us to the, these various things and took care of the situation there. I've never seen him after that and I've never talked to him about it.

SY: But you managed to keep this icebox that, did you have it then at the hotel?

KS: Yeah, I think we had it at the Toyo Hotel. I'm guessing. I don't, 'cause like I say, I didn't pay attention to it that much and it wasn't until way later, I'm not sure whether we even had it at Crocker Street. I'm pretty sure we did have it at Crocker Street, and he had, I know he got his Singer sewing machine, the foot pedal one, Singer sewing machine, and this is at Crocker Street when he was doing his sewing for the kabuki costumes for here and churches, I mean show activities down here. They would come to him.

SY: So he learned, he taught himself how to sew?

KS: I think he did, but then I don't know if he already had a background in sewing to begin with, 'cause he was sewing, cooking and doing the woodwork, carpentry work and stuff like that. And I don't know to what extent, what other abilities he had.

SY: But he did have, he was talented in...

KS: He was talented in his way, yes. He was very, in fact, I think my brother and I both picked up a lot of that.

SY: Working with your hands?

KS: Working with your hands and using ingenuity to calculate new things and put it together with.

SY: Make things, build things. Wow. So he, so you did have, in this hotel then, you, it was sort of you had to furnish it yourself as well.

KS: Right.

SY: So you had the icebox, you had radio, so you did have...

KS: A few things, but I don't, that radio probably was something that he picked up for two, three dollars or something like that. It couldn't have been, 'cause it wasn't a fancy radio. It was just enough to make a noise. [Laughs]

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.