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SY: So then you mentioned your mother, but can we go back and talk a little bit about your mother's family?

RN: Sure. My grandfather and grandmother came -- well, my grandfather came first. He came really early and I wish I had the dates, because my mother's Nisei. Anyway, my grandfather came very early. He came through Canada illegally, and when I visited him a couple times in Japan, he told me about coming through the snow and freezing and some family took care of him and pointed to where the border was and he came across. So he did sharecropping, and let's see, I guess... I don't know where he met my grandmother, but eventually we got married.

SY: I assume she was here, though?

RN: Yeah, I think so. And they did... what's the term? Anyway, they used to harvest fruit, so they would move from area to area up the coast from Northern California to San Diego.

SY: Tenant farming?

RN: Yeah, yeah. And so they would move with the harvest. And so my mom kind lived in different places until she met my father and they opened the produce market.

SY: And can we just say what your grandfather's name and grandmother's name?

RN: Oh, it's Manjiro Nitao. And I don't know my grandmother's first name. Anyway...

SY: And do you know what part of Japan they were from?

RN: Yeah, they were from Kagoshima also, and my grandfather was from a little village called Nitao. And that whole area, district is called Chiran-cho, and there's an area.

SY: Is that common for them to be named after the area?

RN: You know, maybe there were so many, maybe that's where the Nitao clan was or something, but yeah, the village was called that.

SY: I see. And they were both from the same area?

RN: Yeah, yeah.

SY: And somehow met. And as well as your mother and father.

RN: Yeah, well, my mother was born in...

SY: Here.

RN: Yeah, but my father was from Kagoshima.

SY: Interesting. I wonder if that had anything to do with, do you know how they met, your mother and father?

RN: No, I don't. No one's ever told me.

SY: Because she was still living with your parents during this...

RN: Yeah.

SY: And he was probably doing the gardening at that time?

RN: Yeah, yeah. And after they got married they opened up... oh, now it's coming to me. Eventually my grandfather opened up... I don't want to call it a market but it was like a produce stand in Culver City. So they were doing kind of a small business, small produce business and I think that's when my mom met up with my father.

SY: Was your uncle still operating this produce business?

RN: You know, he was such an entrepreneur, he was into everything. Yeah, he was into making... he had an umeboshi and shoyu place in Denver, Colorado, during the war, 'cause he left L.A. before the evacuation for the people into camps. And then later he raised chinchillas and he imported opal from Mexico and had a strawberry ranch.

SY: And that uncle's name was? Is he the one that you don't remember?

RN: Yeah, it'll come to me.

SY: Okay, okay. So he left knowing that the war was going to start, or did he leave way before?

RN: My father?

SY: Your uncle when you went to Denver.

RN: Oh. You know, I don't know, but maybe, I'm going to have to look this up, but I know part of, another reason for my father leaving it was I think to avoid the draft, too.

SY: Leaving Japan?

RN: Yeah.

SY: So he was old enough...

RN: Yeah. Because he must have been eighteen.

SY: I see. And he pretty much settled, then, in Los Angeles? He didn't move around much.

RN: Yeah, he settled in L.A.

SY: In the Los Angeles area.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.