<Begin Segment 8>

MN: Now, let me get into the postwar era. You mentioned that your family left camp before the war was over.

SH: That's right.

MN: Now, do you know when your father left Manzanar?

SH: You mean what month?

MN: Uh-huh.

SH: (...) I know he went out of camp early (to) find a place for us to stay, and then he would send for us. (...) He went back to Little Tokyo, on First Street near Far East, and he found this cleaners that was being run by a black man, Mr. Miller, and he bought this business for (one thousand) dollars. It was a cleaning business, (...) he made all the arrangements (...), then he sent for us. So he came to (...) Union Station and (lived) there ever since. (The neighborhood) was all black. There was no Japanese yet, so we just lived among the black people.

MN: And so your father returned to Little Tokyo, so that would mean it would be 1945, when it was opened up to Japanese Americans.

SH: I guess so.

MN: Now, I talked to Mrs. Uyeda, she said she was really worried about her husband leaving Manzanar by himself and returning to Los Angeles. Did your mother ever share those kind of worries with your father?

SH: No.

MN: So Mr. Uyeda has the distinction of being the first Japanese American to reopen a store in Little Tokyo. What about your father?

SH: What do you mean, what about my father?

MN: Your father wasn't the first, but --

SH: No, no, he was about, maybe (...) the third (...). The second was Mr. Shimizu from Asahi Dry Goods Store, (and) he was also on First Street, the same side as my father. And then we were down towards Far East, directly across the street from Koyasan Temple.

MN: Now, what was your family's cleaning business called?

SH: Baby House Cleaners. What it is pior to, before the war, it used to be (...) strictly a baby, (...) clothes (store) they called it Baby House. Well, when my father came out of camp, it had been a cleaners and I don't know if Mr. Miller's name of the cleaners was Baby House, but my father said that he's gonna keep the name because there was a neon sign above, and he said it costs a lot of money to take that down (so) he's just gonna add "cleaners" to it. So that's how it became Baby House Cleaners. (...) Our customers thought we were just strictly specializing in baby clothes, so they didn't come. (...) It's just a name, it's called Baby House Cleaners, but it's a regular cleaners." (...) So that's how the name came about, because it was unusual.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.