<Begin Segment 10>

MN: What year did your family leave Poston?

TY: At the end of 1944. Because we got back and then my father first left camp to find us a place to live, 'cause there were eight of us plus two. So he had to find us a place and so the Toyo Hotel, which was then called a hostel, he had gotten two rooms which would have been fine, but when he went there, there was another family, didn't have a unit at all, so he gave up one of the rooms. So it turned out that we, it would have been eight of us in this one room, and one double bed. But what happened was my older brother and my oldest brother found another friend, I think, to bunk in with. And so they moved there, and so that was fine, it's come down to a few. And then my two older sisters went out to Pasadena to become housegirls.

MN: But then there's still six people, right?

TY: Uh-huh.

MN: And you have two beds?

TY: No, just the one double bed.

MN: How did you sleep?

TY: One, head to toe, toe to head.

MN: That must have been pretty crowded.

TY: Well, we were kids then, we were little, so it was okay.

MN: And you know, you spent your formative years from three to six in camp. What did it feel like to leave Poston?

TY: I think the thing that was most interesting for me anyway was when we moved to the Toyo Hotel, we went to Amelia Street School, which is right there by the freeway, no longer. And so when we were there, most of the people who went to that school were black. The problem for me was I had never interacted nor seen blacks. So it was hard for me to discriminate -- not discriminate -- the word would be I didn't know how to tell the difference between either of them. [Interruption] In class one day, we had drawn names, and the teacher said, "Well, just buy them a gift." So I bought the gift, but I couldn't remember the kid's name. Geez, what am I going to do? So when I took it back to school, she said, "Oh, I have a list here." So she was able to give that gift to that kid. Because all I saw was black. I didn't see anything else. It was very difficult initially. I think for the first year, that's most of the things that I found that I identified with, was just the color of your skin, that was it. And I didn't see nor recognize anybody else as individuals. Except Japanese, because those are the people I saw all the time.

MN: This gift exchange was like a Christmas gift exchange?

TY: Uh-huh.

MN: Do you remember what you got this...

TY: I was giving that thing to my sister who got it for us.

MN: So when you also moved into the Toyo Hotel, were there African Americans living in the Toyo Hotel?

TY: No, there were nobody but us Japanese. 'Cause they were looking for housing. Now, there were some blacks that were moving in from other places, but they were not moving in there. One of the things I remember, I remember this vividly, downstairs of the Toyo Hotel was a chapel. And I used to sort of look in and see who was in there, because here I hear all this singing, and they were singing gospel music. And so I got into that, I said, "This is fun." So I didn't know any of the lyrics or anything, but it didn't matter, it was going to be fun. So I went down there and I just sang and sang and sang, they just thought, "Who is this Asian kid?" But I had a good time. It was kind of fun.

MN: So there was a... you mean there was an African American congregation and they didn't kick you out or anything?

TY: No, no. I think they also felt isolated anyway, so anybody that wants to come in, fine, come in and help yourself. And what would you do in a church, kick 'em out? Get out of here. [Laughs]

MN: Tell me what the living conditions in the Toyo Hotel was like. I mean, was it like camp? Did you have to have a communal bathroom and kitchen?

TY: Yes, everything was communal because there was no... like, for instance, on the second floor that we lived on, there was one bathroom and a kitchen. And so everybody on that floor had to share the kitchen and bathroom, so you had to sort of like time it so people were out of there so that you could continue doing it. And that was one of the sad parts of that, but I think you kind of learned because you came from camp. You didn't have all that privacy anyway, so what's the big deal.

MN: Then your family's trying to recover from camp, what did your father do for a living right after?

TY: Well, I think when he first came out of camp, he was looking for any kind of work, 'cause he didn't have his tools right then. And so he had to do what he could. And one of the things that he did was try to find a place for us to relocate to. So he found a place in East L.A., it's called Boyle Heights, and we moved in there. But before we can move there, he had to modify this four-car garage to living quarters, so that's what he did. And then so when we got out of there we had this newly furbished garage.

MN: But where did you go to the bathroom?

TY: There was a small... [interruption]. It didn't have a bathroom, it's just a toilet, dake. So we had that. So that sad part of it later on, though, was here there were eight of us using this one little bathroom, and so it's kind of difficult. I mean, "Hurry up and come out, hurry out and come out." So when I bought this house that I live in now, I looked around and I said, "I don't care what kind of house it has, I don't care if it's only two of us, I have to have two bathrooms." That's a requirement.

MN: And so your family's living in Boyle Heights now. What was it like living there?

TY: You know, that's the first time that I to interact with Hispanics, 'cause that's who the other basic population was. And I remember there was this thing they used to run around, 'cause they didn't know the difference between Japanese and Chinese. And so they had this little jingle, "Chino, Chino Japonese." So that went on forever. I think after a while they sort of said, "Well, they're not reacting, I guess we should just stop." 'Cause what do we know from anything? How can you possibly get us too riled?

MN: And then from Boyle Heights your family moved to South Central in 1950?

TY: Yes -- go ahead.

MN: No, go ahead.

TY: No, you go ahead. [Laughs]

MN: When your family moved to South Central, did your father pick up African American customers?

TY: Yes, yes.

MN: What kind of things did he build for them?

TY: Well, modifications to houses. [To cameraperson] Oh, how many minutes? Five? Okay, we'll shorten that. Anyway, so we had primarily African American clients, and he had no problem with it. Except, of course, when he spoke English to them. His English was poor, so he would ask one of his sons to come and translate if they needed to understand fully. And he had no problem with that. Now, the only thing that I had a problem with was when we used to do work for Japanese who had since come out of camp, you talk about Jewish, serious, they were worse than anything. Because they would say to my father, "Oh, I'd like to have this work done and this is what you agree to." Father said, "Okay. Then, as soon as -- and as well as anybody knows, there's a thing called change of plan. Change of plan means you have to charge more. So he would charge more, but the Japanese ones would say, "Oh, no, you told me this was this amount. I'm not paying any more." So thereafter, we said, "No, we're not going to do anything for you unless you agree that this is what you're going to do if and when you make a change." 'Cause it was hard, really. You talk about whatever that is, it was very difficult to get them to understand that, no, no, you go someplace, and let's say you had a suit made and then all of a sudden you want to change the suit, they charge you for that. They don't do that for free. And it was hard for them, or they didn't want to understand that that was going to cost them more. Yeah, he didn't have any problem with Mexicans and/or blacks as far as doing modifications and telling them it's going to cost them more because they made a change. Those Japanese ones, you got to watch.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.