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JS: Can you tell us about China Alley? Describe what --

NM: Chinatown?

JS: China Alley.

NM: The main Chinatown was from Kern Street to Tulare Street. That alley was full of people, and mostly Oriental, there was Chinese, Japanese, and a few Filipino came in around there, too. But it was mostly Japanese. They work out in the country, their free time, they used to come into the gambling place. There was, in the alley, there was one, two, three, four, five, six, about six gambling place, yeah. And the Chinese, it's just like a club. You just go in there and... of course, we never went in there. But then they used to live right in the cellar. A lot of Chinese had a cellar, and they had a bed there, they used to sleep there. Then on the second floor, that building was, the store was on a two-story building, upstairs was, Chinese was living there. Then that Chinese, that alley was gambling place here, another one, gambling, Chinese dry goods store, Chinese food-like, you know, they got ducks and everything hanging, they cooked that, those things was there. And the gambling, gambling, then Japanese had a noodle shop, and a candy store on the other side. Ours was on this side. [Laughs] So there was a lot of Japanese restaurant, too. Our store was right there, this one. Right next door was a pool hall at one time. And then there was a Japanese restaurant, and then there was a carpenter right next door. Next door was another Japanese restaurant, and right across, there was a noodle shop, and then another noodle shop there. Then there was a barber shop, then Ego's Japanese restaurant, and Chinese gambling. So there was about four or five gambling places right in there. So that was the main section of business. Other alleys, empty, yeah.

JS: So did your parents tell you to stay away from the gambling house?

NM: Who? Police?

JS: Your parents. Did they say... you know, you're a young boy. What did they --

NM: No. We had another house we rented, and we used to go home there, all back and forth, yeah. I could remember, there was only about three or four. My sisters is there, my brother, and my oldest brother was brought back by my uncle. He didn't have a son, so he said he's gonna take my brother when he was one year old, he took him back. We weren't born yet, but he was back. So he thought he was born there already, all the time.

JS: He was in Japan.

NM: Yeah. Ojichan never told him that he was the father. 'Cause we didn't know I had a brother until we were high school age. So I remember a lot of Chinese holidays, it has firecracker. You know, upstairs was Chinese club and all that. We had a lot of club there, too.

TI: And so Nori, like gambling in Fresno, was that legal? Did the police --

NM: No, I don't think it was legal, but the police was there. So I think they let it go. Because all the Japanese coming there, they go in there, they're broke. [Laughs]

TI: Earlier, someone told us that recently, they found tunnels.

NM: They had a lot of escape route, but I never saw it.

TI: Did you know about that when you were a kid?

NM: Well, we knew about it, but they'll never let us down. So we used to go downstairs and look at it, and they'll go chase us off. So we used to get chased out all the time.

TI: So do you know any stories, or did you hear any stories about the escape routes and...

NM: Escape routes?

TI: Yeah, any stories?

NM: There was rumors of they got connection all the way through to the next block. Then from there, there's some more tunnels and all that. You know, when they kind of closed down all that, they have so much... I don't think they had as much as they said they had, escape routes. One that way, one this way, 'cause I never saw it. But they did have an escape route.

TI: And who would use the escape routes?

NM: Huh?

TI: Who would use it? Who would need to escape?

NM: Well, the gambling people had the escape route. So I never saw it, though. But they did have it. I wish I saw it again, but I wasn't around, you know. I was in Japan for a while when they started working on those things.

TI: In the gambling places, did lots of Japanese workers gamble also?

[Interruption]

NM: (Narr. note: Yes, I saw many Japanese workers go into the gambling places. I'm sure there were more losers than winners. The Japanese workers will start coming and start working from June in the Fresno Valley and leave about September. They will go north to Lodi, Stockton and Sacramento for the rest of the year.)

JS: In Sacramento?

NM: Something like that, rice and all that, too.

JS: Oh, right.

NM: Yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.