Densho Digital Archive - Nori Masuda Interview (denshovh-mnori-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

JS: So that apartment was right near the Buddhist church?

NM: Yeah, right there by the Buddhist church. No, not there.

JS: Not that one, that's a old picture, huh? Okay. That's okay. Can you tell us about the Buddhist church?

NM: Yes. [Indicating photograph] Buddhist church is right here. This is the Buddhist church. Here's an extension, one square block. One square block, half of that was Buddhist church's property. So we had Olympics, races like that, we used to have it right there. And we make a circle... see, they're running -- I'm glad you got it. I've got the picture, too.

[Interruption]

JS: So who were the other families that lived there? The names of the families, three families?

[Interruption]

(Narr. note: In the first house as Mrs. and Mrs. Kofu with two daughters. In the second house was Mrs. and Mrs. Yamamoto with three children. In the third house was Mrs. and Mrs. Masuda with six children.)

NM: So we moved out, and we moved about two times. And then the third time was the charm. We got next to a theater. There was two theater, one on F Street and one on Tulare Street. We had our store there, and then that's when we were starting to come up. The Depression was going, you know, but it still hit us, but we were coming out of the red. Because everything, I used to deliver newspaper, the Rafu Shimpo, and now Asahi, another San Francisco paper I had. Two routes, I got fifteen dollar. My fifteen dollar went right into the rent, see, because we had to rent the store or rent the home. And then I got a picture of the house. See, that was a... it looks bare, you know, just like this, front door, window, window. You look out, gee, looked like a two-bedroom, it was a four-bedroom home. And then we had seven kids, eight... so we had lots of room. You didn't have to use the little living room we had, we didn't have to use. We used all the bedrooms. And then one time, I almost burned the whole, I almost exploded. You know, my dad did everything he can. He was a gardener, then he raised vegetables. He was raising vegetables, so I used to help him. Then this family came to Japan for a year. He said, "Do whatever you want, make whatever you want." So we took over that one year time. We planted carrots, turnips, and so I had to work on that. Oh, god, I had to go to school, I had to go to the market, I slept in the car, truck. Morning time, two o'clock, you get up, and then I'm sleeping, they're waking me up, "Hey, Nori, you got to get up." Two o'clock, we got to get up and sell our things. Yeah. So my senior year I had a hard time. I almost, I told my mom I'm gonna quit my job. I can't take it anymore. She said, "No, you got to go to school." I finally finished. In fact, I was lucky to finish. My teacher, I transferred to Fresno High School, then they let me off easy. One hour in the morning, one hour at night. That's why I only went a couple of hours, school, high school, then I got my graduation notice. I was very lucky that teacher was... in fact, I was sleeping in the car, there was a fellow named Tak Kunishige who was about the same age as I am. We played basketball and baseball together. He's a star, you know. And then the teacher asked him, "What's the matter with him?" "Oh, he's working at the nighttimes." "Oh, let him sleep then." So I kind of slept. I was lucky, very lucky.