<Begin Segment 16>

TI: When you think about Fresno, how had, you know, the Chinatown area, how had it changed when you came back after the war? Before the war and then after the war, what were the changes?

KI: Well, I haven't been to Chinatown, you know, 'cause I was in Sacramento for a long time, two or three years.

TI: No, but right after the war. Yeah, right after the war when you returned to the area, if you would go into Chinatown, how was that different?

KI: Oh, it hadn't changed that much. But there was an Aki Shoten hardware store on the corner, and they had anything you wanted, you know, like, hardware and things for the house. And then there was Komoto manju place on F Street, and then there was a Nino restaurant nearby, and then there was a bank further down, but I didn't bank over there. But I do remember some things the Japanese had opened up after they came back.

TI: Okay, so, and those were pretty much the same stores that were there before the war?

KI: Yeah. And then Toshiyuki, the drugstore, they had it in the corner of Kern and F Street. And then...

TI: And so your family, you and Hi returned to the area. How about your brothers and your sisters?

KI: They went to Chicago.

TI: And so they stayed there? They stayed in the Chicago area?

KI: Yeah.

TI: And do they ever come back to Fresno and look at the old place?

KI: No.

JS: Didn't one of your brothers move to Los Angeles?

KI: Let's see, who was it that went to Los Angeles. He married a Marie, a Sanger girl, I think, and lived in North Hollywood, one of my brothers. I went to see them one time, but that's the one time I... long time ago.

JS: But the Ikedas, after Hi was done serving and he came home, they had Ikeda Brothers Farm? They started farming together, is that right? In Clovis, your husband?

KI: Gee, you have to ask Fumio, my brother-in-law.

JS: Oh, your brother-in-law?

KI: Yeah. He's there.

JS: He's still farming?

KI: Yeah, he's still there. He's still living in that house.

JS: He still lives there?

KI: And my house is a whole, kind of, two acres away from his house, 'cause the wife said, "Don't you build a house close to us," you know, so I made it so we won't be knocking heads. She talked like that, and I keep my distance. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, it's probably good for family relations sometimes not to be too close.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.