<Begin Segment 2>

TI: What was your dad like? He seems like a pretty gregarious person.

KI: Oh, my dad? Well, my mom and dad ran a tofu place, and then when my mother passed away, he came to live in Fresno. And then his location changed. He became a fish peddler for Central Fish. He used to get the fresh fish, and then he had a trunk where there's ice and fish. And he went from one camp to another out in the country, camps, and that's how he made his living.

JS: So your family was first living... where was the tofu-ya, tell me again?

KI: Oh, Del Rey.

JS: Del Rey.

KI: Yeah. I don't know about that, 'cause...

JS: You were so young.

KI: Yeah.

JS: So you have a couple of brothers.

KI: Yes, I have Tamotsu, Kiyoshi, and Hiroshi. And then the twins is Matsue and Takeo.

JS: So were you born in Del Rey, then?

KI: I was... my birth certificate thing says Fresno.

JS: Okay. So what do you remember about your mother? Do you have any memories?

KI: I don't remember. Just the fact that when we walked one block from where 614 F is, there was a grocery store, Mrs. Taketomo. And then the next door was laundry, Japanese-run laundry place. But I used to go to Taketomo to read the newspaper, these things, and maybe take a sucker of Brachs candy that they used to have in the old days. That's all I could afford to buy, but that was the sweets I used to eat when I was little.

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