<Begin Segment 20>

TI: So after you spent this time in Amache, what happens next? Where do you go after Amache?

KM: After Amache, we came back to Sacramento.

TI: And where did you stay and why don't you explain...

KM: Oh, we stayed at my uncle's place, Uncle Roy. Somehow he had a place on Fourth Street, so we stayed upstairs until we found a house.

TI: And when you say "we," so that's you, your daughters, did your husband join you also in Sacramento?

KM: Yes, uh-huh. Because my father bought this secondhand store. He converted it to a grocery store, so we had the Fourth Street Market. So we all worked there; my sisters, my husband, and my father, they all worked there.

TI: So did your father, was he able to have money in the bank, or how did he finance buying this store and starting a grocery store? Where did all that money come from?

KM: I think he... because he sold the property in Madera through my uncle.

TI: And he sold this property before he left for... oh, actually, no.

KM: After camp.

TI: After camp, because he had the Chinese...

KM: Yeah, he had a lease, so after the lease, and sold it.

TI: He was able to sell that and take the money from that and go to Sacramento.

KM: Uh-huh.

TI: Did your father ever explain why he'd rather live in Sacramento than Madera? I mean, he had the store...

KM: No, we had to. There was no choice, because we couldn't go back to Madera. The house was, you know, the Chinese fellow had the lease, so we couldn't go back. So my father said, well, he'd rather go to Sacramento and be with his brothers.

TI: But he still had the property of Madera, but he just sold that. It was really...

KM: Yes, but he sold that during that time.

TI: But the house, because the house wasn't there.

KM: Yes, so we couldn't go back there.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.