<Begin Segment 9>

TI: The other question, earlier Jill was asking you about, so at Canal Ranch, the school there was mixed, so you had whites, Japanese, Filipinos. When you would come to Walnut Grove, your aunt and your uncles went to a school that was segregated.

KM: Segregated from the Chinese.

TI: Yeah. So when you saw that, or heard about that? What did you think about that? Did you ever talk about that, or the differences?

KM: No. We just thought that the Chinese hated the Japanese. We just thought that. But then we did go buy... I remember buying the plum, that's all.

JS: And that was your only memory of Chinatown, going to the store to buy the plums?

KM: Plum, uh-huh, it was in a jar. It was the best-tasting plum. But, you know, you don't remember too much when you're six years old. Here and there, you know.

JS: Uh-huh. Can you describe your aunt? What was she like, her personality?

KM: Oh, yeah. She was very pretty. Very pretty. So her uncles, both of 'em, they adored her.

JS: So she was well, well-treated.

KM: Uh-huh.

JS: A little princess. [Laughs]

KM: Yes, she was.

TI: And when your grandfather went to Japan, their sons, Tomiko's brothers, where were they living? Where did they stay after that?

KM: After that, they stayed in Sacramento. They had a house on Fourth Street. It's gone now.

TI: And who did they live with? Because they were, like, teenage boys. They weren't that old. They were maybe...

KM: College age.

TI: College age. So were they living with anyone, or did they live on their own?

KM: No. I remember they all lived in that house. I didn't know any... I don't remember my grandmother. I wonder if she lived there, too. I think they all lived together 'cause my grandfather, my grandmother, was still there.

JS: So when your grandparents left for Japan, your father had a lot of responsibility. He's the oldest in the family?

KM: Oh, yes, uh-huh. So he put the second brother, Bill, to Waseda college in Japan. He graduated Waseda, he stayed there two years. My father paid the tuition, that I remember.

JS: So Bill went to Waseda. Do you remember Uncle Roy?

KM: Yeah, I remember him. 'Cause he had a florist shop.

JS: Flower shop?

KM: Uh-huh.

JS: In Sacramento.

TI: Yes.

JS: Oh.

KM: In the old town. And he wanted to retire, so that's how I, he wanted me to take over. So that's why I took over, and I was a florist for a while.

JS: Oh, how long did you work at the flower shop?

KM: Well, there was redevelopment, so I had the florist shop there and then we, I moved to...

JS: Ninth Street.

KM: No, Eleventh Street. Everybody who had a -- all the Japanese were on Fourth Street, they had drugstores and fish store all on Fourth Street. And so his flower was on Fourth Street, too. That's where I took over.

JS: When did Uncle Roy open that flower store, approximately?

KM: Right after the war.

JS: Right after the war. So from the late '40s 'til redevelopment --

KM: That's right, uh-huh. And redevelopment came, took everything around there.

JS: And then he restarted at another location. You were working with --

KM: No, he was still on... Twelve, Sixteen, still on Fourth Street.

JS: On Fourth Street.

KM: Yeah. And my father, he was interned. He didn't do anything, but they thought he was Black Dragon at that time. Because he was president of Japanese Association and everything, so I know somebody in Madera snitched on him. So he, when the war started, they came right away to get him and put him in jail. So then after that he was interned for a long time.

JS: Do you know where he was at, what camp?

KM: No. He went to Sharp Park, they had an internment over there just for those people. And then they went to New Mexico.

TI: When he was at Sharp Park, did you or anyone visit him?

KM: No, we couldn't.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.