Densho Digital Archive
Preserving California's Japantowns Collection
Title: Eddie M. Inaba Interview
Narrator: Eddie M. Inaba
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda (primary); Jill Shiraki (secondary)
Location: Sacramento, California
Date: December 11, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-ieddie-01-0004

<Begin Segment 4>

TI: Then your father decided to go from Canal Ranch to Walnut Grove. Why did your father decide to go to Walnut Grove?

EI: Why? Oh, tough living on the ranch, hard working. I tell him, all the children tell him, "Nah, we better move out to a town, take it easy, find us a good job. I think we could do it." Somewhere we could all work then.

TI: So it sounds like he did it for the children?

EI: Huh?

TI: Because the children could get more work, or it was easier work for...

EI: Town.

TI: In a town, the work was easier?

EI: Easier.

TI: But not only for him, but also for you and your brothers and sisters?

EI: Brother and sister, yeah. And my dad and mom, too. Have a bar, those days. Filipino people are customers, Filipino people are cutting, asparagus cutters come in, would be our customer. We had a lot of business.

TI: Okay, so you started with a bar, and a lot of the, you said the Filipino workers came in and were customers.

EI: Yeah.

TI: Where was the bar located?

EI: In the corner, small. We bought the barbershop, Japanese barbershop corner, small barbershop, I forgot the name.

JS: Was it on A Street?

EI: Huh?

JS: What street was it on in Walnut Grove?

EI: I don't know.

JS: You don't remember.

EI: No, I don't remember.

TI: And then when your father had the bar, what kind of work did you do?

EI: I was still going to school, Rogers High School, I was in college a couple years in San Francisco. Then come back, help in the store. The store burned out, the Chinatown burned down that time, then we built a new building where the present store is now, Inaba Company, H. Inaba and Sons. And my brother went to Fresno.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.