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JS: Okay. So today is March 9th, and we are in Fresno interviewing Kenji Maruko. And I'm Jill Shiraki, and Tom Ikeda is also co-interview, and Dana Hoshide is our cameraperson today. So can you state your name and tell us where and when you were born?

KM: Name is Kenji Maruko, born in Fresno, December 13, 1920.

JS: And can you tell us your parents' names, your father and mother?

KM: Parents' name, my father's name was Sanichi Uye Maruko, and my mother's name was Kou Nishimoto.

JS: And where were your parents from and when did they come to the United States?

KM: Father was born in Hawaii on a plantation, went back to Japan and got educated in Japan. Went through high school, and then he came to the United States, landed in San Francisco, and then came into Clovis and he was farming in Clovis. After three years, he sold the farm to another Japanese family, and then he purchased the cyclery in 1915.

JS: 1915.

KM: Uh-huh. And after he sold the ranch, he had three bad years. When he sold the ranch, the follow that bought it hit it big on the fourth year. And my dad had the bicycle shop back in 1915. And the bicycles at that time were the car version of the present day. So Mr. Araki, the Nichi Bei correspondent for Fresno area, he said that he bought the cyclery at the right time because it was the car version of today. But after the cars came out, naturally the bicycle business went down. And then my mom, she was born in Mukai nado in (Hiroshima), Japan, and she went through high school, and she married my dad, and she came to the United States in 1917 or '18. And that's when, of course, my dad had the shop already, so they lived in Fresno.

JS: So they knew each other in Japan?

KM: No, they didn't.

JS: No.

KM: Uh-huh.

JS: So it was an arranged...

KM: It was one of those "picture bride" things.

JS: "Picture brides."

KM: That back then it was "picture brides," yeah.

TI: But what's kind of interesting is your father was born in Hawaii.

KM: Yeah.

TI: So I guess that would make you Sansei.

KM: Sansei, uh-huh.

TI: So you're probably the oldest Sansei...

KM: Around, yeah.

TI: ...that I know of.

KM: Yeah, there was other Sanseis before me, too, but they're gone.

TI: And your father, did he speak English?

KM: Yeah. Oh, he had, he was perfect English. Because he went to English school in, night school, I think, it's in San Francisco. And also he took lessons here in town from an attorney's wife. And I forgot the wife, the attorney's name. Anyway, it'll come back. [Laughs] (Narr. note: The attorney's name was Mr. Paul Staniford.)

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.