<Begin Segment 20>

TI: So you got, so pretty soon your family got notice that they had to leave. So what did your family do to get ready or prepare to leave?

RN: We started getting things together. And we knew that we had to leave. Everybody else was doing the same thing.

TI: So what about the restaurant? What would you have to do with the restaurant to get that ready?

RN: Oh, just close that up.

TI: So at this point, in terms of ownership of the property, who owned the property?

RN: Oh, some hakujin.

TI: Okay, so you were leasing.

RN: Yeah.

TI: You were leasing it.

RN: And they didn't want you to close it up, they wanted it to stay open. But eventually, we didn't... it was a big place, and there was a back room, a big banquet room. Anyway, the whole Fresno business, like Toshiyuki, Toshiyuki is the drugstore, big drugstore in Fresno, the only one. All of them, they stored all of their things in our place, 'cause they had to close and leave. So they brought all their things and rented the spot where they could leave their drugs and whatever, personal things they wanted to leave.

TI: And so how was it that you were able to keep your lease during the war? I'm thinking, most people, if they were leasing, they had to kind of like, either sell their materials or store it with, like, a Caucasian family. But here, you were able to keep the lease through the war. How was that possible?

RN: Well, I guess the lease was still going on. It wasn't closed. So that's how they kept that going.

TI: Good. And so the white owner was willing to keep the lease going with the family as long as, I guess, as long as you kept paying him it was okay.

RN: Yeah.

TI: And because of that, because of the big back room, you were able to be the storeroom for many of the Japanese business.

RN: Yeah, that's what we did.

TI: And when that happened, do you know if these other families maybe helped pay for the lease to help store the things back there? Did they pay some of the money to do that? Or do you know if they did or not?

RN: I don't know.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.