Densho Digital Archive - Nancy Iwami Interview (denshovh-inancy-01-0012)

<Begin Segment 12>

MA: And you said you graduated in '33.

NI: Uh-huh.

MA: And then when did you get married to your husband Charlie?

NI: Three years later, '36, 1936. And he died in 2003, so how many years is that? [Laughs]

MA: Oh, I don't know. [Laughs] Let's see. And how did you meet Charlie?

NI: Oh, his sister lived on the next farm, they owned the farm next to where we were sharecropping. And then I knew him, too, he was a barber in town. His father was a barber and he took after (...) the business, rather.

MA: What was the name of his barbershop?

NI: Charlie's Barbershop.

MA: So did you move into town after you married Charlie?

NI: Oh, yes, definitely.

MA: And what was that like, moving out of the country and more into town life?

NI: Not much different. He was the eldest, and I married the eldest son. So I went right into the family, mother and father-in-law, and two siblings. He had two, a brother and a sister, yeah.

MA: So you moved in with his whole family?

NI: Uh-huh.

MA: And so did you live near the barbershop? Is that where the house was?

NI: Uh-huh, it was in back of the barbershop, and the barbershop was in front. It was right in the main town, Main Street.

MA: On Main Street?

NI: Yes.

MA: Who were, who were Charlie's clients? Who would come in? Mostly Japanese or all sorts of people?

NI: Yeah, any, whoever walked by and had to have their hair cut, and they'd walk in, and he had Latinos and blacks, white clients, Caucasians. But he had quite a bit of Japanese clients, too, customers, I should say.

MA: And what were relationships like between whites and Japanese and whites and Chinese before the war? What was that, race relations like?

NI: Well, I really... well, I don't think it was too good, but... and that's the way I felt. Maybe I was always that type of a person, that felt like maybe I should lower myself and not... when we went into the shops, they were fine.

MA: But you still felt a little bit like you didn't want to stick out too much?

NI: Well, I didn't feel like going into fancy places. Isn't that odd? That's the way I felt. But I guess they didn't, they didn't mind. They wouldn't mind if you're gonna pay for anything.

MA: And what about the Filipino community in Watsonville? Did they mostly go into farming before the war?

NI: Well, they were working for big farmers, as far as I recall. Like in the, in the winter they'd work in the drier, apple drier, in the summer, in the lettuce. I think that's the way I recall. They're real hard workers, they're all young.

MA: Young men, I assume.

NI: Not married then, very few married.