Densho Digital Archive - Nancy Iwami Interview (denshovh-inancy-01-0007)

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MA: And I'm curious more about Watsonville's Japantown and what that was like?

NI: Goodness, I really can't say too much because my dad used to just come into town maybe, well, it must have been in the early '30s or late '20s, finally got a car, an old Dodge Touring, they called it, and we'd all get in there, he'd bring this, he'd come into town so he'd bring us. But then other than that, I can't recall too much. There were, Japanese (...) grocery stores and shoe repair and restaurants, and pool hall, what else? Then there was a large, well, they called it a hall where the Japanese used to have movies from Japan, those black and white movies where a person would stand by the side and he would be, he'd call the, he'd be called the benshi, and he would talk in the woman's voice and the man's voice and child's voice and so on. No, no talkies. I recall going to those because that was quite a treat for the old people because it did not come very often to a small town.

MA: That's interesting. So this, he must have traveled around California or something?

NI: He used to take these movies and go. I even recall one time he was repeating the same movie we had seen once before, and somebody complained, "We've seen this already." [Laughs] So he changed (it). So he would just take these old movies and go around.

MA: That's interesting.

NI: That's one of the things I recall.