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JS: This is an interview with Mollie Nakasaki, whose family owned the Mandarin Restaurant in San Jose's Japantown. The interview, conducted by Jiro Saito, is taking place on November 1, 2004, at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, 535 North Fifth Street, San Jose, California. The interview is part of a visual history project called "Lasting Stories: The Resettlement of San Jose's Japantown." The project is a collaborative between the Japanese American Museum of San Jose and the Densho Project of Seattle, Washington.

[Interruption]

JS: Thank you, Mollie, for taking the time to participate in this interview today. I'd like to first start out by asking you some questions about your parents and where they were from. This is before the war, we'll cover that period first, okay?

MN: All right.

JS: Now, were your parents born in Japan?

MN: Yes.

JS: So that you're a Nisei, or second-generation in the United States.

MN: Yes.

JS: Now please tell me where in Japan your parents came from and why they left, beginning with your father.

MN: My father is Kumamoto, and I've, I've just recently found out that -- well, not recently -- I found out that my father was a second son, and so he would be left out of his inheritance. So he decided to come to, to the United States. He and two other friends, I think a Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Tanaka, I think, they both, all three of them came together. He must have been about sixteen years old, and then they came to, to San Francisco. And through San Francisco, that's all I remember of my father.

JS: So your father's family owned a farm, or did they have a business, or what was that?

MN: I don't know.

JS: You don't remember that?

MN: No, I don't know nothing --

JS: What was your father's name?

MN: Mikaku.

JS: Mikaku?

MN: Fujino.

JS: Fujino, okay. Mikaku Fujino.

MN: Yes, uh-huh.

JS: And how about your mother?

MN: My mother's, my mother is a Fukuoka, and my grandmother was already living in San Jose, and so she, she asked, she told my uncle K and my mother to, to come down to this, to California, and so they both came. And I don't, I don't know what month, what year it was, but -- oh, I couldn't, I could be, I might, if I... because she was twelve years old when she came to this country, and so it could have been 1906, or... 1906.

JS: So did she come by herself from Japan to the United States? Or how did she come?

MN: I don't know.

JS: You don't know if she was accompanied by somebody?

MN: No, I don't know.

JS: But she came here to the United States and she, where did she land? In San Francisco?

MN: Yes, uh-huh. Landed in San Francisco, uh-huh. And then, then they, she, they came to San Jose, 'cause my grandmother was already living in San Jose.

JS: And what was your mother's name?

MN: Uchiyama. Umeno Uchiyama.

JS: Umeno Uchiyama.

MN: Yes, uh-huh.

JS: Now, when your father came to the United States, he landed in San Francisco.

MN: Yes, uh-huh.

JS: Where did he go from San Francisco?

MN: I don't know.

JS: But he, do you know where he ended up?

MN: Yes, Salinas.

JS: Salinas?

MN: Yes.

JS: Okay. And when he was in Salinas, before he, before he met your mother, what was he doing there?

MN: He was farming. He was farming.

JS: Okay. And did he do something else after that?

MN: Yes, uh-huh. My mother is very business-minded, so she, she bought a rooming house, a boarding house, and from what I heard, they were, they had this boarding house for quite a while.

JS: Now, this is after they got married then.

MN: Yes, uh-huh.

JS: We're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here.

MN: Oh, I'm sorry.

JS: [Laughs] No, no, that's okay. It's okay.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.