<Begin Segment 7>

RP: And you went to, you revisited your education at Hobart Elementary school?

MN: Yes. That's where, when I came back from Japan...

RP: You came back from Japan.

MN: That's where enrolled. He was from first to sixth grade. And in those, those time from sixth grade you graduate, then you go into seventh. Seventh through ninth is junior high school. Then from tenth on that will be high school.

RP: So what was the ethnic makeup of your school and your community where you lived?

MN: Well, mostly there's a lot of Japanese family living in uptown area. Even at, even though we, they had a Japanese school there, so we could, after grammar school, English school, three o'clock or two-thirty we'd get out of English school, then we'd go to Japanese school until about five-thirty. So there was quite a few Japanese families.

RP: And you, so you grew up with mostly Japanese friends?

MN: Yes, yeah.

RP: Did you have any contact with Caucasians at all?

MN: Oh, yeah.

RP: As, as a kid?

MN: But mostly when you, you mingle with the Japanese kids and you know, so, yeah. Most of the time you don't, I don't know, those days you just go stick with your own. You don't try to go mingle with the... those were the younger days. See, from there, from grammar school until the war came in 1941, I was in, I just got graduated from sixth grade and I just went into seventh grade at a junior high school. So I changed, different school called Berenda Junior High School.

RP: And did you walk to school?

MN: Yeah. We lived, I lived about four blocks from the junior high school there. So, we used to walk. And even come home for lunch too.

RP: So you, you weren't too far from Little Tokyo at time were you?

MN: No we, well, we still had to either drive or take a train, not train but streetcar.

RP: The Red cars?

MN: Yeah, red and like a P-car, they used to call it P-car too. You, you get on it and you transfer.

RP: What was Little Tokyo like? What were your, what are your remembrances of that community?

MN: Well, the first thing I remember is we used to go to this Chinese restaurant called Far East Cafe. In those days that place was really jumping. Every Japanese people that come from farmers and... they come on Sundays. See, farmers don't work Sundays so that's when they come in. And that's where they hit, Far East Cafe on First Street, L.A., Japantown.

RP: What was so good about that place?

MN: The food is different, Chinese food. Chow mein and chau siu and all that. It was good stuff. So we used to look forward to going to Little Tokyo there.

RP: Do you remember the Nisei Day Parades?

MN: Oh yeah, Nisei Week? Yes, oh yeah. That was after the, after we came back from camp.

RP: You started attending.

MN: Yeah. But they had it before the war broke out but we were too young and we lived in Orange County at that time so I think, I think we went back 1931 there, you know. The Nisei Week, girls got crowned. But I don't remember that. So after we got, came back from camp, then we started in again. And all the Little Tokyo, at that time when everybody came back, is different people was in there. But eventually I guess they moved out so the people that had business there came, came back. Especially that manju place, Mikawaya, that...

RP: Manju?

MN: Yeah, the manju place, yeah, I remember that. We used to go there and buy some manju with the... those are the things that we look forward to when we go to Japantown.

RP: Tell us, can you explain what manju is for, for the record?

MN: Manju is, it's a bean, beans, either you can have it whole, cooked whole or you could have it as a paste and it's inside there like a pan. Just that's all I... manju they call it.

RP: Did you, did you go to see movies in Little Tokyo as well?

MN: Not really, no. Yeah, we never had a chance to go to movies.

RP: People talk about going to Japanese movies, samurai movies and...

MN: Yeah, they had it. But only time I remember seeing is I think when I was, we were young before going to Japan. This person that comes around with their projector, and they show the Japanese movies so they sent fliers out see and, come in to, Japanese people come in like a place like warehouse or things like that. They didn't have a permanent theater when we were... but Japantown has a permanent theater. But we never went to it. We were too far away.

RP: Was religion an important part of your early life?

MN: Not really. My mother was, she was really into Tenrikyo. That's Tenrikyo.

RP: Tenrikyo?

MN: Yeah. That's Shinto religion I think.

RP: Oh, okay.

MN: Tenrikyo.

RP: Tenrikyo. Okay, Shinto.

MN: Yeah, I think Shinto religion.

RP: Did she have a shrine in the house?

MN: She had a little thing, things and put it up. She had that, yeah. Then she used to go to the main Tenrikyo in Boral Heights. They have I think month, once a month gathering for all the Tenrikyo members that come from all over and that Sunday they'd celebrate. And they go through the ritual, Tenrikyo ritual and all that. And after that they have a banquet like. And we used to look forward to that because all the kids, the farming kids. And in those the marble, shoot marble, that was the thing. So we used to bring our marble and even marble they have regular glass marble and they have what they call aggregate now. And we used to bring all that stuff and compete with all the kids, marble contest.

RP: And did you, did you shoot marbles in Manzanar too?

MN: No.

RP: You were a little, little older.

MN: Yeah, I was too old.

RP: You were a certain age and you, you, I'm too old for that.

MN: Yeah.

RP: Did you have other interests or hobbies as a boy growing up?

MN: Well, hmm, I didn't have a hobby but I learned how to fish. Yeah, in Manzanar.

RP: Oh, in Manzanar?

MN: Yeah.

RP: We'll, we'll get to that in just a little bit. There's some good stories you have to talk about fishing. I want to get those.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.