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RP: This an oral history for the Manzanar National Historic Site. This afternoon we're talking with Sumi Kozawa, and Sumi lives at 2718 Hyperion Road in Los Angeles, California.

SK: Avenue.

RP: Avenue, sorry. Avenue. And our date of interview is May 10, 2011. Interviewer is Richard Potashin, videographer is Kirk Peterson, and we'll be talking with Sumi about some of her experiences at Manzanar War Relocation Center during World War II and also her experiences in the floral business for many years here in Los Angeles.

SK: Okay.

RP: Our interview will be archived in the Park's library. Also in attendance for that interview, this interview, is Dan and Shari, as well as her sister Miyo. Do we have permission to go ahead and conduct our interview, Sumi?

SK: Alright.

RP: Thank you very much for spending some time reminiscing about your stories. Where were you born and what year?

SK: I was born here, right in Los Angeles, on Tenth and Western Avenue, 1916, January 10th.

RP: And can you give us your name at birth?

SK: Sumiko Sakai, S-A-K-A-I.

RP: And you also had an English name?

SK: Lillian. They gave me -- this is the story that we used to, when we lived in Glendale, and doctor's wife, she had a, she was a big, well, she was a neighbor, really wonderful person, and they had this big orange orchard and her husband was a dentist. She's the one that gave us the American names. She gave me, so I was, being the oldest, she gave me Lillian, and then the other sisters, she gave her Pansy, and the other one, I think Miyo, she gave her Violet. And my brother's name was Daniel. They called him Dan.

RP: Not named after a flower.

SK: Yeah. [Laughs]

RP: And do you know if you were born at home?

SK: In those days it was all the midwife, yes.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.