Densho Digital Archive - Sumiko Sakai Kozawa Interview (denshovh-ksumiko-01-0018)

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RP: And did you have children?

SK: I have one daughter. She's up in Seattle. Her name is Suzy. Everybody knows her, Suzy. She's in this, she works with the lab and this and that at the, and she graduated from that Jesuit university there, Seattle U. Now she's in this, what they call sound, so she's, it's a popular thing. I didn't know sound was that popular.

RP: So did you ever share your Manzanar story with her?

SK: Yes, yes. Yeah, she asks me every time she comes down. But she comes down, she's always, she's always on the internet, or there's, she had to keep up with what they're doing over there, and then there's a lot of messages for her, so she's always out... what's those things that you're... I don't know, those... see, I get a mental block.

RP: You been back to Manzanar?

SK: No. I don't want to go back. [Laughs] To me that was like, I don't want to go back there again. I mean, they've been back several times, but Manzanar as I remember, I just remember all the ugly things. I don't like Manzanar.

RP: Was there a particularly --

SK: It was, to me it was the most, dirtiest, most unhealthy place, with all the wind and everything. It wasn't clean at all. You couldn't get clean, no matter how many showers or baths, you still felt dirty. At least I did. And wintertime, you wash your sheets, you hang it up and it gets stiff dry, it just freezes it gets so cold. That surprised me. Yeah, Manzanar...

RP: Did you have to do the laundry there too?

SK: Yeah, we had to do everything by hand, the laundry. Yeah, hand laundry. I don't know how we did, but we did it. 'Course, in those young days you could do just about everything. You make up your mind to do it, okay, you do it. All those sheets, all the clothing.

RP: [To KP] You have any questions?

KP: Could she talk about that photo next to her?

RP: Sumi, you want to hold up the large photo, the big photo? [SK holds up photo of a house] Can you tell us where that is?

KP: Tip it down toward the floor a little bit more. There you go. Fine, thank you.

RP: Where is that?

SK: Who do you see down there?

RP: What, is that a place you used to live?

SK: No. I wasn't even born, I don't think. This is --

KP: Is that on Western Avenue?

SK: This is Western, somewhere Western, Tenth and Western maybe. This is where my father, grandpa, they're, they were all living here, I think. And I think they had a nursery here, big nursery. Yeah, Grandpa, as I recall, he was a good nurseryman, big nursery. And I know my father, in the meantime, he used to help at the nursery, and in the meantime he was looking for a place for him to stay or settle down. Took him a long time, though, I think. I don't know.

KP: You can put that down. [SK puts photo back] Thank you.

RP: I have just a couple more questions. Sumi, you were involved in the floral business for many years. What are some of the most significant changes that you've seen, from the time that you started working with your mom, 1929, to...

SK: Well, 1929 to now, now everything is very modern. See, I'm the old-fashioned way, and the new modern things, it's okay, but everybody has their own styling, though, even in the floral designer and all that. And so we did have a designer; he was very good, though. And after the war, of course we did the best we could, but we did, it depends on your customers, the way they like things, see. And anyway, I did the best I could. In Japan we used to learn, the way we learned in Japan it was heaven, man and earth sign in the, that was the year, what they call ikebana. But then the floral things, they, some people like it real bushy and full and all that, some people like it very simple, just a, maybe a bamboo -- not a bamboo... see? I lost myself now. One of these twigs, okay, the twigs and then maybe a few flowers, like a heaven, man and earth sign, things like that. All my customers are all different, but they're all, they were all good, most of my customers are artists, though, in different ways. They were good. They understood everything.