Densho Digital Archive - Sumiko Sakai Kozawa Interview (denshovh-ksumiko-01-0003)

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RP: And do you know how your mom and dad met?

SK: That, I don't know. You know, in those days there was just very few Japanese, and I guess Sundays they all kind of got together. I don't know.

RP: Did your mom or dad ever talk to you about some of the early, early hardships in adopting to, adjusting to a new country like America?

SK: No, we never did. Yeah, we never did. We just, Sundays, as I recall, when we were kids my father would want us to go to church Sunday. He didn't care what denomination, he just, we all went to church. So as I recall, it was an Episcopal church in San Diego. As I remember, that was the church we used to go to. 'Cause when we were kids it was, in those days it was Sunday school, so there's a special little, that was a clubhouse and that was Sunday school for little kids. So that's the way we started. Then in the other church, in the next block, was this, what they call the Episcopal church, so we went there. Every Sunday, that was our Sunday school.

RP: Where did your parents first settle?

SK: My parents, they were from, they were from Nagoya.

RP: Where, when they came to the United States, where did they first settle, what area?

SK: When they first settled here, that I don't know.

RP: Your father worked at the Grand Estate in Glendale?

SK: That was my uncle.

RP: Your uncle, okay.

SK: My uncle and Grandpa. See, they were wholesale flower growers. In the meantime, my father was going here and there looking for a place for him, I think for us to stay. But he used to come and help them. That's what it was.

KP: The uncle and grandfather, on what side of the family? I'm not quite following.

RP: The uncle and the father, the grandfather on the mother's side.

SK: My uncle was on my mother's side, yeah. Is that...

KP: And the grandfather?

RP: And the grandfather?

SK: Grandpa was my mother's father. See, my father's parents were all in Japan. Yeah, they had this hospital. They had a beautiful home there, big home.

RP: And your dad worked for the Scripps family.

SK: Yeah, that's how he learned his English. Yeah, he worked there as a houseboy. I think that's what they called 'em.

KP: And those might've been the La Jolla caves?

SK: La Jolla? That was in La Jolla, that was when he was helping the, he worked for the Scripps. Yeah, there used to be big caves there and we used to go in there. I think it's still there, maybe not, but he used to go in there at midnight. That was when he started living in San Diego. He bought a house on what they call the Pacific Beach in San Diego, so we had a house there. We lived in a house there.