<Begin Segment 6>

KL: I want to hear more about the property, your recollections of your home in the Culver City area before the war. What was that house like? Can you describe it?

KM: It was 12135 Mitchell Avenue, and it had two bedrooms and there were three kids, four kids. Frank was born already, huh? When they bought it, Frank wasn't born. It was the three of us and my mother and father. And I know there was a shack, a shed attached to the house, to the main house, and you walked by that house, past the shed, and my brother and I, Ichiro, would go every morning and grab his shoes and his socks and he would sit down and put his shoes and socks on in the sunshine on the little walkway. And there was a, I guess, a work shed that my father used. He had a bench and he had tools, and so we could make things like, so you could walk on the cans. I guess it's just a tin can that we smashed and put string through it, and then you could walk on it. That and then stilts. We had sticks, and then you attach another stick with a nail, so you had a little stick that had a jiggety jog and you could put your feet on there. I remember playing with that.

KL: Who made those?

KM: Who made those? My father had tools outside, and so that was one of our toys, you could play with them outside.

KL: Did your father make them?

KM: No.

KL: You guys did?

KM: We did. You can make a boat, creative work. And it was just agricultural, so you had regular beans out there, and they grew celery out there. So you could keep yourself amused, even though the property wasn't that large, it was two or three lots together.

KL: Who else was in the neighborhood? You mentioned the Nishis.

KM: The Nishis, the Koros, the Inagakis... do you remember some other names?

YI: Uh-uh.

KL: Were there any other ways that people made their living, or was it all agricultural?

KM: It was all agricultural. The Chikazawas, they were there, the Tanakas were there, I think that's...

YI: Oh, some of these were postwar, Kazy. I think some of them are postwar.

KM: The Kitagawas.

KL: Before the war, was it heavily Japanese families?

KM: Yes.

KL: Were there any other groups who lived in that neighborhood or that area?

YI: Yeah, there were Caucasian families.

KM: Oh, yeah, there were dairies.

YI: We lived where there were residential homes on this side, and then the property, the nursery was on this other side, but there were homes, it was small, it wasn't very large. And those families were good people, I mean, they helped my dad.

KL: In what sense, how did they help him?

KM: Mr...

YI: Waters.

KM: Lived behind us, and Mr.... the guy that worked at Sears.

YI: Oh, I can't remember, Nyberg.

KM: Nyberg, Mr. Nyberg. My mother would need things because when the edict came out that we had to be ready to go in so many days, then she buys this huge bolt of flannel and she starts sewing for the children. She made...

YI: Pajamas.

KM: Pajamas and underwear and things like that, and she put 'em all in a duffel bag. The duffel bag was a rice bag, and she put our names on it, and we had to take care of our own little bag on the way out.

KL: What about before the war? Was it a pretty close-knit neighborhood, or how would you describe it?

KM: Yes, it was like living in a small village, it takes a village to raise children.

YI: Well, there were no fences, so the property ended and you just walked to your neighbor's backyard. And he'd be skinning a rabbit, and we're Japanese, we don't do things like skinning a rabbit. And chicken, remember he'd cut the head off of a chicken. I mean, this is the country, kind of, you know, it's not city. And so we learned a lot. How to skin a rabbit.

KM: We had not skinned a rabbit ever.

YI: [Laughs] Did not.

KM: Even though Kenneth Waters could do it. Out in the country people did that, they raised chickens...

KL: Were there other kids around? Did you have playmates in that street?

KM: Bonnie Race, but she was older.

YI: The kid that became an attorney.

KM: Schnabel. Was that it, Schnabel? Because his brother is a, was an announcer for, DJ for public national radio.

YI: They had the first TV on the block.

KL: The Schnabels?

YI: The Schnabels.

KM: Kings had a TV, too, Mel and Daisy.

YI: But they only watched wrestling and baseball. The Schnabels would watch Hopalong Cassidy, you know. We didn't get to see it all, but I mean, eventually we did get one, but it took a long time.

KL: Was this all before the war?

YI: Postwar.

KM: Before the war we played in the street with other kids, and we'd play Hide and Seek.

YI: Kick the Can.

KL: So it was... let's see. I guess when were the two of you born?

KM: '36 for me and '38 for her.

KL: And who else was living in your household at that time?

KM: Just the core family. And then my father knew this gentleman, I don't know if he's related to us or what, but we called them "grandfather."

YI: Nakano-san?

KM: No.

YI: Ito?

KM: No, Ito was the old man with no teeth. [Laughs]

YI: I know one of them could roll a Bull Durham cigarette in one hand. And I got good at looking at him. [Laughs]

KL: You got good at rolling cigarettes?

YI: Well, my mother didn't know, but I wanted to try it, and he was good at it. He could just roll it like this and lick the thing.

KM: I never learned to do that.

YI: And then you tied both ends, oh, I was watching him all the time because, you know, that was...

KM: In those days you could buy a...

YI: Yeah, a bag of the, Bull Durham bag of raw tobacco, and then roll your own.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.