<Begin Segment 31>

KL: Where did you live when you were in Long Beach?

GM: Place called Truman Boyd Manor, it's about four miles, I guess, away from the downtown. There was about two or three housing developments that were reserved for veterans, one member of the household had to be a veteran of World War II. And there wasn't even a junior high school at that time, but they were building it when I was leaving. I was only there one semester.

KL: Who was there in the house with you?

GM: Well, I was living with my oldest sister and her family, she had her husband...

KL: What was her husband's name?

GM: Ben, or Benson, B-E-N-S-O-N. He was from San Diego originally.

KL: And say his last name again?

GM: Iwata, I-W-A-T-A.

KL: And where was the motel that your folks bought?

GM: The hotel was on Hewitt Street, 127 South Hewitt Street. There was a white, there was a Maryknoll church down there on, I think, Third and Hewitt, it's only about a block away, block and a half away.

KL: Tell us more about it. You said it hadn't been used in a while.

GM: What?

KL: Tell us more about the hotel. You said it hadn't been used for a while when you first saw it. How did that develop?

GM: Oh, it was... I found out after I came out after the army, I thought, gee, I knew we painted the upstairs and all that, and I found that the hotel was built in 1883. There was a piece of plank in the front, the top, and it had 1883 on there. But when I moved there, it was probably still half African American. And as they moved out, my parents put in Japanese.

KL: Who were your mom's clients?

GM: Well, they were Japanese, single guys, working guys. Because I used to talk to some... I used to like to talk to all the people. Because I remember this one guy used to tell me about World War II and all that. But little by little it became Japanese and some single Caucasian men. It's just a little hotel. But I saw things that... I mean, I remember there was this one, one of the gals in that family, she had a scar on her, one of her eyes. And I was told, I said, "How did she get that?" And said, "Well, you know how she cusses all the time?" I said, "Yeah, I know." Said, "One time her mother, mom didn't want to kill her, so she just cut her." Well, no. Because I used to be sweeping the hallway all the time, and one day, these two sisters had the back room, and the older sister that had the scar, boyfriend came. He came, and I stopped, and he was yelling at her that her mother had complained she cussed and all that. And she promised him she would never cuss again and all that, he said, "Okay, because if you do..." and all that. So he said, "I'm gonna go now," and he just naturally went against the wall, and I'm standing there. And then she says that, using some cuss words, and he bring out his belt, and he passed the whip, wham, wham. When I used to go into... I used to hang out on First Street for a little while at the pool hall and all that, we were just kids, and we were the youngest group. And a few times she'd be walking, and she'd go, "Where are you going, George?" I said, "I'm going to go shoot pool." And I knew that the people on the streetcar would be, "Wow, look at that. A young Japanese kid with a tough-looking..." she was about six feet, at least six feet, you know, maybe more. And always wore a topcoat and had a scar. And there was one couple that he was a bookkeeper, his wife was really nice and cute, real fat, and every now and then she'd be dragging her husband and this old man drunk, dragging them back. And one day they move out and asked one of the black guys, "Hey, whatever happened to," I forgot their name. I said, "He slashed her throat, he caught her with some guy." Said, "Where?" "First and Alameda." I said, "Right there on First and Alameda."

KL: Did your parents, did they feel like they needed to protect themselves or you guys from the people, or were they kind of separate?

GM: They didn't bother. No, this was just the lifestyle, I guess. Because I remember I used to come home from the pool hall, and in one of the empty storefronts, there would be a guy standing there, he's gonna mug somebody, I guess. I was just a kid, so I had to pull my... "Hey, who's got a knife? Who's got a knife?" And then I used to walk across the street and all that. And finally one day I thought, they're not after me, they're after these older people. So I'd be walking in front, and I was so tempted to say, "Boo." [Laughs] Of course, I... but at first I was walking across the street. And then there was two young Japanese, I used to see them sometimes, I don't know, on TV or something, wrestling and all that. I forgot, a guy named Tojo or something. Anyway, they started walking, some of these older people, because next to us was a church, Buddhist church or something like that, or Shinto, I don't know what. But I used to see sometimes these two guys walking.

KL: Were they wrestlers even then?

GM: They were wrestlers, at least one of them was, or something like that. But they were kind of big. And they knew some kind of martial arts or wrestling, and I just heard they were... but they started walking, some of these old people, because of the mugging.

KL: Did you live in that hotel then through high school?

GM: Yeah.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.