<Begin Segment 1>

AL: This is Alisa Lynch. Today is the sixth of August, 2013. I am at the Fremont Hotel with Grace Fukuhara Niwa. We are doing an interview for the Manzanar National Historic Site oral history project. The videographer is Whitney Peterson, note taker Rose Masters, and also in the room are SCA intern Tokiko Fujisawa and Angel Island State Park ranger Larisa Proulx. So I'd like to first start out, Grace, by asking if we have your permission to record this interview and to use the information for education and historical purposes at Manzanar.

YN: Yes.

AL: Thank you. And I'd like to start also by asking you your full name and when and where you were born.

YN: My name is Yoshino Grace Fukuhara Niwa. I was born in Manzanar October 29, 1942.

AL: And what are your parents' names?

YN: My father's name is Henry Kazuo Fukuhara, and my mother's name is Fujiko Yasutake Fukuhara.

AL: And do you know what part of Japan your parents came from?

YN: My father's parents were from Hiroshima, and my mother's parents were from Yamaguchi.

AL: And were your parents both Nisei?

YN: Yes.

AL: Older Nisei. So do you know what brought, in your father's case, what brought his parents over from Japan?

YN: No, I don't.

AL: But your father was born here in the U.S.?

YN: Yes.

AL: When and where was he born?

YN: He was born in Fruitland, which is basically East Los Angeles. It no longer exists as a city.

AL: And is the oldest in his family?

YN: He's the oldest.

AL: The chonan. Could you explain for someone who doesn't know that term, chonan, what is a chonan and what is the significance of being the chonan?

YN: Well, I guess the oldest son is the heir, so to speak, and when my grandparents came and settled in Santa Monica, they were not able to buy property in their name. But being the oldest son, the property -- and American citizen -- the property was bought in my father's name, and it was given to him as his inheritance. The property was just in his name, though he had six siblings.

AL: What are the names of his siblings?

YN: Frank, I don't know all the Japanese names, and then it's Tomi, it was Tomi Matsunaga, and Jimmy Fukuhara, George Fukuhara, Lily Takayama and Willie Fukuhara.

AL: And I know that Jimmy is still living because he comes to Manzanar on a fairly regular basis. Are any of your father's other siblings still alive?

YN: Those are all alive.

AL: They're all alive, okay, so only your dad...

YN: Has passed away. I think there was an infant that passed away, and a young child, maybe two or three.

AL: And what was your father's family's business?

YN: They were in landscape and growers, plant growers.

AL: So did they have a nursery?

YN: They did, they had a nursery and a plant stand in Los Angeles.

AL: Do you know where in L.A.?

YN: No, I don't.

AL: But the property that your dad lived on Santa Monica until his last years, that was the original family property?

YN: They moved several places. Before then, they lived in the Palisades, but before the war they were able to purchase that property and had plant stock. And by selling the plant stock they were able to pay the mortgage before going to Manzanar. So the land was there, I believe someone was to take care of it.

AL: Did your grandparents, were they married when they came over from Japan or did they meet and marry here?

YN: Oh, goodness. The way I recall it is that my grandfather came here and then he went back to Japan and married my grandmother and brought her here.

AL: Did they have any children in Japan before your father, or he's the oldest first?

YN: He's the oldest first.

AL: I ask that because we've talked to some families where their parents had some children in Japan and then they came over and had more children here, but he's their first son.

YN: As far as I know. [Laughs]

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.