Densho Digital Archive - Yoshino Grace Fukuhara Niwa Interview (denshovh-nyoshino-01-0005)

<Begin Segment 5>

AL: Do you know how your father came to find out about an opportunity to go to New York, I mean, how that happened?

YN: Well, oh, goodness. I know he was told to go to Chicago because of his art, and I think he looked into Chicago Art Institute and whether it was someone there who recommended New York or not, I don't know. But we settled in a town called Farmingdale on Long Island, and there was a huge nursery there, it was called the City of Glass. And he worked there, he and his brothers, and he was also to recruit others to work there. So at that point, whether he felt as though he could not support a family with his art, and so he went back to something with a steady income.

AL: Did his whole family leave Manzanar together or did they, you know, like his parents, did they leave to go to New York also or did they remain behind in Manzanar?

YN: That I don't know. I know my father went to Idaho from the camps, he went to Idaho to the sugar beet farming, I guess it's a work furlough or some term. And from there, I don't know if he went directly to Chicago and my mother came later. I know we came on the train with my mom, but I don't know if my father was there, too.

AL: So he went, he did go to Chicago or he went to...

YN: He did go to Chicago, but I don't know how long he stayed there, and then went on to New York from Farmingdale.

AL: Well, and the earliest picture I have seen of you, which we were talking about last night, is the one that Stone Ishimaru took of you in the tire swing in Farmingdale. As a, what, maybe three years old, two years old?

YN: Yeah, two or three.

AL: There are a couple of hakujin kids in that picture. Do you know who they are?

YN: The Olson family, yes.

AL: And how was your family connected to them?

YN: They were neighbors and they befriended us. And I think my sister still has an address and can contact them.

AL: What is your earliest memory?

YN: I don't know, I cannot remember. I do remember a little bit of Farmingdale, but very little. But more after we moved to Deer Park, also on Long Island.

AL: So how did you end up there and what did your dad do?

YN: I think my father always wanted to have his own business, and he and his brothers and parents, we all moved to Deer Park. There was a greenhouse there, but mostly they grew carnations inside the greenhouse and dahlias outside.

AL: So by that point then, the whole family did go to Deer Park? You said his parents and his brothers and everybody?

YN: Yes, his brothers and sisters. He had, one, two, three brothers that were in the service, so it was the two younger brothers and two sisters.

AL: Do you know if any of his brothers entered the service from Manzanar, or did they come, did they go after the war, or after leaving Manzanar?

YN: I don't know.

AL: And a lot of those things we can also look up, from the paperwork that we have at Manzanar. So did they buy the property at Deer Park, the nursery there?

YN: Yes. And there was a house.

AL: And how long did they live there?

YN: Well, forever. [Laughs] We lived there, and then around the mid-60s, my father built a house on part of the property, a smaller house, and they moved there.

AL: I know a number of families went east, and then when the war ended in the mid, late-'40s, they started coming back to the West Coast. Do you know why your family stayed back there so much longer?

YN: Well, I supposed my father had established a business. Two of his brothers stayed there, the two youngest brothers. I don't know when his parents moved back to California, I think in the '50s. One brother, Frank, moved his family back to California first and tried to get the business going but there was just too much work to do by himself. And so his father went, father and mother went. The cold was very difficult for my grandmother because she had arthritis, and so they moved and were helping Frank to establish, reestablish the business in Santa Monica, and eventually Jimmy went and they had their own business there.

AL: So was somebody leasing the property in Santa Monica, like, after the war? Before Frank and Jimmy went back, do you know who had the property?

YN: I don't know.

AL: Just stepping aside for a moment to your mom's family, do you, were they all still in Hawaii? Besides her sister who was in Japan, were they all still in Hawaii during the war?

YN: Yes.

AL: Did you ever hear any stories of their experiences?

YN: No.

AL: Did your mother remain close to them? I mean, did she correspond with them, or was it, you know, she was just... because New York is a lot further away from Hawaii. Do you know if she was able to go back and visit family or keep in touch?

YN: I know that her mother came once to the home in Deer Park, and I know that my mother took Helen, my younger sister Helen with her to Hawaii when she was an infant. And I can't tell you when her two youngest sisters came to California.