<Begin Segment 23>

KL: What was the second place?

MS: Federal housing project.

SO: It was called Cabrillo 3. There was Cabrillo homes 1, 2 and 3, and we lived in the worst one. And then our other friends lived among the white people, I think that was Cabrillo 1. One and two, there were a lot of whites there. But the three was the worst.

KL: Was there any mixing between whites and blacks, like in number 2? Or was it very, it was strictly segregated white and black and then you guys kind of fit in?

MS: Our friends were mostly by then black kids, because there were so many of them and us. Who else were you gonna play with?

KL: Were there white people and black people in any of the developments together?

SO: No.

MS: Yeah, at the trailer court and Cabrillo 3.

SO: Cabrillo 3.

KL: And I guess you said there were, like, two white people in your first one, too.

SO: Yeah, there weren't too many white... there weren't too many. But there weren't, I don't recall seeing too many black families in Cabrillo 1 and 2, because I had friends there, and, in fact, you lived there, too.

MS: Yeah. I had to, when we got married, we looked for an apartment, and they wouldn't rent to us, they were just so prejudiced. We were living apart, he at his home, and I'm at home. And then we finally had to move in to the same project, which was terrible.

KL: Did you make friends at the first place that you were, ever, off the Pacific Coast Highway?

SO: At the trailer court? Well, we had our Japanese friends, but I don't recall having any of my other friends.

KL: In the first place?

SO: Yeah.

MS: In the trailer court, and also Cabrillo.

KL: So you were in the trailer court for about two years?

SO: Yes, and then maybe a year in the other housing. And in the meantime, when we first went to Manzanar, our parents went and picked green beans in Palos Verdes, and strawberries in Orange County. Because truck used to come...

MS: This was at Palos Verdes.

SO: Palos Verdes. Then they did that for a while, and then our father got a job on a fishing boat. He was one of the crew members. And then we bought a house, like next year or two years.

KL: Your parents bought a house?

MS: Well, see, you have to remember, at that time, they couldn't, they weren't able to own homes.

SO: Property.

MS: But we, and I was not old enough to buy a house. And so when they were ready, we had to ask a friend, I think he was a teenager, and use his name to, and that's how they were able to buy their house.

KL: How did you know him?

SO: He was an old family friend, I believe, from Terminal Island.

MS: And the father was a community leader, and so it was nice that they were able to do that for our family.

SO: I think 'till she was, I think you had to be eighteen to own property in the United States, and so I think when she turned eighteen, then they turned the house over in her name. But then we moved to an all-white neighborhood, the house that we lived in, which was nice. It was very nice. The people were very nice, very, very nice.

MS: We went to school with all different kinds of people. It was just kind of hard at first because we didn't know anybody else except for Japanese people until we came out of camp.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.