<Begin Segment 4>

KL: Who, I want to... you mentioned your siblings a couple times. Tell me all the kids in your family kind of in order.

MS: Okay, I'm the oldest, and then Toshi, T-O-S-H-I, she was born in '34. Then when were you born?

SO: I was born in 1936, and then Shizuo, our brother...

MS: S-H-I-Z-U-O.

SO: ...was born in '37.

KL: You guys are close.

SO: Oh, yeah. And then Midori.

MS: She was born in...

SO: '41.

MS: '41.

SO: '41.

KL: Did you have any relatives in Terminal Island, any cousins or anything?

SO: No. Our father's brothers were... what were they, farmers? So they did not live on Terminal Island.

MS: Not at Terminal Island.

KL: But he had brothers in California?

SO: Yes, two. Two brothers.

MS: A farmer in Gardena and then an older brother in L.A. who was into flowers, right?

SO: Flowers, I think so.

MS: On Wall Street.

KL: Did you see much of him growing up?

SO: No.

KL: Did you go into Los Angeles?

MS: I remember going to, he owned quite a few buildings on this block, and there was a hotel, his hotel, and then right next to it, a cafe. So we got to go to the hotel and run around in the corridors and things like that. He was very wealthy.

KL: What was the hotel's name?

MS: Can't remember the hotel's name, but the cafe was called Rose Cafe, which was right next to it, which was his wife's name.

KL: They were both on Wall Street?

MS: I don't know if it was on Wall Street. I thought it was, but very close if it wasn't. And then (he had) a lot of flower... (they) wouldn't be shops. I guess maybe wholesale flowers (and buildings) all lined up, flower buildings, I should say, right across the street from his hotel and cafe and all that. So he had quite a few of those.

KL: Did he live in the hotel?

MS: I thought he did.

SO: I think he did, yeah. I think so.

KL: Did those brothers follow your father over, or were they here before he came?

MS: We're not too familiar with them or the cousins in that side of the family because we never got to see 'em. I think they were probably, our father was the youngest of the three of them, and I think at that time they were estranged. So maybe that's why we didn't see our cousins until we got older.

KL: Well, it sounds like your folks were busy, too, with five kids and working in the cannery.

SO: With five kids, yes.

KL: And you both went to school in Terminal Island.

SO: I think I went to kindergarten. I think that's my kindergarten class. Okay, so my brother Shizuo and Midori did not to go school in Terminal Island.

KL: There's another little girl in this picture that you're really close to. Do you remember the other kids in your kindergarten?

SO: No, I don't.

KL: She looks like a friend.

SO: I don't know, I look happy. [Laughs]

KL: Yeah, you do. Were you in the same school? Was kindergarten in the elementary school?

MS: I don't remember school on Terminal Island.

SO: I don't either.

MS: I remember going to Compton school, and that was when the war started, we vacated Terminal Island. I was in the fourth grade.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.