<Begin Segment 7>

KL: What was Kay doing in Los Angeles, for work? Or where did he live?

MN: We lived in, one year we lived with my mother-in-law and father-in-law. They had a store in southern Los Angeles.

KL: What was the name of the community?

MN: My, it's in Los Angeles, southern Los Angeles. Now, real to Watts. I didn't know then, but they are close to Watts and where a lot of black people lived.

KL: Were there a lot of black people in 1935 and '6?

MN: Pardon me?

KL: Were there many black people, or, in 1935 and '6?

MN: That area, I guess, not that many. No, not that many. But that was the first time I saw black people.

KL: When you came back to the U.S. Was that a surprise, to see people who looked so different?

MN: Yes.

KL: How did you get along? Did you...

MN: Got along all right. My, some of the customers in my father-in-law and mother-in-law's store was black people.

KL: Who else was living in that area? Was it mostly Japanese Americans?

MN: No, no, they were only Japanese family there.

KL: Was that hard for them, or was it okay?

MN: Hard for them, I guess. My father-in-law, mother-in-law, they were farmers, so they didn't know much English. But sometimes I wondered how she could tell that the Campbell's soup had mushroom, chicken, all that. She knew... this was seventy years ago, more than seventy years ago, so no supermarket, not a self-service. Customers go, "I want this and I want that," and you have to get it for them. My mother-in-law, they asked her everything in English, but they know, she knew what they want. Sometimes I wanted the canned soup that comes in the, chicken soup or chicken noodle, all different, but my mother-in-law couldn't read and write the English. But she knew what to get.

KL: Yeah, that's amazing.

MN: Yeah, amazing.

KL: Did you help in the store?

MN: A little bit, because I didn't know much English either, just a little. We stayed a year, and then a year later my husband bought a little store, our own.

KL: Where was that?

MN: It was in Glendale.

KL: What was the store's name?

MN: Oh gosh. I don't know, I don't remember. Not Nishio. Hmm...

KL: That's okay.

MN: Store had a name, but by gosh, I don't remember.

KL: What was it like to have your own house? That was the first time, really.

MN: Well, this is the first time, because soon after we got married, war broke out and we went to the camp. And we stayed there three and a half years and came out, and that time we had two children already.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.