<Begin Segment 4>

RM: Can you tell me a little bit... do you know what your grandfather's work was like on the road, what he was doing?

PS: You know, all I know is he was a foreman, and I have a picture of him, and he looks like one of the smallest people there, because a lot of them were Swedes or Norwegians, and they were tall. And they have a picture, he's standing with the crew.

RM: So then when he passed away, your family rode the train to Los Angeles.

PS: To Los Angeles.

RM: And after her older brother had come back from Washington to take care of everyone. What convinced him to move to L.A.? Was their family there?

PS: No, he came here because I think he got a job, and there was work, working in the produce market, or either working in the fields, any of the fields. I don't think he did that, I think he probably worked in the produce market.

RM: Do you know what part of L.A. they moved to?

PS: They moved to Boyle Heights. But I think my aunt Shizu got a job as a housegirl in Pasadena.

RM: Did your mom then enter the junior high, I'm guessing, at age twelve?

PS: She did go to junior high.

RM: Okay, in Boyle Heights?

PS: Uh-huh. Who was it... what is the junior high there? Stevenson, I think. I think it's Stevenson.

RM: Did you ever talk about what it was like, I mean, the difference between Montana and Los Angeles Is pretty big. Did she talk about adjusting to the city?

PS: No, but one thing she used to always say to me, "You know, when I came on the train I saw the palm trees." She said, "You know, they don't have palm trees in Montana." And I'd say, "You're right, Mom." But every time we'd go on the freeway and she'd see palm trees, it reminded her of the first time she came here.

RM: And she liked it.

PS: I think she liked it. And she had a lot of freedom because I think Uncle Ben had a job, Shizu had a job. Hide had a job, a part time job, so my mother was left alone. She went to school and then she had a lot of freedom.

RM: What was her mom doing during this time?

PS: I don't think she worked, she couldn't have worked for anyone. I know that her brother Tadashi, 'cause he was a year and a half, Mom said he never liked it here, it was like he didn't like it because of the city, he liked country, the open space.

RM: And Tadashi is only eighteen months older than your mom, right?

PS: Uh-huh.

RM: Was he in school as well?

PS: I would have thought so, yeah. And then when he was seventeen, my mom said he graduated and he didn't want to go to college, and Uncle Ben wanted him to go to college, but he said, "Let me work," for this friend of theirs that was a farmer in the valley, and he went there to work, and then an accident happened and he died.

RM: Tadashi?

PS: Tadashi died. There was an accident on the farm, I think a handcart fell and hit him on the back of the neck and broke his neck.

RM: And he was only seventeen or eighteen? How did your... I mean, it sounds like he and your mom were really close.

PS: My mother was very, very upset, she said, "I should have been the one that died." But I said, "Why, Mom? You're just as important as he is." She said, "No." And I think it all came back to she came to the family later, so she really wasn't a part of that family, that he was an original part of the family.

RM: She felt added on.

PS: Yeah.

RM: What was, so Boyle Heights was the neighborhood that had a lot of Japanese Americans living in it.

PS: It sounds like it, because her best friend was Japanese, they lived on First Street near Soto. My mom, I think, said they lived on Fourth and Fickett, and most of all of her friends that she ever talked about were Japanese. So it must have been like a little enclave of Japanese that lived there. Because there is a Buddhist church over there on First Street.

RM: So how has that changed for her? Because not only the climate, landscape changed, but you know, now she has, you mentioned that her classmates in Montana, when she was living with the Nordquists, were all white, and then she came to...

PS: You know, I don't think my mother ever felt the difference. Because I think she always felt accepted by her foster parents, and I don't think she ever felt the difference. Because she never ever says anything about that. She never even says about any prejudice here really, until after the war.

RM: So then did she go to high school...

PS: She graduated from Roosevelt.

RM: What did she tell you about high school?

PS: My mom always said she wasn't a good student.

RM: Was not? [Laughs]

PS: She said she was not a good student. But she never talked about school. I don't think school was her interest. You know, I think she graduated, and when she was a cheerleaders, I think... I think she was a cheerleader.

RM: Any photos leftover from that?

PS: No, I don't have... she never had any photos of that. I don't know. She rarely ever talked about when she was young. She does, she did mention how she used to play at Evergreen Cemetery and they used to run through it, kind of played through there at night.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.