Densho Digital Archive - Art Imagire Interview (denshovh-iart-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: A couple more questions about this very sort of pivotal move to Reno. One was you shared with me the fact that in order to voluntarily relocate that you had to have a job and a sponsor?

AI: Yeah, a sponsor and a place to stay.

RP: A sponsor, okay.

AI: Three prerequisites.

RP: So, I guess the key question that I want to ask you is why Reno rather than anywhere else?

AI: Yeah, it just so happened that my mother had a customer, Mrs. Norton was her name, that moved to Reno and heard about her plight. And I don't know whether my mother contacted her or, or she contacted my mother. But she found a business for my mother, a dress-making shop, and also the person that spoke up for her. And then we went up and found a place to stay. It was interesting trying to find a place to stay. My brother, I think it was my brother, went up to Reno and, or at least made phone calls to Reno and to find... looked in the want ads and looked at the places. And they, and they say, "Oh sure, come up and look. What's your name?" And we say, "Imagire." And they write Imagire down. And then my brother would go and knock on the door and he'd say, "Hi, I'm Robert Imagire." They, as soon as they saw he was Japanese, they put, closed the door in your face. So, he spent quite a bit of time finding a place, but we finally found one, it was owned by an Italian person, his name was Freddy SanguinettI think. And he rented us a place and it was on the northeast side of Reno, which is also now a freeway. Seemed to get displaced by --

RP: Do you know what, remember what street it was on?

AI: It was called Spokane Street. S-P-O-K-A-N-E street, in Reno, in about the seven hundred block.

RP: Art, do you, do you recall anything about the trip to Reno? Leaving Oakland --

AI: The only thing I remember is what I told you about coming over the Donner Bridge. As we're coming down -- Donner Bridge is on the Nevada side of the Sierras -- and as we were coming onto the bridge we saw armed soldiers with fixed bayonets. And I remember father telling us to get down on the floor and we slowly crept past them and fortunately went by without incident. But that was, that was one, I guess, sort of disconcerting experience that... I think that was about the only thing that happened on that trip.

RP: 'Cause there were stories from other folks who voluntarily relocated to other states and people wouldn't sell 'em gas or wouldn't allow them to stay in a motel or, again, because of their, of the look of the enemy sort of thing. And so that was really the only incident that... it wasn't really an incident, but...

AI: Yeah, we didn't, we went... at that time, Reno was probably a good sized trip 'cause it was only two-lane road. I think it took four hours to get there by car. But it was, it was... apparently uneventful.

RP: Right. So Mrs. Norton kind of acted as a sponsor for...

AI: Uh-huh. She spoke up for us, yeah. She remained my mother's customer when, after she moved up to Reno.

RP: Uh-huh.