<Begin Segment 2>

RP: He came over in his early twenties, and where did he settle when he got to America?

GK: Boyle Heights.

RP: Boyle Heights?

GK: I think that was where many Nikkei were concentrated back then because of the P-car. I don't know if you heard about the P-car. There's a city streetcar running on the First Street all the way to Pico Avenue. And many Japanese Americans lived along the, that line, P-car line.

RP: P-car?

GK: And that went through Little Tokyo, yes.

RP: That was probably one of the red cars.

GK: It's a small, typical streetcar, yes. I used to, I used to ride when we moved into Boyle Heights. It was ten cents per token. Went to Little Tokyo and had, I had my part-time job there dishwashing. [Laughs]

RP: Tell us a little bit about your dad's early life in Los Angeles.

GK: I remember, only thing I remember is he, when we were put into Manzanar, he'd just started a produce market business. And he had to, you know, close that, let it go. So he was a little bitter because of that. I guess that was one of the reasons he went back to Japan after the war.

RP: And he started his own produce market?

GK: Right.

RP: Boyle Heights was, many people talk about Boyle Heights with fondness, about the fact that everybody seemed to get along there. Of course, you were too young to kind of remember it until you came back. Any other stories about your father's struggles to get settled here?

GK: He didn't, you know, want to talk too much about himself, but I heard from other uncles and aunts that he was one of the more aggressive person in the camp, I think. He was sent to a camp, camp that they concentrated those aggressive ones, in Texas. I don't know if you know anything about that. I don't know exactly which camp and for how long, but I would say he was sent over there.

RP: Crystal City.

GK: Is it...

RP: Probably Crystal City, Texas, an internment camp, mostly, yeah, for Japanese aliens and their families. He might have been --

GK: But he was sent by himself, I understand.

RP: Right.

GK: Not, we stayed at the Manzanar.

RP: And he was sent from Manzanar?

GK: Manzanar to...

RP: I thought he might have been sent from Tule Lake.

GK: Then we went to, entire family went to Tule Lake, I guess, just before we moved over to Japan.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.