<Begin Segment 18>
RP: And what did you do in terms of getting settled into Reno as far as work, did you work?
DI: No, because I had...
RP: You had a child already?
DI: Both my sons were born there in Reno, so I had my hands full. But my mother worked, and she worked for Mrs. Imagire.
RP: And then Tom also got work?
DI: He was a mechanic, so...
RP: The Chevy agency was it?
DI: He worked at the Chevy agency first, and eventually at the airport, Beckworth Airport? As a mechanic. That's where he learned to fly.
RP: And how were you, how were you received by Caucasian members of the community during the time you were in Reno?
DI: I didn't have, I don't think we had any problems, no. You mean in Reno? No, I can't recall anyone calling me a "Jap," or anything like that. I didn't really feel any tension at all.
RP: And you lived with your, lived at your parents' house for all that time?
DI: Uh-huh. So both my boys were born there, and then we moved back to this house.
RP: You came back down here in 1946, somewhere around there?
DI: Let's see. Marty was born in '46, we came back around July of '47. Was it '47? He was born in January of '46. No, wait a minute. Richard was... no, that's right. Marty was born in Reno. So... yeah, so it was Marty so we came back in '47. [Laughs] No memory. I need a calculator. Yeah, they were both born in Reno. Yeah, we came back in July, I think, of '47, I think.
RP: So you spent most of the war years out of camp. You only spent, what, six months in camp.
DI: Yeah, because...
RP: That was...
DI: Yeah. Because we were only in Manzanar like seven and a half months, I think.
RP: Did the, did many people from the Sawtelle community return here after the camp?
DI: I think quite a few people came back to west L.A.
RP: They all came back and tried to reclaim their lives again?
DI: Because in west L.A., they have a Japanese Methodist church, and a Buddhist church, and they had this little community here. And they had the Japanese school, the language school, and an institute there. So it was a thriving community, basically, of gardeners. And it had all these --
RP: Nurseries.
DI: -- rich people living in Brentwood and Westwood and Beverly Hills, and they were gardeners. They had, it was a good living for them.
RP: Did you, did you work at all eventually when you were back here?
DI: I worked when the children got older, and they talked about going away to college. And so mother thought, well, she better get busy. So I applied at the Santa Monica school district and got a job as a purchasing clerk, and worked there, oh, gosh, I can't remember how many years I worked there. Seventeen years, maybe? I worked there for quite some time, and became a buyer and then retired. I know I didn't go to twenty years, so it could have been like seventeen years. Well, because he decided to buy some property, and so I thought, "Oh, gee, mother better get busy." [Laughs] So I got a job. And then my son talked about going away to college, so I thought I better get busy.
RP: Where was this property?
DI: Oh, at Sawtelle Boulevard, 19... what was that, 1930? 1920 Sawtelle. And before the war, he owned that corner one, on Olympic and Corinth. What'd we pay, thirty-five hundred dollars, right?
RP: Thirty-five hundred?
DI: Thirty-five hundred dollars at Olympic and Corinth. And the lady who owned that other corner at Purdue, where the Cayhill building is, she said she has another corner also for thirty-five hundred dollars. He said, "I don't have an extra thirty-five hundred dollars." Seems like peanuts, doesn't it? [Laughs] No way. But, you know, it's hard for -- we talk like that, but it's also hard for me to... he lost two of his best buddies in the war. I always think about that. Yeah, two of his best buddies were killed as part of the 442.
RP: What were their names, do you know?
DI: Pardon?
RP: Their names?
DI: Paul Kitsuse and James Kanazawa. No. Was it James? No. Johnny Kanazawa. So I think about that, and there's just no comparison.
RP: So how have you seen this community change over the last sixty years or so, the Sawtelle area?
DI: Oh, it's just grown, just grown.
RP: On up.
DI: Oh, yeah. Up, up, up. Now we're sorry we sold that place. [Laughs]
RP: When did you sell it?
DI: I can't remember. Oh, because we couldn't pay the hundred dollars a month rent on the property at Corinth and Olympic. Thirty-five hundred dollars we paid. So when that lady called and said she had the other corner for thirty-five hundred, he just said, "I don't have an extra thirty-five hundred dollars. [Laughs] We'd be sitting pretty, be millionaires. That's over the bridge, yeah.
RP: That might be more problems than it's worth.
DI: But then when he lost his two buddies, and I'll never forget. I used to write to them regularly overseas. We were sitting there in my dad's house on the front porch steps, and the mailman brought these envelopes back, and they're marked "deceased." Oh, what a sinking feeling. Just an awful feeling, and I had to tell him, two of his best buddies. So when I think of that, there's just no comparison. Money is just nothing. Left a, left a wife, one of my girlfriends, pretty sad.
<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.