<Begin Segment 7>
RP: Can you tell us a little bit about the Sawtelle community as you recall it, your teenage years growing up?
DI: As a teenager, I really don't, didn't really know much about it.
RP: And Santa Monica did have a Japanese community?
DI: Yeah, Santa Monica had... but I don't know that they had an area like Sawtelle did where they had Japanese markets. We had friends that maybe had a nursery, I think there was a nursery on Marine Street, the Fukuhara Nursery, they're old-timers there, too.
RP: Oh, Fukuharas.
DI: Uh-huh.
RP: Do you remember any other families near, that lived nearby you that you...
DI: Oh, let's see. Who lived near us? I was just trying to think. Oh, yeah, there was a Maruyama family that lived on Hill Street right east of Fourth Street. And the Furuta family had a place on Fourth Street, around Pier Avenue. And they were part of the Bingo family, I think. And also, one of the relatives had the Imperial Gardens on Sunset.
RP: And that was a restaurant or a nursery?
DI: Wasn't the Furuta family there that had that one on Sunset? Am I wrong? I can't really, memory's not too good. [Laughs]
RP: So you lived in an area that was, had scattered Japanese American families, also Caucasians and kind of a middle class area?
DI: Well, I don't know that... probably middle class.
RP: But ethnically, it was pretty mixed.
DI: Mixed, uh-huh.
RP: Were there other groups that you remember in the community, Italians, Mexicans?
DI: I don't remember... I don't remember Hispanic families. But we had scattered Japanese families, because we had a Japanese school there on Marine Street, and they also had one in Santa Monica. And they had the church there, the Santa Monica Free Methodist Church.
RP: Is that where you went to church?
DI: Yeah, I think it was Twelfth and Michigan.
RP: Was that strictly a Japanese-oriented church or did you have...
DI: Well the minister, the Burnett, Mr. and Mrs., Reverend and Mrs. Burnett, I remember them from way back. And then they used to have a Free Methodist camp up at the Palisades. And I remember going there, spending maybe a week there. So there had to be, 'cause it had a JACL also in Santa Monica.
RP: It did. Now, later when you got married, were you involved with the JACL at all, or Tom was?
DI: Yeah, uh-huh. Because we lived right on Sawtelle Boulevard there. And then we bought this house. I think it was, what did we pay? $7,500, something like that. [Laughs]
RP: It's worth just a little bit more than that now.
DI: Yeah, I think a little bit. It just had two bedrooms and one bathroom, but, and the garage was right there. And when we bought it, he cut the garage in half and moved it all the way back and filled it in between. It was a great place.
RP: So you had contact with a lot of different ethnic groups growing up and at school, too?
DI: Well, basically Japanese Americans.
RP: Mostly Japanese?
DI: Yeah.
<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.