<Begin Segment 9>
RP: Now, did your father continue to work at this bingo parlor most of the time you were growing up, or did he shift jobs at all? You said he got into import-export.
DI: He eventually had, I don't recall how many years he had it, but he also had a place in Reno, right on... what was that? What was the main street there?
RP: Virginia Street?
DI: Where the archway is? Virginia Street. I think the address was 232 Virginia Street, right, almost next door to Harold's Club, there's an alley there. And I remember... let's see, when we got married, we went, my husband and I went there, yeah. And so he had the place there.
RP: And that was the bingo place.
DI: Uh-huh, it was a bingo place.
RP: So can you give us an idea of when your family moved up to Reno?
DI: We moved there... well, we left, we left camp and moved there, right?
RP: But you...
DI: I was just trying to think.
RP: But you told me that your family, the rest of your family had moved up to Reno much earlier than the war?
DI: Well, my older sister -- oh, my older sister went to Japan, I can't remember what year it was, and she was, she was there during the Doolittle bombing. She just had given birth to her first child, and she remembers the nurses scurrying around and making sure everybody was taken care of. But she was there in the hospital, I think it was called St. Luke's. She was there when they had the Doolittle bombing. And so they were, her husband worked for the American consulate there in Formosa.
RP: Oh, before the war?
DI: Yeah, before the war, which is now, what, Taiwan?
RP: Yes.
DI: Uh-huh. And they were there.
RP: They got trapped there.
DI: Yeah, they were trapped. And so when they exchanged the diplomats, the Washington diplomats, they got to come home on the Swedish liner the Gripsholm.
RP: They were part of the exchange.
DI: For the exchange. And so then he worked for the, was it the War Department? I can't remember. I think it was the War Department, but I'm not positive.
RP: And his name was James Hamasaki?
DI: Hamasaki.
RP: Oh, that was quite a story, yeah. They were, they were able to get out of Japan.
DI: So my nephew was born in St. Luke's hospital, April the 8th, I think, which is Buddha's birthday.
RP: That was the day they bombed?
DI: Yeah, something like that. But they were fortunate to be able to come home on the Gripsholm.
RP: So I'm just trying to get an idea of when did your parents move to Reno, do you know?
DI: Well, my dad had... I think he had the place before, I don't know how long before the war.
RP: They were up there before the war?
DI: Uh-huh. Well, he did a lot of import-export also, so he wasn't always in Reno. But I know he made trips to Japan.
RP: And what was his chief, what were the chief products that he was importing and exporting?
DI: I think at one point he wanted to have silk shirts made in Japan and brought over here. And I don't know how successful that was. He did, he had a bad arm. I remember growing up, every morning he would go to the bathroom and he would change his bandages. And years later, we found out, when we were aware of what had happened and what he was doing every morning, we asked him. And evidently when he was, came from Japan, I think that he came in through Seattle. Then I think it was in San Francisco, (he was riding a bicycle), he had an accident with a streetcar. And so all those years he had this wound on his left arm, and he would have to change the bandage. So he always had kind of an awkward arm, short, I think it was a little short. So he couldn't really do anything physical, it was very difficult for him, I think.
RP: Were you subjected to any discrimination or prejudice while you were growing up as a Japanese American?
DI: You know, I can't really remember. I had a great time going to school, at John Adams and (Santa Monica High School), and John Muir.
RP: You didn't feel different?
DI: No, I don't think so.
RP: And your dad, having mastered English or speaking English...
DI: Yeah, he was pretty good. He wrote letters in English, which made it easy for us, 'cause we certainly could not write Japanese. [Laughs]
RP: So his, it sounds like his outlook was pretty Americanized.
DI: Uh-huh.
RP: So you probably celebrated holidays, all the usual holidays?
DI: The regular American holidays, oh, yeah.
RP: But also Japanese holidays as well?
DI: You know, I can't remember that much about the Japanese holidays. [Laughs] But we all remember Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter.
RP: Easter, right.
DI: I think New Year's was important to them.
<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.