Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Gloria Toshiko Imagire Interview
Narrator: Gloria Toshiko Imagire
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Sacramento, California
Date: October 17, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-igloria-01-0003

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RP: What brought you father to America?

GI: You know, I don't really know. He was an only child, and his father had come, and I think he died. And so his uncle, you had to have someone call you over, and I think he called my father over. And so that's when my father came.

RP: And where was your uncle?

GI: He was in Vacaville, and I guess he was quite an entrepreneur. He had grocery stores in Oakland and in Vacaville or something. And so...

RP: Pretty well-established.

GI: Yeah, he sounded like he was well-established.

RP: What was his name?

GI: Uramoto. (...) And later, he went on into Nevada, and he owned a cleaner's in Carson City. So during the war, a lot of people -- because people in Nevada didn't have to go to camp -- they went to his place and he taught them the cleaning business.

RP: That's interesting because I think that's what Art's family was involved in.

GI: I know. I said, everybody must have been cleaners, you know. Because his family had a cleaning business, too.

RP: In Carson City.

GI: And, in fact, this uncle that, he was my great-uncle, but he had a cleaner's in Carson City. And his wife's sister, they had a cleaning business in Reno, you know. So it's interesting how they had these little businesses. They were all cleaning.

RP: So your father came over here, and you mentioned that he was involved with a gambling establishment?

GI: [Laughs] My father, they all tell me this story about how, I kind of think he was about sixteen or eighteen when he came here. And he went to work one day in the fields like all the other ones did, and he came back and he said he was never gonna do that again. [Laughs] And so they said he didn't do that. He got into gambling. And he wasn't where he just gambled, he had a gambling establishment.

RP: He ran a...

GI: He ran a gambling place.

RP: And this was in Vacaville?

GI: No. Well, you know, later, I never knew he had one in Vacaville, but I ran into this older cousin. He said, "Oh, yeah, your dad had a gambling place in Vacaville." I said, "Oh, I never knew that," and I said, "I thought he had a gambling place in Lodi during grape season, and he had one in Monterey during the fishing season." He said, "Oh, he also had one in Vacaville." So he kind of moved, I mean, during this season he went here, and during that season he went, and then he must have had this other one. I never knew about that one.

RP: So he'd kind of follow the seasonal migrations and patterns.

GI: Uh-huh, yeah.

RP: And would he cater to Isseis?

GI: Yeah, they were these bachelor men who followed the harvest, you know, and did things. And I never liked it. I just felt, "Well, how come he can't be like other people and have a regular job?" you know. And one time, I guess my mother told the Buddhist minister's wife, and she came to talk to me and she says, "You know, you shouldn't be embarrassed that your father's a gambler." And I said, "Well, why not?" And she says, "Well, you know all these older bachelor people," she says, "they have to have a place go to in their spare time." And she said, "And if they went to a Chinese place, the money would just go." But she says, "If they come to your father's place, he donates back to the church and the kenjinkais." So she says, "It stays in our neighborhood." So she made it sound like it was okay, you know. [Laughs] But I still didn't think it was right. 'Cause I said, "Everybody else's fathers are gardeners, or they worked in the, on the ranches," and I said, "Why does he have to have a business like that?'

RP: She really put it in a positive light.

GI: Well, she did it. And then I thought, "Well, I guess I should look at it in a different light." Didn't seem so, quite the way I had thought of it.

RP: And how old were you? Was this still going on when you were five or six years old?

GI: Yeah. When, before we went to camp, I know that he did that. And right after we came out of camp, he did that, too. So he always had a gambling business.

RP: And I'm not too educated on gambling laws and that type of thing, but he never ran afoul of the law?

GI: No, I don't know how they did it. I mean, I guess...

RP: Maybe a little payoff.

GI: I don't know that, you know. Well, I don't know if they were even aware of things like that. You know, like in your own community, if you did this thing.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.