Densho Digital Archive - Mary Suzuki Ichino Interview I (denshovh-imary-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: What about, you mentioned Nisei Week. What do you recall about going, going down to Little Tokyo and attending that? You said that you danced.

MI: Yeah, they called it ondo.

RP: Ondo dancing?

MI: Ondo, O-N-D-O. It was street dance.

RP: What was that like for you? Right out there, a lot of people.

MI: It was fun. See, those were different times. You know, it's at night that you had to go to practice. And we'd go into this parking lot. We took the streetcar. Today you would never ever think of doing that. You know, taking off in the dark of night to go to a parking lot to practice this street dance. I mean, you'd have to have an escort or you'd go by car. But no, we didn't do that. We were much more carefree then, I think. And of course they had the ondo and then they had the parades. And that was sort of like a social event, you know, for the Japanese community. And part of it was commercial.

RP: In what way?

MI: Well, as the crowd gathered, then the stores, you know, they did business. To elect the queen, if you bought merchandise out of a certain store you got a ticket. And that ticket gave you the right to vote. So it doesn't necessarily have to have been a popularity vote. It was the number of votes you got and the vote was connected to that darn ticket. So my husband's sister, Margaret, she was always in that race for the queen. Somebody would submit her name. But when it came to the really nitty-gritty where you needed the real votes, well that was it. You know, 'cause... so there is some commercialism involved in that. It's interesting. And yet it's funny because a lot of those queens were from Maryknoll. I go, hmm. So, interesting. Well, we did have a Japanese Chamber of Commerce you know.

RP: In Little Tokyo?

MI: Yeah. You didn't know about that?

RP: I think I've heard about that, yeah.

MI: Yeah there is, there was one. But this is how that was all started.

RP: That was probably, the whole Nisei Week was promoted through them.

MI: I'm not sure whether it was through them or they were part of it or something like that. Yeah.

RP: Do you remember other trips down to Little Tokyo, shopping trips or...

MI: Yeah, there was one place called Matsu-no-sushi. And they had the best sushi. It's just like everybody went there on the weekend to get their sushi so that they'd go on a picnic. You never went anywhere else. You go to Matsu-no-sushi. And then Fugetsu-Do, I don't know whether you've read that they're a hundred years old, and they make Japanese pastries. And so we'd go to there.