<Begin Segment 34>

RP: How long have you been living in Gardena, Tak?

TM: Huh?

RP: How long have you been living in Gardena?

TM: Gardena?

RP: Yeah.

TM: Forty-eight, forty-eight years. We came here in 1960.

RP: And what was the community like in 1960? Were there still farming --

TM: Oh, yeah. Not real lot. But they were still...

RP: Was it primarily a Japanese American community at that time, or...

TM: Yeah. There were quite a few, yeah, yeah.

RP: And how has that changed over the last forty-eight years?

TM: Oh, they all, they all moved out of Gardena. They, they went to Torrance, or out that way. Because the blacks are moving in so they move out. Yeah. Like the school, Gardena High School, nobody, I mean, none of the Japanese want to go to, send their kids there. That's how bad it is. And my kids all went there and it's not bad. They all got enough background to go to college. Two of 'em went to Santa Barbara, UC Santa Barbara. One went to Irvine, UC Irvine. And the other went to UC San Diego, and she went to SC. Yeah, she's a pharmacist, yeah. But now nobody will send their kids to Gardena High School anymore.

RP: Was that associated with, with issues about violence there or drugs?

TM: Oh, yeah, uh-huh.

RP: That kind of thing.

TM: Yeah. Not that much, well occasionally they do see.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright (c) 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.