<Begin Segment 10>

RP: You said your father owned, or operated a store --

HN: Yes.

RP: -- for ten years?

HN: A grocery store, right.

RP: In east L.A.?

HN: East L.A. right.

RP: Uh-huh. Was it a store that he purchased from somebody or did he...

HN: I think he started it on his own.

RP: He started it on his own?

HN: Yeah, we had a house in east L.A. He built this little building in front of the house which was a store. And it was a grocery store for the neighborhood.

RP: A little mom and pop store?

HN: Yeah, and he used to give credit to all the Mexican people that never paid him. [Laughs] So he kinda supported the neighborhood a little bit. So he never got rich. He was always doing things for other people.

RP: He never got rich but he learned Spanish anyway?

HN: Oh yeah, he was fluent in Spanish and English. My mother was, too, Spanish and English, and Japanese.

RP: Did you work in the store when you were growing up?

HN: No, but I just used to eat all the goods in there, the goodies, the candies and the potato chips.

RP: So no wonder he didn't make much money.

HN: Uh-huh. 'Cause I was only what, thirteen when... I was only eleven when we left the store and went to farming. So I didn't work in the store.

RP: Did your brother work there?

HN: He worked in the store a little bit but not that much either 'cause he's five years, be sixteen when he went, when we went to north Hollywood to start farming. He graduated high school then he went to work in a market on a produce stand as a produce display man. And that was his job that he had after graduating high school.

RP: Did your, do you remember the name of your dad's store?

HN: I don't think he had a name. Just a store in east L.A. right down in...

RP: Where was it located?

HN: On Camulos and Lanfranco. Right off the corner, a block from Roosevelt high school.

RP: Well that's a, that's centrally located.

HN: Yeah. That's where we lived, too.

RP: Your house...

HN: The house was right behind the store.

RP: And did you rent that house or own it?

HN: No, my dad owned the house and the store.

RP: And the store.

HN: The whole bit so he sold that when we leased the farm and bought all the equipment in north Hollywood.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.