<Begin Segment 12>
RP: This store that your, your father operated, did it also sell Japanese type food products?
HN: Not really. Mostly Mexican type foods. And my mother made Japanese food for us for from the stuff in the store but she never sold anything at the store that was Japanese that I can remember. In fact, we used to buy our tofu and our fresh fish from the fish man. The tofu man used to come by the store to sell it to us.
RP: Peddlers?
HN: Peddlers, yeah. They come in their cars and trucks.
RP: So did you grow up eating much Mexican food since you were in the community there?
HN: Did I what?
RP: Did you grow up eating much Mexican food?
HN: Oh, yeah. A lot of Mexican food, yes. Burritos, tamales... I like it very much, part of my diet even today.
RP: Do you remember some of the, in north Hollywood, do you recall some of the other Japanese American farming families around you there?
HN: The one that was real close to us is the Tabuchis. T-A-B-U-C-H-I. And there's also the Higeshiras and... Sakaguchis.
RP: Is that the Sakaguchi family...
HN: Bo Sakaguchi.
RP: Bo and Obo and...
HN: Yeah, Obo.
RP: Sanbo.
HN: Yeah, Sanbo.
RP: All the Bos.
HN: All the Bos.
RP: They were, they lived pretty close to you?
HN: A few miles, four or five miles.
RP: They were also farming, too?
HN: Oh yeah, they were all farmers, before the oldest one became a doctor they were all farmers, yeah.
RP: Were there, was there any type of Japanese section of north Hollywood? Stores or a community....
HN: They had a, I don't remember a Japanese community center. But I remember the Japanese used to get together for some kind of picnic once a year.
RP: In north Hollywood?
HN: In north Hollywood, yeah. And that's all I remember about north Hollywood. We were only there two years.
RP: Did you continue Japanese language school there?
HN: No, there was no Japanese language school there.
RP: There wasn't one.
HN: That, I didn't go.
<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.