Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Henry Nishi Interview I
Narrator: Henry Nishi
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Santa Monica, California
Date: January 8, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-nhenry_2-01-0019

<Begin Segment 19>

RP: Henry, did your father, did your father raise any goldfish for any of his gardens?

HN: No, no.

RP: Or ponds? Which brings me to another question. Was your father associated with any other gardeners or landscapers in the area? The one person I'm specifically thinking of is Mr. Kado, the stonemason?

HN: Yeah?

RP: Ryozo Kado?

HN: Yes.

RP: Mr. Kado had a nursery on Wilshire Boulevard.

HN: Yes, yeah.

RP: And I think it was...

HN: In Santa Monica.

RP: Santa Monica, yeah. I think he, he primarily dealt with cactus and also had fish, water lilies that he put into gardens that he created. Did you...

HN: Yeah, that was his specialty. Yeah.

RP: Did, did your father and him ever hook up before the war?

HN: Oh, they were, they were very close friends. Yeah. Mr. Kado and my dad were very close friends. Yeah, and there was another, another small nursery called Westgate Nursery. It was, which was also on, on the west side of Veterans Administration property. And there was another, Kishi, that was on Wilshire Boulevard. It was a small nursery. Have you heard of Kishi?

RP: I think so. And of course there were nurseries on Sawtelle, too.

HN: Yeah, yeah there was nurseries on Sawtelle, yeah.

RP: So that, all that new development on the west side here was really fueling a lot of growth in the nursery business.

HN: Yeah, like Mr. Kado and Mr. Kishi, and the other, it was a small nursery on Wilshire, on west side... I can't think of his name, but he was one of the, he was a brother, brother to the person that was owner of Rafu Shimpo. What, what was the name of it?

RP: I'm just thinking of a couple other names of nurseries in Sawtelle.

HN: Oh, yeah.

RP: Hashimoto?

HN: Yeah.

RP: And Kageyama brothers?

HN: Oh yeah, yeah. Kageyama, yeah, yeah.

RP: I don't know of the person you're talking about.

KP: He started the Rafu Shimpo.

RP: He started the Rafu.

KP: Didn't we talk about that today? Someone...

RP: No, that was the judo dojo, it was called the Rafu.

HN: Oh, he was a good friend of mine. I can't think of his name.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.