<Begin Segment 6>

JC: Okay. So then you came back to Portland and started working in the retail. Tell me about your own family, your kids. What is your family like?

SN: Well, let's see. Of course, we grew up, the whole family grew up in Portland, and I have two younger brothers, and my second brother was in the army longer. He was taken in, and he went into the language division that is the interpreter and so on, was sent to the Philippines, and my other brother was gone. He went to school, and he was too young to be in the army. What is the particular you want to know? I mean, I thought I talked to you about my father and his business.

JC: Actually, I think I didn't ask that question very well. But I'm glad you told me that you had these two brothers. What I was actually asking about is now and your wife have come back here and you're starting a family. Who is your family, your kids?

SN: Oh, my own kids. All right.

JC: Yeah, your own children.

SN: I have three boys. Larry, who was in our business for quite a while until we closed up the business called Import Plaza. He was running that business, and then after that, Ron became a physician. He went to Oregon medical school or OHSU and became a physician. He works out at Portland Clinic, and Vern, the youngest brother, youngest son is here working.

JC: With the family business?

SN: Yeah, the business.

JC: You have a decided lack of females in your family.

SN: Huh?

JC: You have almost no females in your family.

SN: No daughters.

JC: No daughters, no sisters.

SN: No daughters, no sisters, right, right. That's true. Whether that is good or bad, I don't think it's good though, really. I really think that, you know, there should be a girl in the family somewhere along the line because on my father's side, on my father's side, there were just three boys. He had two younger brothers and that's it, no daughter.

JC: So the family name --

SN: But on my, Mary's side, of course, there were daughters. There were, let's see, my wife came from a family with eight children, a big family. Ours was small, three is small. With eight, there were four boys and four girls. And my wife had to take care of the youngest one. They're fourteen years apart from the oldest to the youngest, and they lived on the farm until the evacuation came. They didn't go back to farming.

JC: Did not go back to farming?

SN: Right. They had leased the land. They did not own the land. As you know, the Japanese aliens cannot own land anywhere in the United States.

JC: Until --

SN: 1952.

JC: Where was your wife's farm?

SN: Calexico.

JC: Calexico?

SN: Yeah. Calexico is right across from Mexicali right on the border.

JC: Right on the border.

SN: Yes. You've heard of "Mexicali Rose" song, that's it.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.