Densho Digital Archive - Rose Niguma Interview (denshovh-nrose

<Begin Segment 9>

MR: What area of Portland did you grow up in?

RN: Oh, we grew up in different areas because my father moved, and I think mostly on the east side, northeast, north. But he started a business in Japantown when I was in seventh, eighth grade. I liked it very much. We went to Atkinson School where Legacy Center has my book that Dad, I gave it to them. The Chinese children from Chinatown and Japanese children from Japantown, they all converge into that school and studied there, and they had wonderful teachers. They're good students because their parents don't want anything less than an A or top grade.

MR: You said your father had a store in Hood River?

RN: What?

MR: You said your father had a store in Hood River?

RN: Yes. He had a store in Hood River with my uncle. My uncle had a store here, but it was two partners, but it failed. So he tried my brother, so they called it Niguma Brothers.

MR: And why did they sell that store?

RN: I have no idea, but I think Yasui bought them out or something happened. I don't know what it was.

MR: You mentioned that when you were with your mother, she had a little store. Was it a neighborhood store and where was it?

RN: No, no. It was a little store. It was in southeast area. But it was, started my father. He started various businesses. Every two years or so, he started them, and he had this store. So when he left, the store was there, so my mother could take over except my mother didn't know the buyers or anything, but she took over it, and it wasn't easy for her. But, especially during the Depression years. The neighbors, we have sometimes the potatoes, you sell potatoes. We didn't sell in small sack like now. It's 100 pound. So he sell 100 pounds of potatoes being in a gunny sack. They sort of sprout with the heat there, you know. So he's dumped it all in the back area and threw in the garbage because it began to sprout. When the potatoes began to sprout, he didn't know the potatoes are sweeter, taste better. My father didn't know that, he started, he has to get rid of them. He can't sell sprouted potato, so he had pile of them in the back. Then one of the neighbor man, my father is hard to get along with, you know, but one of the neighbors came, asked him if he could have some of the potatoes because he knows they're still edible, see. We ate rice. My mother, so my father said, no. So he asked him. So he gave this neighbor 100 pounds of these potatoes, so he could brought them home, and they were so happy because it's depression. It's nothing like depression now. That 1929 market crash, it's after that you see. So he asked him, and I was listening and I was hoping that my father assent because my father, sometimes he's moody, but he did. He gave him 100 pounds, and he was so happy. It will be their staple for a week or more, so he did that. That's how we made our living.

MR: Did you work in the store?

RN: I used to help them out. I did work. After my parents were separated, I went to work for a Japanese store. It was a grocery store by Japanese men. He started it. It was right on 23rd. And I worked there for quite a while, and we got along nicely. But this man was older than my father, and I was young yet. I was about twenty. He made passes at me. So I'd go up way up on the ladder, you know, like I'm working on the top shelf, so he can't, because I'm there and rearrange the can, did things like that. But finally I told my mother, I said, "I don't like any men older than my father making passes at me." I told her, and she understood, so she told me, well, leave it. So the money I was earning, I was giving to her so she could keep the store running, but I quit. I didn't like that at all. And he came back and ask me to return to work, but I didn't. My mother said I don't have to. Then I worked for another grocery store which is better than working as a housemaid, but another Japanese store, Japanese person running it. He and his wife had a little girl. She's about eight years old, very nice couple. And I think it was down there on Belmont Street somewhere way down there, and they're very nice to work for, and I get my meal in the afternoon, my lunch there. The wife had very nice meals for me. The little girl, she'd come home from school in the afternoon or something. She'd want to talk to me because she's the only child, so I talked to her. And then after lunch, I'd go back and help the customers. Those are the jobs I did to help my mother.

My sister went out, she's five years younger than I am, but she found work as a housemaid. That's the only thing that was open for us at that time. And she met very interesting people and she'd come back home and tell us about it. But she never gave any of her money to my mother. I was the only one that did. It didn't bother my mother. She had accepted it, and it did help her. But this nice couple, the wife became ill, and I think she was nearing forty. So I don't know what the ailment could be, could be beginning of cancer maybe, I don't know, but she had to go back to Japan, so they sold the store. She went back to Japan. She wanted to go back. She wanted to die there I think. She's very nice, very quiet, those two were a very nice couple, and the little girl was sweet, so I felt a little sad. And then another Nisei boy came and helped at the store also. The other one also Nisei helped. That's the kind of employment that was open to us. That's what I did to help my mother. Then other times when things like that happen, I returned and helped my mother run the store myself, helped her.