Masaji “Harry” and Shigeko Ides were married shortly before the start of World War II. During the war they were sent to internment camps in California, Arkansas, and Texas. In the 1950s, they established a nursery at 3295 Mt. Diablo Boulevard. Dawn and her three older sisters were raised in a house on the same property. In this interview she reminiscences on what it was like to grow up in Lafayette at that time. The nursery business is still in operation today.
Full Transcript Below:
Ryan McKinley (R): This is an interview with Ms. Dawn Eames in the Group study room
one at the Saint Mary’s College of California Library located in Moraga California. The date is March 4, 2014. The time is 5:00pm and the interviewer is Ryan McKinley.
R: When were you born?
Dawn Sumiyo Ide Eames (D): August 21, 1950. Five years after World War II
R: Ok, where were you born?
D: In Berkeley, California
R: Did you grown up in Berkeley or did you move quickly to this area [Lafayette] after that?
D: No, actually my parents came to Lafayette after they were in Walnut Creek in 1950, so it was several months after I was born.
R: So you were born in Berkeley and they moved to Walnut Creek or they were living in Walnut Creek?
D: They were living in Walnut Creek, correct.
R: Ok and they moved down to Lafayette.
D: Correct and they started a [plant] nursery business
R: A nursery business ok. That leads into my next question, what are you parents named and what did they do when you were growing up?
D: Harry and Shigeko Ide, I, D, E. which is also German [name] but they’re Japanese Americans. They started a nursery business originally my Dad was a landscaper cause that was all they could get after the war due to the discrimination so they opened the nursery. With the help of a very wealthy lady built the house at the back of the nursery property and of course pay back the cost of the nursery to the lady.
R: If you remember where was the nursery in Lafayette?
D: It’s 3295 Mt. Diablo Blvd.
R: Right on the main street.
D: Yes.
R: And they did that your whole time growing up, up until they retired.
D: Yes.
R: Can you tell me a little bit about what you remember of your neighborhood growing up? The house you lived in things like that.
D: Well the small, I think it was 800-900 square foot house. Which was based on some military architectural plan with a flat roof. It housed the six of us I had three older sisters and my parents, in that house. Because we lived in the back of the nursery we had no playmates we grew up very close together as kids. We went to the local elementary school all the way up from I went to Springhill School, MH Stanley Intermediate school at the time and then Acalanes, and then went off to college.
R: Ok, so where you lived was it a very diverse neighborhood? Were there a lot of different people around?
D: No it was a business, it was a business
R: Business area
D: Yes, business area it was all commercial.
R: ok, ok commercial and how do you think that’s changed as you see Lafayette now?
D: oh, a lot more, a lot busier. At the time there were about I believe 22,000 when I was growing up and now I guess there are really about 28,000. But it seems quite busy and part of the problem I guess is because of how they’ve developed downtown core area where they’ve put in a lot of landscaping, and median strips, and sidewalks, so it’s not as quaint as when I grew up.
R: Ok, growing up do you remember things you did to entertain yourself was it just you and your sisters mainly or were there neighborhood friends?
D: Very few, we were always told to study, study and before you do anything else review your studies. Education was paramount. Gosh, it wasn’t until maybe high school that we were able to really go out with friends and even with that it was very restricted. We were the only Japanese basically or any people of color growing up in Lafayette, so everybody knew my parents. That was Harry’s Nursery and you didn’t do anything to tarnish, you know, the name or the business.
R: Could you tell me a little bit more about your elementary school time and what you remember about the school?
D: It was a long time ago [laughs]. What’s nice about having grown up in Lafayette is we–I still keep in touch with the people I grew up with from kindergarten basically. Because a lot of the parents still lived there even after we went off to college and then came back. So some of the families own the homes still that the parents have left. In elementary school I don’t recall playing all that much it was a big deal to go to the sixth grade, there was like an after school party at somebody’s house but that was about it.
R: Ok, do you remember anything about teachers that you had?
D: In elementary school or generally that stood out?
R: Generally or in elementary either or.
D: Miss Agajohn (spelling uncertain), was my kindergarten teacher and I remember going to the zoo with the class and getting spit on by the monkey but that’s it.
R: Have you been back to the elementary school since you left?
D: No.
R: Are you able to describe anything that you remember from the elementary school, like the way it was laid out or if they had a mural?
D: They’ve changed it since, but I recall I was very good at the bars where you would get up on it and swing backward [laughs] with your knee, one knee or both knees. The rings, I was good at kickball but I nothing much.
R: Ok, what about high school?
D: High school. I was pretty shy until senior year. I guess partly because my family was raised in Lafayette that everybody knew my Dad. I ran for Secretary of the senior class and I got that, so I was not well know but well liked I guess, enough to get a position. That was pretty eye opening for me.
R: Do you remember specific classmates, friends, teachers, that you went to high school with and left an impression that come to your memory now?
D: I had a very small core group of friends and I still keep in touch with them till this day. My husband and I went to school together since Stanley [Intermediate] School, where I first met him. But we didn’t meet and get married until 25 years later. But we still keep in touch with some of our friends from way back.
R: Can you think of any specific friends?
D: By name?
R: yeah if you want to.
D: Yeah Sally Morris was my kindergarten friend who is now my sister in law. I introduced her to her husband who is my husband’s younger brother. The Eames family also grew up since kindergarten there so a lot of our family members my next older sister knows and went to school with my husband’s sister. It was nice to get married we have the same anniversary and [Dawn and her Husband Bill have] the same exact birth date six minutes apart he was born in Oakland and I was born in Berkeley. Both families moved Lafayette in 1950. That’s how we kind of kept in touch because we were very close friends in high school. He was basically my good friend way back then and now he’s my best friend and husband.
R: That’s great.
D: Yeah it’s fun. We’ve had, I think one class reunion for Acalanes 1968 graduation year at our house, but we’ve had several since then. I’m still part of the group that tries to get people together at El Charro in Lafayette there.
R: About how big was your high school graduating class?
D: About 325.
R: Are there any teachers you remember, principal specific events from high school that really stood out for you?
D: The teacher that was kind of influential to me was Miss H, or Miss Hamburger, who was my modern dance teacher who was there since 1948 when the school opened. My two older, two of my three older sisters were also modern dance and you had to try out and be in the performing art at Christmas, “Acalanes Musance” it was called. It had music and dance together performance. I was in chorus with Mr. Hansen he was very influential also, in the sense of discipline and always being on time. Performing because I was rather shy but by my senior year, my sister ahead of me had also been the class secretary so I said, “Well, if she can do that, then I can do that.” I kind of followed in her footsteps, not academically but otherwise. [Back to your question] Mr. Hansen and Miss Hamburger probably were most influential as far as teachers that I recall. Mr. Glans [spelling unknown] was a Spanish teacher of mine as well as Mr. Hernandez in high school. I can speak Spanish to this day. My husband speaks it fluently so he helps keep me up on it, which is nice.
[People from high school] I just had a core group of girlfriends Anne Collister, her mom still lives in Lafayette we keep in touch. Cory Hollister her parents used to live in Lafayette they’re both gone. Maris Emery her parents lived in Lafayette till they died. That was pretty much my core group of friends that I still keep in touch with.
R: Do you remember what their families did? What their parents did in Lafayette?
D: Anne Collister’s dad was a doctor, Maris [Emery’s] dad I don’t recall at the time. Sally Morris’s dad was a teacher in Oakland.
R: Have you been back to the high school since you’ve graduated?
D: Miss Hamburger would come back every year to hold a dance workshop. All of her students from all the years would get together but when she died I stopped going even though there were several [more workshops] after her. Other than that I just mainly go if we have a reunion thing, but that was early on.
R: Miss Hamburger do you know if she retired shortly after you graduated or quite a bit, number of years after?
D: Quite a number of years she was pretty old.
R: And then she still came back and did these annual courses?
D: Yes from back east from New York. Every year, dance was her life.
R: And those went on until quite recently?
D: Yes probably within the last ten years [year of interview is 2014]
R: Wow.
D: Quite a legacy. She used to dance with Isadora Duncan. I [may be] forgetting the name but very famous modern dance pioneer.
R: Yes I know who you’re talking about. Do you remember activities you did in high school? Such as pep rallies things like that.
D: I tried out for yell leader against my parents, or without my parents knowing it because I knew they wouldn’t allow me to do it. But of course I didn’t make it. I think I went to maybe one home coming game the whole time because we weren’t allowed to go out at night. I remember going over to sleepovers very rarely. One time when I went with Anne Collister on an overnight we went to TP somebody’s house and I was scared stiff. All I did was I took one piece of toilet paper and stick it on a bush and I went back to the car because I was afraid. Everybody knew, I was the only Asian or person of color in the town. They knew it would be Harry [Ide’s] daughter so I didn’t do anything to tarnish the name.
R: I’m curious what was it like being the only person of color in this whole town and for your family?
D: The next oldest sister and I didn’t experience too much discrimination. The only time I recall was being in line at the Park Theatre and it was dark and somebody said, “Ching Chong Chinaman,” to me. It didn’t really relate to me because I’m Japanese and that was their ignorance. We were raised with very good self-esteem and my parents said after the war, “You have to speak English.” We never learned Japanese growing up so that we would be able to be accepted and assimilated into the community.
R: Curious about your parents, are they both originally from Japan or are they first generation Americans?
D: They’re both born here [in America]. My dad is called akibei, which is born [in USA] but raised in Japan. He was there until age thirteen or fourteen and then came back [to USA] and never went back [to Japan]. He came back here with no English basically but he had a thriving business and made it. My mom was born in Stockton and raised in America. Her parents [Dawn’s grandparents] came here first generation. [My mom] is called nisei, which is second generation and I’m third generation and my kids are fourth generation, which are yonsei.
R: Do you know much about your grandparents on either side?
D: My dad’s father died in Mexico City when he went to see what happened to my dad’s sister who had died. Evidently he had drunk the same water from a huge tank that she drank from that had a dead body in it. Both of them died in Mexico City, I never met them. My dad’s mother was in Japan the entire time and I never met her. I didn’t go back to Japan until 1986 and just his one older sister was alive at that time. My mom’s parents, when I was growing up we’d only see them every summer and they only spoke Japanese. So I couldn’t communicate with them.
R: Your mom’s parents came from Japan every summer to visit you?
D: No we went to visit them in Stockton every year.
R: Oh they lived in Stockton.
D: Yes. They owned a grocery store in Stockton, that’s what [my mom’s] parents did.
R: Was the desire to come for the American dream, to have their children born in America?
D: It’s the “streets were paved with gold.” Basically for a better opportunity. My grandfather came [to America] in the early 1900s and he made three trips here from Japan. I was surprised when I researched a little bit I really should research more. It took two weeks to get here by ship, at the time not under cruise conditions.
R: Do you the reason for, after your father was born, taking him back to Japan?
D: That is common, evidentially. His parents came over for better opportunity. They had my dad and shipped [him] back through a “baby broker” to learn the culture, and then they come back [to California from Japan].
R: You said your father came back [to California] around the age of thirteen, was that to go to high school?
D: He was a houseboy in Berkley on Euclid Ave. Years later I drove him by the house and he said, “Yeah that’s the house.” He used to sneak into the house when he’d be out late at night. I never got to speak with the people that he was the houseboy to. He used to run away a lot from his uncle who was the caretaker of the Shadelands Ranch in Concord. [My dad] would run away to LA and then the uncle would go and bring him back to the Bay Area.
R: When [your father returned] he went to live with the uncle in Concord?
D: I think so. The uncle and [my father’s] youngest sister are buried in Concord at the cemetery that’s the oldest in the county [my parents are there as well]. Each plot is separate where you own the plot and they had tried to move all the bodies at one time but they [were unable] because everybody owns their own plot out there. It had the founding fathers of the city of Concord so politically they can’t touch it to move the bodies to Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Lafayette.
R: Do you know much about your mom growing up in Stockton?
D: I remember her saying that she didn’t like Filipinos. In the grocery store these Filipino fellows who only came over to get money to ship back to their families. She’d hand them money and they’d try to touch her hand. She hated that so she was very discriminating toward Filipinos. At one time in college I was dating a Filipino and I kind of hid it from them for a while. I was basically [exiled] for a while. My dad said, “They would never come to my wedding [if to a Filipino].” They didn’t come to my college graduation at UC Davis. He said [at the time], “your children would never be welcome in our house.” I said, “This is my life and this is the way I have to lead it.” They accepted him later and my dad actually apologized to me. [My dad said] “I’m sorry I treated you like that.” I told him, “You had to do what you had to do and I had to do what I had to do at the time.” That’s kind of how he raised us, if you’re right, you’re right and you have to do what’s right.
R: The dislike for the Filipinos was just from working at the grocery store and her experiences she had with whoever came in?
D: I imagine it went back to the war also. In the Philippines the Japanese did not have a good history there during the war.
R: Your mother grew up in Stockton, how did she meet your father?
D: It was an arranged marriage.
R: Oh, ok.
D: She went through some college and then went to Sacramento to work for the State of California in the DMV. Her mother in Stockton said, “this fellow,” my dad. “He wants to meet you or see you.” A baishkunin, which is a go-between, hooked them up. My mom never wanted to marry my father because he was eight years older. They still got married because her father told her, “this man [Dawn’s father] will never lie.” [My dad] was a very upstanding citizen and very religious he was Catholic but my mom was raised Buddhist. We were raised Buddhist because her mother [Dawn’s grandmother] was still alive and my dad said, “go ahead and raise the four girls Buddhist.”
R: So the go-between person had told your father there is this woman in Sacramento are you interested in seeing this woman and he said ok and it went from there?
D: Yes. [My dad] observed [my mom] in a classroom because she was teaching Japanese language at the Stockton Church. It was arranged and they got married right before the war. They had to go to Reno. They had to get permission from the war agency to go get married in Reno. When they went back to Stockton they were sent off to camp, Concentration Camp.
R: You said you mother was teaching at the church. Was that Japanese classes for Caucasian people?
D: No, it was probably all Japanese at the time. Now the Oakland Buddhist church that I go to occasionally has all mixed races there that are Buddhist.
R: They got married and the war started.
D: it hit and they were all put into camp at Tule Lake first. Then my dad was shipped away to Rohwer, Arkansas and Crystal City, Texas. Various places because he was an activist. He refused to sign anything that said, “I’m disloyal to the United States,” because he was a citizen.
R: When you say activist you mean he was protesting the war?
D: No, he said it wasn’t right but they had to go under guns. All the Japanese were told to sign a piece of paper that said, “You are loyal to the United States.” He said, “Of course I am [loyal] I don’t need to sign anything.” He was also treasurer of a group in camp. They felt he was going to be a traitor of some sort and cause problems. They shipped him away from my mother. My mother had two babies in camp, my two oldest sisters. [My parents] later got reparations in 1986 of $20,000.00 each. But when they were let out of the camps at the end of the war, they were let out in New Jersey. With $20.00 they were told to, “you find your way back to West Coast where you were born and raised.”
R: When they came back all their property was gone?
D: Yes. My dad though was smart enough to give property to somebody, a Caucasian, who held it for him. Then when he came back that how he was able to have some money to start a business and to build a house and get the nursery property [in Lafayette]. At the time the property was about $4,000.00 and he paid for it and now it’s exorbitant.
R: Is the nursery still there?
D: Yes. It is right by the Lafayette hotel, three doors down from the hotel. It is now changed over to Mt. Diablo Nursery and Garden. The fellow that owns the business now bought it from my parents. He used to work for my dad and went to Saint Mary’s College. It’s great that someone who has a good work ethic and respected my dad and vice versa.
R: This is going a little back but you said your dad was living with the uncle, did he come to Saint Mary’s before he met your mother?
D: No, he had very little college. He was very self read, a self made man. I know he wanted to be an editor of a newspaper in LA at one time. I recall he read a lot of philosophy. I think he went to high school in Berkley. He was part of the chemistry society or some honor society he did pretty well for not knowing English when he came here.
R: You said your mother did some college?
D: She did some college but then started working for the State of California. I think most likely in clerical but I don’t really know. Then she worked side by side with my dad at the nursery.
R: Let me go back to the camps. They went into the camps and your mother had one child. Then she was pregnant again when they moved your father away?
D: [Dawn confirms]
R: She was by herself or with others?
D: Her parents were with her in camp. They let her out to have the two children and then put back in camp once she had the children. She said at the time they had no anesthetics at all, it was painful. It took them two weeks to get [my mother and the babies] out of the hospital and back to the camps. The two older sisters were born in camp and then my other sister and I were born after camp in 1948 and 1950.
R: Your oldest sister what is her name and what did she end up doing?
D: Tokiko was a schoolteacher. She got married at age 22 and went with her husband to the Elise [spelling uncertain] Islands to do field work in anthropology. She basically supported him. She got divorced 22 years later because he ended up going into gambling while they lived in Las Vegas. She got her teaching credentials and retired as a schoolteacher within [the past] six years.
R: And then your second oldest sister?
D: She was an artist. She used to hand design material for different companies. I remember she sent material that she had hand dyed to New York [to make] string bikinis [Dawn laughs]. I don’t know much else about how and what she did. She lived in LA all her life after college. She met her husband at UC Berkley. She died of cancer about six years ago.
Pat, [my last sister], is a pharmacist. She married a pharmacist out of University of the Pacific in Stockton. She lives in Moraga. She used to work for Longs, which is now CVS, for 35 years. Now she works for the State of California in San Francisco [for] the MediCal program.
R: All the sisters stayed in Lafayette until they went off to college?
D: Right.
R: After high school, where did you go to college?
D: I went to UC Davis for the first year. I then went to Santa Barbara, because I broke up with a boyfriend from Lafayette, for one year. Then I went back to Davis and graduated [with a degree] in Cultural Anthropology. I worked for the State of California for thirteen and a half years. Then I married Patrick [Eames] after he and the same fellow that I broke up with looked me up. [My ex-boyfriend] lives in Moraga now a street away from [Patrick and me]. His parents still live in Lafayette. I’ve been married for 28 years to Patrick.
R: Your husband, you said you met him when you were much younger.
D: [We were] twelve years old.
R: Did you keep in contact all that time?
D: Yes, because of our same birth date. We were also very close friends in high school.
R: After high school he went to Davis as well?
D: No he worked at his dad’s Ace Hardware in Oakland. He has nine kids in his family, five brothers and four sisters. Four of the five brothers worked [at one time] at the parents’ business in Oakland. Now the youngest brother and sister own that store. Patrick and his oldest brother opened an Ace Hardware in Richmond. His other brother [who is married to] Sally my friend since kindergarten, owns a store in Pleasant Hill. [The family runs] three hardware stores in the area.
R: [Your husband] was born in Lafayette as well?
D: In Oakland and moved to Lafayette in 1950.
R: His parents were running the hardware store that whole time?
D: Yes.
R: Are they originally from the Oakland area?
D: I think his dad was born in San Francisco and then raised in Oakland, as was his mother. Around the Lake Merritt area.
On a different topic, I do remember when we moved from the nursery house. We stayed at the nursery till I was about ten or twelve years old. Then we moved to a house on the hill behind the nursery. That must have been about junior high time when we moved up to that house. [The people that owned that property] were customers [of the nursery], the Clarks long time Lafayette people also.
R: We may have skipped over that as well. I know I asked about elementary and high school. What about your middle school junior high experiences?
D: I didn’t like PE and running. Mrs. Burkehead was the teacher. I remember when Kennedy was shot. [I was] coming out of a [classroom] and Shannon Kilmartin, one of the friends I still keep in touch with, said “the President’s been shot.” I started crying, it was sad but I didn’t realize the repercussions or the impact of it. Seeing everybody else crying and going to church at Saint Perpetua in Lafayette. I’m not catholic, although my dad was, I didn’t feel it appropriate to go.
Stanley Middle School. Mr. Hernandez [Spanish teacher], he was in middle school and that’s where I learned my Spanish best. Then Mr. Glands was [my Spanish teacher] in high school. There were some interesting teachers [at Stanley Middle School]. My husband mentioned to me, Mrs. Yamaguchi said to the class, “I hate you, I hate you,” to all these specific students by name. Mr. Noriega, he was quite a character. Mr. Hernandez was kind of weird too but very good instructor of Spanish because I know my conjugations and everything till this day. I recall some students that were “behavior problems” and now they’re making six-digit salaries. We keep in touch with them because of the reunions.
R: The people you went to elementary school with were the same students all the way through high school?
D: Yes, in fact at one of our reunions we had a good twenty kids or so who had been together since Springhill, the elementary school. That all grew up all the way through. The families I’m sure socialized also [growing up]. My parents never socialized with anybody. They were very intent in keeping our family, I guess cloistered. Safe and respectable.
R: Do you think that had anything to do with the interment, making sure you keep to your family?
D: It’s a Japanese cultural thing, I think. To save face and don’t embarrass your family. I’m sure it would have effect the [nursery] business, so we were model children and never did anything bad.
R: Growing up do you remember events that the town would have? I know you said you were very cloistered but events like annual Christmas parades or anything like that?
D: I don’t think there were, like they have the Art and Wine Festival nowadays. I was able to go to the Walnut Festival in Walnut Creek, but that was only in high school one or two times. I don’t think Lafayette was that active, activity wise, that I recall. Maybe I was oblivious to it though [Dawn laughs].
R: Do you think other people in Lafayette at that time were as cloistered as you? Everyone keeping to themselves?
D: No I think it was a pretty close community because everybody knew all the different families. [For instance] the Rossi’s that owned a furniture shop next to my parents, I knew them. I grew up and keep in touch with the son still. Maybe the other parents socialized with the other kids but we we’re allowed to. My parents were not real social people. They were open seven days a week and worked long hours. They closed [early] on Thursdays only because the deliveries didn’t come then. They didn’t have much time, they were tired all the time. I do recall in elementary school I was so upset because [my parents] were too tired to go to the PTA meeting where your class got points for all the parents coming. I was crying because they were too tired to go. Now I realize why they couldn’t go. They worked hard.
R: At the nursery did they service the entire town or was it just for private homes?
D: It was a retail nursery. There was another bigger nursery, which is now Orchard Nursery and run by my sister’s classmate, at the other end of town. I remember my dad saying we had to keep the prices lower otherwise people won’t buy from us because we’re Japanese. The other nursery [I think] did much better. But we did ok. My parents were able to put all four of us through college. In fact my dad declined a scholarship for my sister. She got a B of A award, math award, AP classes. He declined it because he said someone else could use it more.
R: That was your next oldest sister?
D: Yes. [Pat] who is the pharmacist.
R: When did your parents pass the nursery on to the person who owns it now?
D: Five years ago.
R: Your parents have passed away?
D: Yes my dad passed away in 1999 and my mom in 2009. In 2010 was when the state gave me [the nursery] property and my sister has my parents’ house.
R: After you went off to college what was your decision to come back to the Lamornida area?
D: My parents. I was single up until age 35. I had re-met Patrick and my other ex-boyfriend on the same Christmas I had come home for the holidays. I started dated [Patrick] for two years and I was able to get a work transfer from Sacramento to Emeryville. I worked for about eight months then got pregnant and got married and changed jobs all in one year [Dawn laughs]. It was a great year all positive stress.
R: You live in Moraga now, is that correct?
D: Yes.
R: Where you live now is where you moved after you got married?
D: [Patrick] had a house in Hercules and I had a house in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento. When we got married we initially stayed there but that was his ex-wife’s house. I said let’s move closer to both our parents in Lafayette. We looked in Lafayette and Orinda because it was closer to his work in Richmond but couldn’t find anything. We opened it up to Moraga. Sold both our houses and were able to afford moving here.
R: Your children grew up in Moraga then?
D: Yes.
R: Do they have any interaction with the generations?
D: Yes they do, which I great. I told them they’ve gone through all the same schools up through high school. They both went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. My son is in biology and after graduate school is now working at the Salk Institute in San Diego. He is a scientist in stem cell research. My daughter graduated in economics worked for Price Waterhouse, but is now with an accounting firm in San Francisco. She works out of the Walnut Creek Office. My daughter lived in San Francisco for about a year. She always said we see so many people from Campolino High School. I always told them when I was raising them, like my parents did to me, that everybody knows everybody in this town so be on the up and up. They’ve even traveled the world and said they run into people from Campolido High School while traveling. I don’t know if they can afford to live [in Lamorinda] after we’re gone. Hopefully they’ll have the same upbringing in a grounded and settled feeling. We’ve had our house [in Moraga] for 28 years. I don’t plan on moving and they both want the house [Dawn laughs] we’ll see. My son has said we want to extend the deck all the way across the property. We have a lot that goes down. There’s a four car garage down below that has all my husband’s gardening equipment. [My son says] can we convert that into a living space so we can live here? I say fine after we’re gone, you can pay for it too [Dawn laughs].
R: He’s planning ahead.
D: Oh yes. He wants to eventually move back from San Diego up here. I hope it’s soon [Dawn laughs].
R: Do you think it’s something about the small community that makes residents want to return after they’ve seen the world as you’ve said?
D: The small community, the upbringing, the culture, the discipline, and norms that we grew up with from way back. I know I was raised very strictly by my dad and my mom was the quiet type. She was the hard one. If she said no I would go to my dad and he would usually say yes and explain [himself]. I think because we were raised very [well]. We know what’s right and wrong, what’s black and white. Social manners are so important. I told my kids, you can be the smartest kid but unless you have your social manners, graces, and saying please and thank you, and be chivalrous and not chauvinistic, you’ll never get anywhere. My husband has said I treat my daughter like a princess so when she gets married they’ll treat her like a princess as well. Sure enough the people she has dated are wonderful. I told my son growing up I said no matter how old you get I want you to be able to kiss me in public because I’m your mother. And he does. He hugs my husband. It’s important to show that. Etiquette and what’s right and wrong, which is I think being lost unfortunately.
R: Do your kids have much interaction with their grandparents either your parents or your husband’s parents?
D: More so with my husband’s parents because my husband has so many siblings and there are 22 cousins. [My kids] are very close with all their cousins. We spent a lot of the holidays with them rather than my side because I only had the one sister here. I visited [my parents] all throughout the week and year. I helped them with all their properties and business stuff. I told my parents I was going to spend time with his side of the family [for holidays]. My sister here and my sister in LA didn’t really socialize with us. It remained more my husband’s side.
R: Do your children know all this history that we’ve been talking about? About your parents and how they came here and the internment period?
D: Probably not [Dawn laughs]. Which is nice to have this and hopefully a little of mine that I am relating to them. I appreciate the opportunity.
To add in earlier (she said at the very end though).
D: When my dad got ill for six months with pleurisy he was in a sanatorium in San Jose. The Bruzoni family and the Marchant family were very good to my mom and day. They made sure my dad was not going to lose his property.
R: When was that?
D: I was about four or five years old.
R: In the 1950s then.
D: We are very indebted to these two families.
R: The Bruzonis and the Marchants were fellow business people?
D: They were [my dad’s] customers. The Marchants built homes and they would give the landscaping jobs to my dad. After hours my dad would draw up landscaping plans for people to plant certain plants. Hopefully they would buy the plants from him because he did it for free. He would suggest different gardeners to help plant them. The Bruzonis were the land owners, they own a lot of land in the Lamorinda area. They are very good people.
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