Interviewee: Helen Sperber

Relationship to Nikkei gardeners: Her father is Koichi Tsunoda

Date: June 17, 2007

Location: Japanese American National Museum

Brief Summary: Helen Sperber reminisces about her experiences with her father, Koichi Tsunoda, a Nikkei gardener. She discusses the memories she has of watching her father work, and of helping her father work.

Transcript:
Hi, I’m talking about my dad, Koichi Tsunoda. He was in the Tule Lake relocation camp, where I was born. When we came back out here, he was a farmer, and then when we moved to Los Angeles, he became a gardener.

What I can remember is everyday my mom would make a lunch for him in his little lunchbox and packed his favorite food and he would take that into his pick-up truck and he would go gardening.

And what I remember the most is he worked early morning to late at night, and if he missed a day, if it rained, he had to come back and work on the weekends. He did this all the time. And, in the summer when I was out of school, we used to go sometimes with him, and some of his places were close by, so I would walk there and we would help him rake – do simple things like rake the grass and stuff like that.

And later on, after he did that he worked for the city, at the museum in Exposition Park at the rose garden. I just remember just going out with him and going into the truck and going to different places with him when I had the time. And, it was a really nice experience, we ate lunch together, and it was something I’ll remember for a long time.

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This interview was conducted as part of the Opening Day activities for the exhibition Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden.