Frank Sumida Interview in LA

A couple of weeks ago I was in LA and through an introduction from Barbara Takei of the Tule Lake Committee, did a fascinating interview with Frank Sumida. Frank shared glimpses of the Japanese gangster element that was present in LA’s Little Tokyo before the war. He talked about how some of these gangsters noticed him as a teenage boy on the streets, and how he later met them in detention camps in Santa Anita and Santa Fe. These meetings eventually led Frank to help run gambling operations in both these camps. Tom Ikeda