I lived in a little town that at the time, seemed like a village. It was 1947. Monte Vista was a whole world to me, it was an entire universe.
My grandmother, Elisaida, was the matriarch of the family who made decisions large and small. The first to affect me was her decision that I’d live in the Manzanares family home on Sickles Street while my parents Tamaki Ishihara and Rizziero Manzanares began the journey to build a home for our new family.
I wanted, needed to know everything, to understand why things unfolded the way they did. For my family, there were never too many questions. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, everyone stopped to answer my questions, no matter how grand or inconsequential.
It was in our family home that my voracious appetite