<Begin Segment 38>

SN: And then I'd like to skip over real quickly to your resettlement in Idaho. Before, earlier in the interview you stated, I think you said twenty-two, I think you said twenty-five to thirty families in the Bellevue area before the internment occurred. To the best of, do you know approximately how many families returned to the Bellevue area?

SH: How many...

SN: How many families returned to the Bellevue area? Do you know that off the top of your head? I thought you might know... because you have such strong ties there.

SH: I don't know, really. I couldn't give a close enough figure. There are somebody in Bellevue that you could call...

SN: Okay.

SH: ... and just call and ask, and probably get... Akira would be one that did go back. Mitsuko should know.

AI: Okay.

SH Mitsuko should know anybody that went back, sorta get an idea.

SN: Okay. And, I think that you've, you made a reference earlier about how you went back, and that your property that you had kept on the farm, that someone said they had purchased from the government, did you initially have plans to move back to the Washington area?

SH: Yes.

SN: And what eventually caused you to resettle in Idaho?

SH: Because there was nothing to come back to after everything that I had was gone. To start over from scratch was too much work, not so much work as money. Didn't have any money after the length of time in camp. And I had a chance to start farming on a much better, bigger scale, a different type of farming. But that opportunity was always there in Idaho, once they let us out of camp. If I came back, when I came back to Bellevue and that man didn't show me a government bill of sale for everything I owned, I probably would have... if the house was empty, I could have. The property was owned by another Japanese family, man, he was a single man, he owned it. And the rent was cheap, you imagine 10 acres for $300 a year, it was just like a gift. I probably would have started back again. But, not having anything to go back to... and my wife's sister being out there and telling you you could start out, come live with us, and all that, well we, which I did. I worked for them for a year, to learn the type of farming, which was much different than in Bellevue.

SN: How is it different?

SH: So much bigger, so much different kind of crops. No, that was the main difference, different types of crops and different size. I could see there was more opportunity if I wanted to farm out there.

SN: And you were farming berries again?

SH: I did raise some berries again, but no, I wouldn't have raised berries so much as, you could even... there was a little different way of farming and that's how I got started farming. There's a term called sharecropping. You're probably not familiar with it here, but in my case, I put up my know-how and my labor against the farmer's ground, and he furnished the water, paid the taxes. So that's what he furnished and I furnished my labor. He was actually furnishing more because the land was worth more than a salary, at that time for working on a farm. 'Course, he probably knew I was a little bit better than an ordinary laborer, let's say... imported labor. But he was putting up quite a bit, by the time he paid the value of the land, and the taxes, and everything, and my labor, but I did that for four years, got the know-how.

SN: Were there other Japanese Americans who were farming in that area?

SH: Oh yes.

SN: And how did the general population treat the farmers?

SH: There for a while there were, like I said earlier, they were a little worried. They were getting too many, there weren't very many. There were just very few. Born and raised there, and they were well-accepted by their community there. Then when an influx of a lot of people went out there to work, and if they stayed there, they thought that maybe they'd get too many Japanese out there, they gonna... and they didn't know us evacuees. But they thought that maybe a concentration of Japanese in Nampa or in Caldwell, there might be some adverse reaction to it. So, some of 'em were worried right away. But, it was actually not necessary, and there wasn't that much of a concentration. But you could say that there was a lot in the Ontario, Snake River region, because they didn't have any, and all of a sudden there was a lot of people out there. Their Citizens League membership is two hundred plus, it was bigger than that at one time. And if they had a chapter there before that there would have been two. So you see, there was a concentration there. The reason they went there in Ontario so much was there was a more land available, bigger places. But they were well-received by the townsfolk, the people that were there, the Caucasian families accepted them so well. So everybody went there. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone. There were some areas that they didn't exactly reject you, but they weren't too happy to have too many Japanese Americans coming to farm or work. But Ontario, possibly because of the mayor at the time, and their congressman, they were understanding. And that's one reason why...

SN: And, Ontario is in eastern Oregon?

SH: Eastern Oregon. You say Oregon, it's right on the border. The only difference is... the separation of Ontario, Oregon and Idaho is the river, the Snake River, that's the boundary line of it. You go 1, you go 1 mile and you're in Idaho, you go 1 mile the other way and you're in Oregon. But that's the main reason.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.