<Begin Segment 8>

BF: 'Cause your parents were, were farmers and you had mentioned earlier that it was a tough existence.

GH: Yeah, yeah.

BF: Family farms, kind of working together as a co-op.

GH: The co-op attitude and morale and so on, they did more sharing. So that while it was difficult, the men were there sharing with that. They weren't living like a king and the others suffering. They all suffered. They shared more.

BF: Was this fairly unusual? 'Cause I know that the area that your parents lived in -- this was the Auburn valley...

GH: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

BF: ...there were quite a few Japanese farms.

GH: Yeah.

BF: It was a big immigration...

GH: That's right.

BF: ...area.

GH: That's right.

BF: But was this small co-op, was that fairly unusual at that time?

GH: Yeah, it was very unusual. They did have co-ops where brothers ran a dairy, for example. And dairy, dairies could be run with some private family activities, because they could take turns on weekends. Certain weekends off they can go off to a picnic, or go off to town. But it was very hard for a single family to run a dairy. And if the kids weren't interested in carrying on, they had to sell 'cause there's no family takeover. In the sugar beet areas, they were able to move in 'cause Scandinavians and Ukrainians, farmers, and so on, who did the sugar beet areas, earlier immigrants, they were moving in to the industrialization that was spreading...

BF: Oh, uh-huh.

GH: ...in the wake of World War II. And so farming became available to them and a lot of 'em took over and just stayed on. And place like Ontario, Oregon, were greatly due to, development there was due to the Japanese that stayed. And so, and a lot of the Japanese that stayed were community-minded people. They, they developed that community, not only industrially but socially too. So, the attitude there is much better than in, for example a town about 8 miles north, Weiser, Idaho where my parents were. I remember just visiting there. There was a little more discrimination. There was a pool club, pool hall you know. And there was one Japanese family that had a kid in high school age, and he was allowed in as an exception. No non-whites. So the rest of us who came weren't invited there.

BF: And this is postwar World War II...

GH: Yeah...

BF: ...when your parents resettled there.

GH: ...yeah. During and postwar. And they moved up to Spokane eventually.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.