Densho Digital Archive - George Morihiro Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

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MA: I'm curious about what, how Fife had changed during the war years, and when you returned to Fife, what kind of changes did you see in terms of the community?

GM: Well, actually, there were very little changes, as far as Fife is concerned. The, Fife was still a farm area and it hadn't taken any big changes. Out towards the Tacoma area, there were more changes there because of the shipyards and things like that.

MA: What types of things?

GM: Shipyards and lot of commercial buildings going up. Fife goes right out to the tide flats, and then the Seattle limit, and today, you know, it's quite a big area back there. And, of course, more businesses come in since then, but it's only been lately that it's really grown.

MA: But when you returned from, from the war, you saw that most people were able to retain their farms and their homes?

GM: Oh, yeah. Everything looked like it was about the same, but as far as the Japanese was concerned, their problem was getting started again, but the big problem was where do they sell their product. And their product, their vegetable, there was a sort of a clause or agreement in Tacoma among the farmers and everybody in that business of farming and markets and things, and the, the white people in big markets had all agreed that when the Japanese come back, that they will not buy from the Japanese. And so when I worked, I stayed at my brother-in-law's place, and worked for him, he was a produce man. He bought from the farmers, but he had to find somebody to sell it to, also. And that's where the trouble was at the beginning. Now, my brother-in-law, Jimmy Kinoshita, was quite a famous guy around there, around the valley there, well-known and everything. And one of his good friends was a Sumner man called Mr. Orton, and Mr. Orton owned a big daffodil farm in Sumner. And when Jimmy came back to Fife -- he got there before I got back. He went to all the markets, and the markets said that, "Jimmy, sorry, Jimmy, but we agreed that we wouldn't buy from the Japanese."

MA: What did he do?

GM: And so... well, Jimmy went along with it, but he went to Mr. Orton, because Mr. Orton had this big daffodil farm, the biggest in the area. And Orton said, "Jimmy, I'm going to give you the exclusive on all my daffodils." And Jimmy went back to these markets and asked them, "Where are you going to get your daffodils," because he's got the exclusive on Orton's daffodil. And funny thing happened, because all the markets who like Jimmy, said, "Jimmy, that's good enough for me." He says, "I'm going to buy it from you." And one by one he got his markets back in Tacoma, and he also had a run that went around the Olympic Peninsula, and his home itself had a big warehouse for that kind of thing that was there before. So he didn't have to build anything up, but he started out with... when he got these markets, that meant that he could buy from the local farmers.

MA: Did that happen to other Nisei farmers, or people involved in produce? That initially they were barred from selling in the markets, but gradually were they able to, to start over again?

GM: Well, Jimmy started this out in Tacoma, and the, once you break the ice, then, yes, other people could get into the same type of business, but there weren't too many people competing against that. Blackie Fujita and he had his produce business. There was a couple more guys, but most of the farmers did have a place to get rid of their produce. And this was very important in that very beginning. I don't think a lot of people realize that, what Jimmy did for the valley.