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TI: So let's move on. That in about 1940, there was a big earthquake in the Imperial Valley. Can you describe that and where you were when that happened?

WY: We used to have earthquakes quite often there. And, but every year, every two years or so when we had to move because the lease ran out, each house was made just large enough to push on a truck and move it. So that's what we did, we pushed the... there would be two sliding grids from the ground to the truck, and the neighbors come over and everybody pushed that house, (an) out house, just the house, just to fit a truck. And we moved to the next place. And my mother would say, when we had the earthquake, my mother would say, "Don't worry. This thing will not fall down. It's used to being squeaked and pushed and squeaked and pushed." So that's what, but we did run out of the house (in an earthquake). And my mother had a blanket out there. My sister was old enough to have a boyfriend, but I noticed that they didn't lie down together, close together. The boyfriend and my brother lay down together. [Laughs] My sister and I lay down together.

TI: Oh, but that's interesting. Because of, so there were lots of earthquakes. And your house, I didn't realize this. So whenever you had to move every two or three years, it was like a mobile home or something.

WY: Yeah.

TI: I mean, you would just, the house would come with you. That's interesting. Going back to that two or three year lease, why were the leases so short?

WY: Well, I guess one of the things was that the earth had to be replenished, and they would, you know, they would plant alfalfa for two years. Even when we used to get into a new piece of land, move into a new piece of land, my father would have to order huge trucks of, I remember it was chicken manure, and then dump it in the ground, then caterpillar it, plow it. The earth was very infertile. Then every two or three years they would plant alfalfa.

TI: And what kind of crops did your father plant?

WY: He had tomatoes and cantaloupes and zucchinis. We called it Italian squash in those days. Oh, I hated that . It was tomatoes and squash, I hated squash, too, and zucchinis. That's the way I remember it. Now, other people... and then in our own garden we had Chinese peas and imo and nappa and daikon, stuff like that

TI: So going back to the 1940 earthquake, after that, your family then moved to Oceanside?

WY: It wasn't the earthquake. It was about the time of the earthquake, yes, it was, but it wasn't the earthquake that made us move. My father had a lettuce crop that was not even worth harvesting. And he met, he was in partnership with this one single guy, and they didn't even harvest it because it was just not worth it, and my father had to go find a job. It must have been very difficult for him, because we moved to Oceanside during the summer, where he could work as a laborer, and we stayed there until the war. My mother got a job in a Japanese boarding house. She cooked there and made the guys breakfast and packed their lunches, (made their suppers), the working people, these single guys. And then when they came home, came back to the boarding house, they took a bath or shower or whatever. Or bathtub, there was one bathtub. And then we built, she had the landlord build a bathtub, Japanese bathtub, and they would take (baths) in there.

TI: That's interesting. Going back to the lettuce harvest, so was this pretty prevalent throughout the Imperial Valley, that the farmers really took a beating that year? I mean, if your father had to just not harvest all that lettuce, it must have happened to other farmers, too? Do you recall?

TI: Yes, I think so, because a lot of 'em moved out of Imperial Valley that year, and I remember a whole family of them called Edos, with about ten, eight kids and a father and mother, had to do that, too. And then they were living in tents. And I was doing a schoolgirl job, working in a white family, taking care of the laundry and cleaning the house and all that. Because I was tired of the clothes I had to wear, that my mother, sometimes she would take things and turn 'em inside out because they'd be so faded from my sister's use. And then remake my clothes.

TI: Wow, so it's a whole different hand-me-down, where the hand-me-down, that she would have to reverse just...

WY: Yeah. And I remember she reversed (a) coat to do that, and it looked pretty good. Until I raised my hand to answer the teacher, and I saw where she had patched all this in here (under the arms). [Laughs] But that's the way it was.

TI: Oh, so you took another job just so you could buy clothes?

WY: Well, yeah, and tried to be independent. I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to get out of... it's a funny thing. I wanted to get out of the desert area. I told my brother, "I haven't decided, I don't want a cemetery plot." So what I want my daughter to do is take my urn -- 'cause I paid for that, I got my cremation paper -- and throw it out in the desert, and let me ride with the desert wind. And my brother says, "You know what? That's what I'm gonna do, too." I said, we just wanted to get out of there so badly, now we want to ride with the desert wind (forever after).

TI: And so you have fond memories of the desert?

WY: Well, now we do. Those days, we wanted to get out of there.

TI: Now, do you ever go back to the Imperial Valley?

WY: Once in a while. I went about two times, you know.

TI: And are there very many Japanese farmers left in the Imperial Valley?

WY: There's only one, I think, the Asamens'. See, they bought their farm when their eldest son came of age, and they were able to buy it under his name. So they do have property there. But most of us didn't have kids old enough, and if we did (have kids, we) didn't have the money. It was during the Depression.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.