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BT: Well, did most of the fishermen, the Issei fishermen, own their own boats, and what happened to those boats?

SM: In our case, see, they came out with the, just before the war, that aliens cannot own property, and that included fishing boats. And so what happened was my dad's boat, we had to put it under U.S. citizen's name. And, but my sister was not quite twenty-one at that time, so they put it under her name with a guardian who was a U.S. citizen over twenty-one. And it was under my sister's name.

BT: What kind of a boat was it?

SM: My dad had a 50-footer, I don't know what you call it. We did mostly bait fishing. But in the old days, they used to use nets, too.

TI: And then what happened to that boat?

SM: Well, after we, when we evacuated Terminal Island, we left it in care of the cannery. And, but we didn't know what'll happen after we... so we had a "For Sale" sign on it, and people used to come out to Buena Park to try to buy it, and we finally sold it.

TI: And do you recall how much you sold the boat for?

SM: We sold it for, I think it was $1,800.

TI: And how much would that boat be worth?

SM: At that time, it's hard to say. I don't know how much it would have been worth at that time, maybe twenty thousand. I don't know.

TI: So almost a ten cents on the dollar, less than ten cents on the dollar.

SM: Something like that, uh-huh.

TI: And who did you end up selling the boat to?

SM: Caucasian. And I don't know what the other people did. But my... well, eventual, my brother-in-laws, they had a boat, too, which was an 85-footer, or maybe a little bit larger. I don't know how they got around to keeping the boat, because they kept their boat.

TI: Well, I mean, when you sold the boat, what other options did you have, do you think? So you're in Buena Park, but the boat's down in the cannery, you didn't know what was going to happen...

SM: Well, we had no choice but to either sell it or have somebody take care of it.

TI: And so you really had, really, not very many options.

SM: No. Well, see, like in a bigger boat, I would say people would be willing to lease it or whatever to fish on it. And maybe that's what...

TN: He leased the boat out.

SM: Yeah, uh-huh.

TN: But the lessees, or people that leased it, built up all these bills on it. And so after the war, when they came out, the boat was drydocked, and he had to pay twenty thousand dollars to get the boat back.

SM: Yeah.

TI: Just because of all the debts and the leans on it. Okay, yeah. So, yeah...

SM: So in a smaller boat, it's not worth it to go through all that trouble to keep the boat. [Laughs]

TI: And so that must have been a lot of responsibility on your shoulders to have to figure that out. I mean, here was your family's livelihood, and you have to sell the boat. It must have been a pretty big...

SM: Well, you know, $1800 at that time was fairly good money. But eventually I lost it.

TI: We'll talk about that later, but during this time, did you have any conversations with, or correspondence with your father about where he was?

SM: Well, yeah. After, soon after they were taken to Bismarck, we found out they were there. And I imagine we corresponded through mail.

TI: But things like the decision to sell the boat or anything, who did you talk with about that?

SM: Well, it's my sister and I, and we were the ones that decided to sell the boat, you know.

TI: So your sister was now, I'm sorry, back from Japan? I thought she was in Japan.

SM: Oh, she was back from Japan before the... I think she came back in '39 or something like that.

TI: Okay, so you had your sister to talk about.

SM: Yeah.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.