Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Fred Y. Hoshiyama Interview
Narrator: Fred Y. Hoshiyama
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Culver City, California
Date: February 25, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-hfred_2-01-0005

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TI: So during that time when your father died, you were the oldest son.

FH: I was the eldest, yes.

TI: Did you feel any responsibility...

FH: Oh, Mother kept saying, "Now that Father's gone, you're the eldest, so you have to take charge." She kind of laid it on me. But I was a young kid yet, eight years or so, so I don't remember too much about it. But we kind of grew up, and we had a good, good life. We started working out in the farm at younger age because nobody else to help. And when you don't have a man on 40 forty acres, so we used to have people come in who are sharecroppers, families that come in to help us. And since we're not making much money, they didn't stay too long. [Laughs] They have to have their own families to take care of. But somehow we survived. One family, I remember, named Yagi, and Mr. George Yagi was a good athlete when he was younger, and he had George, and there was two or three girls and then two or three boys. They eventually stayed in Livingston after being a sharecropper, had nothing. And yet, little by little, they started re-leasing all the lands and they made money, and they are known as the "Sweet Potato King of Central Valley." They ship carloads -- not truckloads -- carloads of stuff out, all over the United States.

TI: So that was one way people could succeed. They would maybe...

FH: Oh, when they do succeed, they do good.

TI: But they could start as a sharecropper and then gradually build from there, to the point where they may lease land and then eventually own land?

FH: Yes. And so I tell folks that I was a dirt farmer, and people say, "What do you mean 'dirt farmer'? Farmers are all dirt farmers." Well, there's a difference. Do you know what the difference between dirt farming and farming?

TI: No.

FH: It means that your house that you live in is dirt. You don't even afford a hard floor. Not even a concrete. That's how poor dirt farmers are. But that's where we were.

TI: If your father had lived, what would have happened? I mean, he would have then farmed that 40 acres, and he would then...

FH: Yeah. Well, if he'd stayed like the rest of the people in Livingston, I say they're all millionaires right now, all the farmers, Livingston. It's worth ten thousand an acre, for sure. Ten thousand dollars an acre.

TI: And they were able to keep that land because they owned it.

FH: If they have it now, I mean, it's all on paper of course. But if my father stayed... but on the other hand, I would have been a different kind of a person. I don't know what I'd be doing, probably farming, and wouldn't be having electricity during the time I'm growing up. No electricity, no paved roads, all outhouses. That's why I say when I moved to San Francisco in 1929, it was like night and day, heaven and earth. I mean, it's just amazing.

TI: Going back to the farm, what kind of crops did, was on your land? What kind of crops did you grow?

FH: What kind of crops? Well, we had grapes, three, four different kinds of grapes, Thompson seedless, Malaga, which is a white grape and the red Malaga. Then they had, we had a couple special trees. We also had about 10 acres of orchard, apricots and plums. Mostly grapes. And there were raisin grapes as well as table grapes. And Tokay was one of the, at the time, very popular. It was a table grape, but also a very good wine. And Thompson, they were seedless, made good raisins. 'Cause Malaga was popular. And they had Cornetians -- I'm not pronouncing these right, but this was the Issei way of saying what the names were, and that's the way I remember. But those are the different kinds of grapes we had.

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