<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So when you went back to regular school on Monday, was anything said about, about Pearl Harbor or anything?

HU: Not really. I don't remember, everything was just, went just as usual. And we were predominately Japanese students there, our class, so there wasn't any change at all. And then a short while later when they had the, the coast designated as a prohibited zone, there was a family from Monterey that moved in with our neighbor who was a relative of the people from Monterey, so that, that was kind of strange, something different. We said, oh, wow, what's going on here? But then they just blended in with our group.

TI: And something I remember, so originally your farm had twenty acres, but right before the war started, I think you mentioned how your brother had purchased another twenty acres, or the farm got larger?

HU: Yeah. He, he purchased twenty acres adjacent to our, our land because it was empty. There were a couple of parcel that were empty. There was one parcel that was empty in front, there was one in the back and there was one on the side, and he bought twenty acres on the side next to our, our vineyard. And that was couple years before the war started, and the way he was developing is he took three acres out of the twenty acres and he planted grapes. And the way he did it was he went to another farm where they had good crop of grapes and after they pruned it he picked up these cuttings and they, he, you cut the cuttings about that deep, I mean, that long and he buried it in the ground upside down. And by springtime there were roots sticking up from the branch and he planted those, and so he planted three acres of that and then grapes take several years before it matures, so during the meantime he planted strawberries around it. So while the grapes were growing he was getting a strawberry crop out of that, so when the war, so the, when the war started, by time of evacuation he had these grapes planted already and the strawberries were producing a pretty good crop and he was going to the next stage where he was developing another three acres, and that's when the war broke out.

TI: So the time the war breaks out, it sounds like the farm was, was doing quite well.

HU: Yeah, sort of.

TI: It was, it was sort of progressing, he was adding more acreage, so things were --

HU: He had some great dreams. He was telling me, "Shozo, you're gonna help me when you grow up." "Well, I don't know." [Laughs]

TI: Well, because yeah, I mean, all of a sudden he had forty acres. It'd have been good to have help. So eventually, so you mentioned how they had the initial exclusion zone on the coast, but eventually Florin was also affected. People started hearing that they would have to go, too.

HU: Yeah.

TI: What did your brother do with, with the farm?

HU: It was just rumors and for a while everybody thought, hey, it's just a restricted zone. We're gonna stay put. And some says we got to move and there were rumors back and forth, and so what everybody did in the area was they just continued, continued, say they'd start pruning it, after pruning they start plowing, and so by (the time) we had to leave before May 30th, (...) all the plowing and the cultivating was done. Only thing left (were) irrigation, irrigating and harvesting. And so when we left, we had the shipping company take over the, look over the farm and they would irrigate and they harvested the crop and whatever few dollars that was, that was net, they sent it to us while we were in Manzanar. And so... yeah, what were you gonna say?

TI: So the, this shipping company then sort of took care of the farm for you?

HU: Yeah. Not, not very well, but at least they irrigated and they harvested. Now, a lot of our neighbors, they were fortunate enough to have, to sort of lease it out to the hakujin people and they would look after, like -- I had a friend Sasai, they had somebody who was sort of looking after it. They were, they just leased it to the hakujin people and they, they got whatever they earned, but when they came back the farm was intact. They could just step in and take over. And of course, there were guys like, I had a friend Herb, (whose) house was just burned down to the ground, house, the tank house, the barn, everything. It was just flat, to the ground. There was another neighbor, Sasai, their barn was burned down to the ground, and they had a (Caterpillar tractor) in there and when I went there after the war and saw it, I mean, it was just like a war zone. You see this black, that tractor, it's black from fire and sitting on the concrete slab of the barn, and it was, oh my God, it was kind of horrible. And of course, during the war Japanese school building was burned down.

TI: And these were all, like, vandalized?

HU: Yeah, and we knew, we have a suspicion of who did it, but there's no evidence, so there's nothing we could do about it.

TI: And so after that initial harvest, so the shipping company irrigated and harvested the existing crops, so after that happened, who took care of the farm?

HU: That shipping company.

TI: So they, did they kind of lease it then? Did they lease the land?

HU: No, they sort of looked after it and they harvested the crop and whatever. Then we sort of, I guess he took, they took their share of the profit and sent us whatever that's left.

TI: But then for the next year's crop, did they plant and take care of things?

HU: No, just, just left it as it is, just irrigated and just harvested. (...) When the shipping company took over the crop wasn't up to the table grape quality, so they just sent it to winery, so they turned it into wine.

TI: Okay, and how about the house? Did anyone stay in the house?

HU: We boarded it up and we had a neighbor, hakujin friend, Mr. Barnaby (look after the place). We brought our car and some of the furniture to Mr. Barnaby's place and he sort of kept his eyes on the place for vandalism and things.

TI: Okay, and, and what were you thinking while all this was happening? What were your thoughts during this time?

HU: That's funny. I guess when you're twelve, thirteen years old you don't, you're not very much involved in politics and things, so it just, "Oh, jeez," it's... I mean, I mean, I didn't have any emotions or anything of that sort. I said, oh, I just took the news as it came along. It was mostly rumors, I think, but it was fun listening to them. You had, one day they're saying hey, we've got to move out, next, next day they were saying, oh, we could stay, but everybody just kept on working until the last day. They were just hopeful, and then also they figured, there was a rumor going on that we're gonna be away for just a few months. There's that hope and there's always that hope that you will return after a short time, and so it was just a temporary thing that we just, at least I took it as...

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.