<Begin Segment 24>

TI: Okay, so I'm gonna switch gears. I want to find out about your father and reestablishing the farming, so what was going on in that arena?

NA: Okay. So for couple of years, I think, it's before he went back into farming, and partly, I guess, he was trying to, well, although he had enough means and to survive the three years and he was able to draw money out of the bank, keep the house up, all, he started back, I think, just, I'm not sure what work he got into, but I know eventually he was able to get a car. And I don't know if that's because we had the money to get a used car -- it was a used car -- but we had a car. And he also, I think, that's a little bit fuzzy to me, but I think it was more like day work or something like that, but I know that eventually when he decided he's got to get back into farming, I guess he had to, he interfaced with the market people again and they were willing to support him or give him seed money, and so I know that the first time, at least when the kids got, were able to ride in the passenger car with my dad and my uncle and his youngest son and my brother Gene and myself, we went up to Mendocino and it was my first car trip as, that age, going back to Mendocino. And I know that we camped out in the redwood forest, 'cause you go through this beautiful forest area, that night, both going up there and seeing the land and coming back, we camped out there.

TI: In terms of the timing, it's right about the time your grandmother also died? Is that...

NA: This, yeah, this is probably coming up towards, she died when, forty...

TI: You said about ten or so.

NA: Yeah, so it was '47, '48.

TI: '47, '48?

NA: February 8, '48. February 7, '48. Yeah, so it was probably just around that time when they were going, and before she passed away that they were trying to start to think about this.

TI: Okay.

NA: My mom, during that time, also went back to Madame Clara's to pick up some, to do some work, but, so because Grandma was home, and so primarily she went. And I knew that there were times that Dad'd be home and we'd ride the car to Madame Clara's and I'd have to go up to the door, ring it, and go in, fetch Mom among all these gowns and all and come on out. Like going through a wardrobe area and coming out. So there's that kind of thing. Around --

TI: So before you talk more about your dad and doing that...

NA: There was one thing that, yeah, that I wanted to share, is because it's kind of a more, something I found when I was helping him kind of clear some of his stuff after Mom had passed on in '91. I came across this certificate and the certificate was addressed to him, and it's all in Japanese, but it's one of these very ornate like thing with a stamp and all, and I see the signature at the bottom is Keisaburo Koda, and I know who that is. He's the big rice king, right? And so I go like, wow, okay, so what's Koda's signature here and it's signed to you, so I wanted that story. So we were having, I guess, a birthday celebration at Golden Gate Park, so I took this oral history, taped it, and he says, "Ah, that stuff." So he said, "Well, this had to do with getting the rights of citizenship." And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, you know that we couldn't get citizens if you weren't born in the United States, and so there's a lot of things that we couldn't do and immigration was stopped and all that." And says, yeah. And he says, "So there was a, they were trying to get enough money so we could support lobbying to pass a bill." So I said, "What's the bill's name, Dad?" And he goes, "Walter-McCarran Act." I go like, "You know, I remember this when I was real little, 'cause is that the time that you and Hikido-san and Sawada-san and you'd be around the table, but you guys would all be dressed up and then you'd go off in your car and then later on you'd come back by yourself?" I mean, we kind of knew that. I don't remember what was told to us, why, what Dad was doing there. I don't remember, but just remembering that much and then seeing the certificate and now he's telling me the story.

So he fully told me the story, which is that apparently among the Isseis they were going to also help to overturn this. Now, to me this was a real part of history that I never heard of, and because usually lobbying and all that is given to the English-speaking group and that made it happen, right? But here it is and it was Dad's, so I asked him, "How was this organized?" And he said, "Well," and I asked him, it was throughout California or what, and he said, well, he doesn't know about how, whether it went to Southern California or where, whatever, but certainly Koda-san is from Central California, but he's more attached to being a Northern California leader. And he said, so it's a group of Isseis that really wanted to support the endeavor to ensure that this law passed with their own rights, right to become citizens. So the way he explained it was that they took San Francisco, there was a number of them involved and they were all mainly Japanese-speaking, I don't know if there was any Niseis involved, but they cut San Francisco into quads and then looked into to see who lived in this quad, and then they made a list of every known Japanese, and if they weren't in the directory, just try to ask anybody living, you know, "Do you know of any Nihonjin?" And my, since my dad had, the only one, apparently, that had a car, he was assigned the largest quad, and that was the Nihonmachi to the outlining Golden Gate Park to the Golden Gate Bridge area. And so it was this kind of concentrated area that these three, at least I remember three, maybe four men would go out and canvas the neighborhood. And I said, "So where'd you get all the names?" He says, "Don't you remember all the newspapers had Japanese directories?" And sure enough, the Nichi Bei or Hokubei, they would have these directories of businesses, but also people, where they lived. They did that from before the war as well, and so they used that as their, to identify where people lived. Most of the time they would try to call them to make sure that they could drop by and sometimes it was cold call apparently, but for most time they would try to hit about three to four houses a night. If I, thinking about night, we kind of stay up pretty late, but in those days people don't stay up that late and main transportation was streetcars or buses or cable cars if you don't have a car, and so this was the kind of activity my dad was engaged in. He says, "I couldn't do it all the time." He says, "I couldn't do it all the time because I also had to, to check out," but he really participated in that. He says, "Yeah, I, we don't need this certificate." He kind of brushed it off, but to me it was like, what is this?

TI: Well, and what did they do? Were they, they would meet with each one, were they...

NA: And ask for support and kifu. "If you donate even fifty cents or whatever you could, because we need to pay for our lobbyist to insure that we are able to apply for citizenship."

TI: Well, so during this time the JACL would say that they were doing a lot to, to get citizenship for the Isseis. When they were raising money, was this somehow aligned with that, or was this a totally separate effort?

NA: My dad could not, he could not, I asked the same question and he says, "I don't know what the ins and out was, but this was a necessary thing that had to do and if I could help," he wanted to help and the organization that he was within was under Keisaburo Koda, right? It wasn't JACL. And, and it was mainly hitting the Japanese-speaking population so that the Isseis could, I guess, hindsight, is yeah, so the Isseis really wanted, it's self help, as well. It isn't like somebody doing it for you. And it was an active movement kind of thing. And this is what I get so excited about, is that that is a part of history that we have to understand. We always think about, okay, the poor Isseis and all that, but you think about it, look at all the Japanese association before the war. I mean, they can't do it, or even the strawberry industry where, where, what is it? It's six Issei growers and six Irish growers getting together and forming this kind of cooperative. But they got that kind of sensibility to do things and they're not this precious people that, for a long time, people put on pedestals almost. I remember how delicate seemed to be the feelings about the Isseis because they were disappearing by the time the Niseis were really taking over community after the war. And part of it is because I had the Japanese language ability, even as a teenager, at somebody's wedding and, and all the -- not teenager, I guess I was, you know, whenever somebody's wedding -- all the Isseis would be in one room and they'd be singing and the younger Niseis and all would be in other parts, and the sentiment is, oh, isn't that nice? They're having a wonderful time singing songs about, must be about remembering old homes and all. And I would giggle to myself. Man, they're singing raunchy songs. You, you listen to the words, you're like, what are we gonna, I mean, even "Tanko Bushi," you translate the song, okay, the moon's going behind the chimney, come on out, we could go behind the chimney stock. Stuff like that. And so there's that kind of thing that was also implied, but to me, to find out my father and the certificate just opened up a whole different area. Now, I haven't, I don't know anyone who's done research into this further, if there's any document left behind this. All of that is, I don't know. It's just that one piece of paper, which the museum has.

TI: And so your father, so he was active, like a community organizer in San Francisco, and, and...

NA: He would say no. [Laughs] He would not, but look at, just being a social person, able to organize kids to go out and play. Yeah, he had that.

TI: Well I mean, every evening going out and meeting with people and talking, that sounds like community organizing to me.

NA: To me, too, but my father would say, "No, I don't do that kind of thing."

TI: Interesting.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.