<Begin Segment 19>

MN: Now I wanted to ask you a little bit about redress in the 1980s when that issue came up within the Japanese American community. Did you ever think that redress could ever be won?

MU: No, I didn't think it would be possible but I didn't really study into it. I was very naive at that time about something like redress. What happened to us happened to us, and we need to look forward, and so I did not have the interest and I didn't really study it, regretfully maybe. But the others did the job for all of us, right.

MN: Was your mother alive to receive the apology and the reparation money?

MU: No, she passed away in March of 1989. It was passed in... was it August of '88? Uh-huh.

MN: Now your family used a part of the redress money to build a memorial on your ranch?

MU: Yes, we did.

MN: Can you share with us how this idea came about and what this memorial looks like?

MU: I think my brother, Howard, the one that's the next in line, he had put much thought into that, how we could use my mother's redress money. I know one thing my mother always said on the ranch, you put the money back into your machinery, the shed or whatever, to improve, to gradually improve your business, which was the ranch, and not necessarily pile up whatever profits there might have been. I'm sure there wasn't too much profit anyway, but she would want it to go to improve. So I'm sure that thought came into my brother's mind too and I think the rest of us. He had the ranch then, he was carrying on, so if he said maybe we ought to use that money to, use it towards whatever equipment he needed or to expand, I'm sure I would have said, yes let's do that, that's the legacy my mother, my father left for us, for the family. But I think it was his idea and he presented it to us to have a little something to show this is a Twin Peaks Orchard, that's what it's called, Twin Peaks Orchard. There are two little knolls like in the ranch of the twenty acres, and so that's the name that I guess my father mother gave, Twin Peaks Orchard. And so he said, "Let's have something there to show that to build a... not just a plaque, but to build something there. And we all thought about it, my sister was of course still living at that time and my brother right above me, five of us were all still living and he presented these ideas to us. And he had good ideas.

MN: So what does this memorial look like?

MU: The plaque area, it has a relief face of my father and my mother, the plaque area. And it has "Twin Peaks Orchard" and the year, I can't quite recall the year that he had established the ranch on there. I can't remember if my mother and my father's names on there, I'm sure it is. You'll have to have Nakae on there, Yoshishika and Tomeo Nakae, and then it's quite high and it's put onto this, it's called sandstone, not concrete, it's called sandstone and I remember they said it has a beigy look to it. And the plaque is on there and then it's a garden area in front with a wall so high, because for picture we would sit on it. And my brother grew flowers and some shrubs there. And like I mentioned before the road, from the county road, the road of the ranch from there to the house it is quite a distance and when it's get nearer to the old house, where I was born, a newer home was built later. My brother and his wife built a new home on the top on the knoll, that's what it looks like, so as you drive in, you could see the plaque, the relief. And my sister helped get someone to do the relief of the picture taken from their wedding picture. Not exactly wedding picture, long ago they used to go the studio and they would borrow a hat and the suit, it's one of those. My father's sitting and my mother's standing. People have said, "How come Grandma's not sitting and Grandpa's standing?" But so it was taken from that photograph, and the fellow who made it did a good job. So when we drive in we see that and we're proud of that.

MN: Now this ranch, is it still in operation?

MU: Yes, my niece, that's my oldest brother's daughter, his only daughter and her husband and his stepdaughter and her husband are running the business there and they've expanded.

MN: So now it's in its third generation.

MU: Uh-huh. We feel and I feel very grateful and I'm always telling my niece and her husband and I tell him, "She can't do this without your help." But anyway we feel very thankful that she and her husband and my brother's stepdaughter and her husband is carrying on. But it is way out between Newcastle and Lincoln where there are hills, whereas I think of down the valley where the young children did not want to carry on the business, and so here comes the bulldozer and before you know it, supermarkets and the mall, down in the valley whereas where this ranch is, it's a ways from the two towns and it's quite hilly, but there are many mansions going up now, many mansions. And my brother would say, "I see more and more lights at night so that means more homes are being built." And I'd say well, the people who live in San Francisco they can afford it, they'll make a nice home on top of the hill, beautiful view, the air is fresh and all they have to do is their business on the computer. So that's a wonderful place for them to have a second or third home. But it's still quite wide open yet, but it's beautiful out there.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.