<Begin Segment 8>

MN: Now when you were living at Trabuco Canyon, your mother one day showed you a Japanese flag she had brought from Japan. How did you feel when you saw this flag?

YK: Well, I felt kind of a affinity to it because I figure, well, we are Japanese, we're different from everybody else. And we used to send packages to her mother in Japan. In fact, we used to save gum wrappers and other tinfoil, for the war effort against China there. And so I felt sort of patriotic feelings toward it, and so I asked her if could show the flag to others and I went running around the farm showing everybody. They seemed to appreciate that, so then I thought, well, the cars passing by on the street should also see it, so I put it out there. But then later a hakujin man came and he was quite angry. "You better take that flag down or there's gonna be trouble." And my brother Hide just told him, "Oh, go away." And he says, "Well, you better at least put a Japanese flag, I mean, an American flag next to it." But seeing this man angry, I ran out and took the flag down, so he was satisfied.

MN: Now, when you were living in Trabuco Canyon, did your parents subscribe to any Nikkei newspapers?

YK: No, I don't recall any newspapers.

MN: And you're still getting a little older now. Beyond helping out feeding the chickens and getting the eggs, did you have to physically help out on the farm?

YK: Not really.

MN: Did your father and brother... I know your two brothers were helping out on the farm, or was it three brothers now?

YK: Three brothers.

MN: And your father were out there. Did they hire other workers?

YK: Oh, yes. We had a lot of Mexican workers to come pick strawberries and tomatoes and things.

MN: So you had a pretty big farm.

YK: Yeah, it was pretty big there.

MN: How many acres, any idea?

YK: I would say probably at least about twenty-five acres. That was a fair size, yeah.

MN: Now your mother, did she help out on the farm or was she too busy with the kids?

YK: Well, by then, of course, we were more grown up, so it was mainly she would help on the farm, particularly on the packing of the tomatoes and strawberries. And then she and my oldest sister Yo would then have to, of course, feed everybody. They were mainly cooking.

MN: Did your mother have a little separate Japanese vegetable garden?

YK: No, I don't recall. We just had a common, regular garden of carrots and things like that. Peas, beans.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.