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MN: You mentioned that your father hired some Mexican workers. On average, how many workers, when you were doing, like, germination, how many workers would come and help?

MT: Well, when they were covering it like that, he'd have to have about eight, ten people. Because you got to cover it up fast. You can't have it take a long time. Then my mother and father, they were both out there working, too. So you got about twelve, fourteen people working out at one time. So that's why I feel sorry for my mother. She had to do all that, and then she had to come home and then cook. It's not easy for a woman, but that's the way they used to treat the women.

MN: So your parents, did they speak Spanish?

MT: My father spoke quite a bit. As a matter of fact, when I was five and I had to go to school, I went to kindergarten, I didn't know English, not very much, anyway. So they kept me in kindergarten two years. [Laughs] They said that, "You have to learn English before you can go to first grade," so I had to stay two years in kindergarten.

MN: So what language did you learn first?

MT: Well, you learn Japanese first, 'cause your parents was always telling you what to do. But when I was five, I spoke mostly Spanish. I was very fluent in Spanish, 'cause I was playing with them twenty-four hours a day almost. Eating at their place, playing with them.

MN: So you had a lot of Mexican kids as your playmates.

MT: Oh, yes. But at that time, only thing you're doing is playing with the Mexican kids. But then as you start growing up, though, they can't get their education over here, they have to stay in Mexico. So you gradually start forgetting your Spanish. But I had a hard time learning English.

MN: You mentioned that a lot of people would come over the border to help work. How did you get along with the immigration people?

MT: The immigrations are very nice. As a matter of fact, whenever they come around, you (gave) cantaloupes, the immigration officers come and, "Hey, take 'em home, eat." We used to give 'em cantaloupes, tomatoes, cabbage, whatever we got growing, if they want some, we give it to them. Because the immigration officers were very nice. As a matter of fact, one of the first revolvers that I shot was from an immigration revolver. He let us use it. "Yeah, sure, but be sure you aim it over there against the dirt bank so that the bullet don't glance up." And we had to shoot it, that was a lot of fun for us, anyway. We were, at that time, it was about, I would say about ten at least when I first fired a gun. It sort of shocks you because the recoil from the gun, and it goes upward, so you try to aim it down. They don't want the bullet to go somewhere and hit somebody.

MN: I know a lot of the farmers had guns. Did your father have a gun?

MT: Oh, yes. We had 410s, bullets don't go too far. It's like a shotgun, the bullets are very small. So we had a 410. We had a .22, but then we didn't use the .22 too much because it goes too far. Only thing we were using the 410 is to shoot out on forty acres or fifty acre field, and you don't want it to go into the neighbors too far.

MN: Like did your father also go out -- did you go with your father to go hunting?

MT: No, we'd never go hunting. Like I say, they tried to keep us away from guns. They didn't want us to have too much guns anyway. Some of these people, I understand, had sort of like an old World War I army rifle. I know one family had, it's a 30-30 rifle, and the bullet goes too far. I don't know why he ever bought that kind. But my father only just bought a .22 rifle and a 410 rifle, but no pistols. Why, I don't know. Pistols more fun.

MN: You shared with us a story about how your father, when you were farming way out in the desert, he hired a hakujin man...

MT: To plow it? Yeah. The disk to plow three feet, because he heard that the devilgrass roots go down at least three feet. And this guy here thought he could cheat my father, he only went down two and a half or less. And my father went out there into the field and he measured it with a yardstick, and he told the guy, "No, you didn't go down as deep as I wanted you to." So he says, "I want you to go down and dig it to three feet." And he was gonna attack my dad. I picked up a shovel handle, my father just stood there, and he started coming up with that, and he reached to his back pocket. And the guy said, "Oh, you got a pistol in your pocket?" and he went out and went out to plow it as deep as he's supposed to. But actually, my father only had a wrench in his back pocket.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.