<Begin Segment 1>

TI: Okay, so John, we're gonna start, and I always start with the date of today's interview, so today's Wednesday, March 21, 2012, and we're in San Jose at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. And so, John, the first question is, tell me when your birthdate is.

JH: April the 2nd, 1918. There's a story behind this in that when my mother was in labor, my father called the doctor and the secretary and says, "April fool," and hung up. So that's why I was born on April the 2nd. Down the street there was a Japanese midwife, and she brought me to this earth. So I wasn't born a fool.

TI: But that's really true, that he said, "April Fools' Day," that...

JH: Yeah, that's true. And when I was with the Coronet Dance Club some of the officers were from the San Francisco Police Department, and when I said I was born in San Francisco, "What address?" He said, "Hey, that house is still there."

TI: Interesting. So what part of town in San Francisco?

JH: They call it Presidio Heights. In other words, it's on the shady side of the hill. Pacific Heights is where all the rich guys live, and then on the shady side where the workers live. [Laughs]

TI: Okay. So April 2nd...

JH: 1918.

TI: 1918, and in San Francisco, you were born. What was the name given to you at birth?

JH: The street?

TI: No, your name, what was the name they gave?

JH: Yoneo.

TI: Say it again.

JH: Yoneo, Y-O-N-E-O. That's my, see, there, here again, when we first went, yeah, on the first trip to Japan, you have to have a passport, so we went to the post, or the federal building, and I said, "My legal name is Yoneo Hayakawa, but I've been all my life John." "Oh," she says, "Put John Yoneo as your first name," and so that made it legal. So my passport says John Yoneo Hayakawa. And I'm glad about that because, who wants to be called Yoneo?

TI: And how old were you when you went to Japan?

JH: [Laughs] I was already a mature man. See, those things, well...

TI: Or how old were you, maybe?

JH: How old was I? You know, I've been in and out of the States so frequently, let's see...

TI: Was it before the war or after the war?

JH: After the war.

TI: After the war. And that's when you changed your name legally to John.

JH: Yeah, that's when I needed a passport. Because on a Mexican cruise or a Caribbean, all you need is a...

TI: Like a driver's license or --

JH: No, there's something simpler than that. Anyway, didn't need a passport, no. Even going, well, Alaska's United States, so...

TI: Well, how did, how did you get the name John? Who gave you that name?

JH: When I went, first went to kindergarten, I was going Yoneo, Yoneo, and somewhere along the line, in the upper grades, some teacher gave me the name John. Or maybe my dad did. Yeah, maybe my dad did. But I never, yeah, 'til I went into camp I was still Yoneo. In other words, when I registered for the draft and when I signed up for the evacuation, it was Yoneo.

TI: Okay. Good.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: Let's talk a little bit about your father. What was your father's name?

JH: Hayakawa Kaso, K-A-S-O.

TI: And where was he from?

JH: Fukuoka. You don't want to give the village, do you?

TI: If you know it.

JH: Yeah, Munakata-gun. Mu, M-U, na, N-A-K-A-T-A, gun. (...) I mean, Fukuoka ken, (prefecture), Munakata-gun village. That's enough.

TI: And what did your father's family do in Japan?

JH: They were wealthy farmers.

TI: So they owned quite a bit of land?

JH: Yeah, they had sharecroppers and the whole thing, 'til World War II, yes.

TI: Well, so why did your father come to America?

JH: He was a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, and when he got, not expelled, discharged he goes, he's a third, of the three brothers, youngest, he goes to his elders and says, "I want to go to Hawaii." And the elder says, "Yeah, you can go. But the ladies of the house have to hull the rice to make it white." His sister-in-law gave him a dirty look. [Laughs] They said, "We got to do extra work." Well anyway, he got passage with the hulled rice and then went to the port of Nagasaki. That was a deep water port way back in 1906, yeah, 1906. Because Tokyo and Yokohama were still primitive. The, Nagasaki was, the European trade, they'd come that way, Dutch and whatever.

TI: So he left in 1906, and where did he land in the United States?

JH: Well, the story is he went to Nagasaki. Naturally, you go ahead of time to get your papers straightened out and wait for the ship to come, and he met a man from another prefecture, Kurume -- well that's, you don't have to write it down -- his name was Omori. Now, down the road there's a connection. Well, he said, "Where you from?" Babababa. "So where you going?" "Honolulu." "I'm going to Honolulu too." So he says, "Let's be shipmates." So they got to Honolulu and they got a job in the lumber mill, sawing coconut logs into timber. And after two weeks of that Mr. Omori says, "Too hot, too physical labor. Let's go to San Francisco." And my dad says, "My sister-in-law gave me just enough money for Honolulu." So Mr. Omori says, "I'll loan you the money." So they came to San Francisco, and Mr. Omori went south county -- in other words, Coyote, Morgan Hill -- and my dad stayed in San Francisco. Because there was a demand in Alaska fish cannery, says you don't have to know anything, they'll teach you, so he went and he got the job of, in those days after the canned salmon comes out of the steamer you plug the hole with a dip of solder. That's what he was doing. Made good money, but he learned how to gamble, so he came back broke. [Laughs] So his distant relative in San Francisco said that, "You better go learn English." So this Methodist church had a Japanese-English class, and he became pretty proficient at it.

TI: He was in San Francisco 1906. Was he here during the earthquake?

JH: The earthquake was in April and he came in October.

TI: Okay, so after, afterwards.

JH: Yeah, after.

TI: Did he ever talk about what he saw? Was there still, like remnants --

JH: Wait, is it 1906 or 1903? Do you, well you're not a California?

TI: No, I'm, I think it was 1906, isn't it, the earthquake?

JH: '06? Well, you can correct it later. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, so maybe it was after, but he came after.

JH: Let's see, I don't think it, I can make it in sequence, but he learned English and then came to San Jose. There was a wealthy Fukuoka ken -- you know that the ken has a chain. There's one leader. Says, "I'm looking for a job," and then this Mr. Yasunaga, where Fuji Tower is now -- he used to own a trucking outfit, haul produce to San Francisco and Oakland -- "Yeah, there's an opening in the Gallagher Fruit Company on North San Jose. There's a lot of Fukuoka ken there." So he went, he worked there, I think about seven years. He's a good teamster. And he learned how to graft trees and so forth and so on.

TI: When you say he was a good teamster, you mean like a, was he a union person teamster?

JH: In those days you hitched a horse onto a buggy or a cart or a wagon. Well, on the wagon, then you haul fruit. And then if you have to plow in between the trees, then you plow.

TI: And that was called a teamster. That was the...

JH: Well, the modern terminology is teamster. It reverts back to driving horses, then the truck drivers became teamsters.

TI: Okay. I didn't know that. That's interesting.

JH: Let's see, smoke eater is a fireman, and... yeah, smoke eater is a fireman. Cat skinner is a Caterpillar driver, and, well, I can't think -- getting old now. [Laughs]

TI: No, that's good.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So let's talk a little bit about your mother. How did your father meet your mother?

JH: The elders in Japan, he was in this orchard work making good money -- no way to get to Japantown to gamble, so he's saving money -- the elders in Japan decided, "Hey, we can't leave him as a bachelor that long, so picture bride, huh?" And my dad sent his picture to Japan, and the family sent my mother's picture to my father and, "Yeah, I'll marry." So she came in 1917.

TI: And what's your mother, what was your mother's name?

JH: Her maiden name is, surname is Uchida, U-C-H-I-D-A, and her girl name is Kameno, K-A-M-E-N-O. She's from Fukuoka too.

TI: And was she about the same age as your father, or different?

JH: No. There was about, I'm making a guess, maybe ten years.

TI: So she's ten years younger.

JH: Yeah. And I guess they were compatible. They had a meeting of minds, and I was born in 1918. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, I was gonna say, you came, you came pretty quickly after that. What was your mother like? How would you describe her?

JH: Beg your pardon?

TI: How would you describe your mother? What was she like?

JH: She was, getting back to this picture bride, as the man with the picture of his bride, and the lady with the picture of the husband comes down the gangplank before they go to Angel Island for quarantine, my father told me this himself, as the ladies came down one guy saw his. "Ah, ugly. I don't want it." He beat it. And the poor lady had to be shipped back to Japan because there was no husband. That's the truth. That's one of the tragedies. And the other is, I was curious, maybe eight, nine years old, there's pictures in the Japanese paper about a lady and I say, "Dad, what's this?" He says, "Oh, this husband is looking for his wife. His wife ran away and so if you see this lady --" Well, nobody's gonna report that kind of thing. But that's the fact of life for the Japanese older generation.

TI: Yeah, no, I heard on the other side too, sometimes the women would come down and the men would sometimes send a different picture or a picture when they were younger, and so they would see them and they would be disappointed that they're marrying this old man or, or something else.

JH: Well, there's a fiction DVD, they call it Picture Bride, and the same situation. He's, he sent a picture of when he was young and she comes and, oh, they had a bad time. She wouldn't sleep with him and all that and this. But eventually they had a meeting of minds because he was patient. Well that, that's got nothing to do with the interview, though. [Laughs] But I agree, some of the ladies were very brokenhearted.

TI: So did you ever ask your mom how she felt when she met your father? Was she, was she...

JH: I think, well, my dad was a pretty good lookin' guy, and naturally, they married in the city and she's from a village, a progressive village, so I think she was happy. Otherwise I wouldn't be born, huh?

TI: Yeah. And so tell me a little bit about her. What was she like? I mean, what was her personality?

JH: I hate to say this, but she was a chatterbox. Tatatata. Nothing comes out. Oh god, drives me crazy. But that's the way she was. And I think I inherited that chatterbox. I think so.

TI: [Laughs] Well, how about your father? What was his personality?

JH: He was a very well-educated man, could read and write Japanese. You know the, not the katakana but the kanji? He, oh man, he was really educated. And naturally, he, being bilingual, after my mother came, the biggest demand was houseboys, washing windows, vacuuming floors. And then the biggest surprise for a male, Japanese male, is to see a naked Caucasian lady run and answer the telephone. Whoa. [Laughs]

TI: So your father would talk about that, or he, he...

JH: Yeah, he told me that. As they come acclimated to the city life, knows his way around, he knows more about the city than I do, what trolley to catch and go to get, all that stuff. And he became a call on butler, and they furnished the clothes. And the big party, and the man, the doorbell would ring and he'd answer and he'd go tell the lady of the house, "Mr. So-and-So's here," so forth and so on. Made good money.

TI: So this was after he got married he was doing this?

JH: Yeah.

TI: Okay. So he didn't work in the South Bay anymore. He was in the city?

JH: In between, actually. Vacuuming and washing windows and stuff like that. There was a tremendous demand for that kind of work, if you were bilingual.

TI: How about your mother? Did she do work also?

JH: Yeah, she did too, with broken English. She knew her way around. The only thing is 1920 there was this flu epidemic, and her doctor said she better go to a sunnier climate because San Francisco is always foggy. So they came to San Jose, and hop, skip and a jump, they wound up in Berryessa neighborhood where an Issei farmer had a big orchard and vegetable and strawberries, so they settled there. I must've been three or four.

TI: Did you have any brothers or sisters?

JH: No. Because of her health they were born, stillborn.

TI: So you're only, an only child?

JH: Yeah, I'm the oldest. There were two youngers, but in name only.

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

<Begin Segment 4>

TI: So what are some childhood memories? Do you have any memories of San Francisco as a kid? You were...

JH: No, not in San Francisco, but in Berryessa, where my dad worked for this Araki Farms, all the other kids were older than I, so they went to the fields with their parents. And I'm a little runt, three years old, all by myself, and you know irrigation is in flumes, I'd strip myself naked and I sat in there and had a good time. And the water's spilling all over because I'm a dam. And the farmer down the line'd come back, he chewed me out. [Laughs]

TI: 'Cause you're stopping the water from the crops.

JH: Yeah. [Laughs] That I remember. And from then, like I say, this (Kiso) Yasunaga said there's an opening in Palo Alto, sharecropping beans and strawberries. See, in culturing pears you plant the pears, but it takes twenty years for the pears to mature and harvest commercially, so in between you have to irrigate and cut the weeds anyway, so you sharecrop beans or whatever, and he made good money there. But my mother got ill, so she was put in this, the JACL building, Issei Memorial --

TI: Just next door, right there?

JH: Yeah.

TI: I see.

JH: Next-next. Next is Mineta's house and --

TI: Right, the next one. Yeah, that's right.

JH: Then he found the gambling house in Sixth Street.

TI: I'm sorry, your father found the gambling house?

JH: Found.

TI: Found, okay. So he, so again, he had a problem with gambling. He loved to gamble.

JH: No, I wouldn't say he was a, not a gambler. Well, he might be, but he didn't lose it all. And he made good money (farming) 'til I started kindergarten, second grade, there was a drought and, from the bay, the salt water intruded into the aquifer and you'd pump it and saltwater kills the pears. So no more, no more sharecropping, so he came to Cupertino on the corner of De Anza and (Mcllelen Road)... well, never mind.

TI: And that's where you and your father lived? Did you live there? 'Cause your mother was in this kind of house nearby, so I guess when your mother was recuperating, or, or...

JH: Well, after she, it took maybe a couple of months for her to get healthy, then she was able to go back to work. So whenever they moved all of us moved. Now, getting back to starting kindergarten, my neighbor, I guess he was about third or fourth grade, he took me and registered me because Isseis are working the field. And he tells me, "This is the toilet and this is your classroom, and this is your teacher." Fine. I don't know yes, I don't know no, I don't know up, I don't know down. And the principal, the kindergarten teacher called the principal, I guess, principal came and they yak, yak, yak. "Jeez, maybe this guy's dumb." And they called this third grade guy again, and he says in Japanese, "Why don't you listen to the teachers?" "Shiran. I don't know nothing." I guess they had patience 'cause I finally acclimated and I didn't flunk kindergarten.

TI: But the problem, or the difficulty was you didn't know any English. You just knew Japanese.

JH: No, nobody spoke English at home, nobody. As a matter of fact, the neighbor's kids, we don't talk English. We talk Japanese. And there's quite a colony.

TI: Well, at school didn't they have experience with other Japanese coming to school not speaking English?

JH: No, I think I was the only one.

TI: Okay.

JH: Because they've had other Japanese students, or Niseis, and they got along.

TI: 'Cause they spoke some English, so they could...

JH: I'm assuming so because the older brother maybe had a problem, but he learned English and it came right on down the line. Or maybe their parents did. My father was fluent in English, but he's out in the field working. He can't... and when it's discipline, Japanese. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, okay. Good.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

TI: So what are some, growing up, who are your playmates? You didn't have any brothers or sisters, so who did you play with?

JH: Neighbor kids. There wasn't, that was no problem. Our biggest hobby was getting scrap wood -- there's always hammers and nails around the house -- and we used to like to make trucks, and instead of wheels we put sleds underneath. Then we'd load boxes and stuff, unload, play like a produce trucker, that kind of stuff. We don't go into cop and robber until I was... well, that's going ahead. From then on, when the well went dry, my father got a job in Cupertino, as I said, and it was a prune and apricot orchard. And he stayed there maybe a year and a half, maybe two. Anyway, during the apricot season the boss would recruit pickers, Niseis from San Francisco, San Jose, and one of the workers were, from San Jose, was Dr. Ishikawa, the owner of the, this present land, and the other one was one of the Dobashi brothers, the Dobashi Market. And he says, "Yeah, I remember you, little kid running around." [Laughs] But that's... then a neighbor, Japanese neighbor, came to my father's boss and said, "You know, I could run the orchard for you, and if you let me plant strawberries on the vacant land my family can sharecrop the strawberries." Well, the hakujin boss figures that's additional income, so he told my father to, goodbye. Got --

TI: Someone else essentially took his job.

JH: Well, he got bumped, in other words.

TI: I see.

JH: So he came back to Yasunaga, and Yasunaga says yeah, there's a hakujin boss looking for horse drivers, and the wife can do fruit work. So he came to, where, Trimble and First Street. There was a Wade family there. But I, being a little bit bigger than the foreman's son, I used to pick on him, and the foreman says to my dad, "Your son is ijimeru my son, and I don't want you."

TI: [Laughs] So you, you made it hard for your father so that he lost his job.

JH: Well, he didn't hit me, though. He says he can't help out. And then just coincidentally, there was a big grocery man in Japantown, Morimoto, he bought acreage right next to this Wade ranch and he wanted sharecroppers in blackberries. My father took that on. He made money, but got to go to Chinatown. [Laughs]

TI: For gambling?

JH: Gamble, yeah. But he was a good, good farmer, had good berries. And during the maritime strike the fruit stands along El Camino would come and buy berries, and those fruit stand owners said, "You know what? Put a little bit more, just a little bit more." My father put a little bit more and, "Gee, lots of berries in the basket." Went like hotcakes. Then my neighbor, adjacent, same landlord but adjacent farmer, he says, "How come you don't buy my berries?" "Well, I came here first, so I buy from him." But he says, "If you don't buy my berries, don't come." So he lost an outlet there. And during this maritime strike, produce couldn't go into either San Francisco or Oakland because the so-called longshoremen would blockade the road and soon as the trucks come they'd cut the rope and dump all the produce. So the berries kept ripening, ripening, and pretty soon you know, when the strike was over, then no more berries. So he cranks up the Model T and goes to this Gallagher Fruit Company that he was working when he was a bachelor, and the boss was still there, says, "Yeah, I'll hire you." So my mother and dad went there and worked through the winter to tide them over. In the meantime, I don't know why, but my dad made me go to Japanese school, and that's across the creek from where we used to live.

TI: And do you remember how old you were when you started Japanese school?

JH: Ten.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Okay, so what grade were you in regular school? That'd be about...

JH: Let's see, we moved from Cupertino to Alviso in, I was in, yeah, fourth grade -- no, third grade, third grade. And I started Japanese school in the fourth grade, and this is fine. What else is there to do? But when I went into high school, then to get out of work I took up track, just to get of work. [Laughs] Excuse me. This is fine, but finally I was graduated from Peter Burnett, then San Jose High --

TI: I'm curious, when you say get off work, what kind of chores did you have to do? What kind of work did you have to do?

JH: Got to pick berries, got to groom berries, this kind of stuff. And then this, let's see, I was, yeah, I was seventeen, we were still making money on, in other words, after the maritime strike was over, making money on berries, blackberries, but the price of prunes were, collapsed. And so the prune growers would knock down some trees and they'd recruit Japanese families to raise berries. Well first thing you know, there's a glut of berries in the produce market because there's only so much limited demand. And my father said, "Gee, this is gonna be a problem." Coincidentally, a neighbor comes to me -- or my, yeah, to me -- and he says, "You know, I got bare land, got a good well." Says, "I want to rent it." And my father went to look and it's, like say, I said, "With it up and down like that you can't irrigate." And he says, "Okay, I'll put in an underground line, concrete pipeline. Then you can put the valve wherever you want, up high or down low." So my dad says, "Yeah, looks good." And I said, "Wait a minute, I'm only seventeen." He said, "Tell you what. You pay me six months' rent and I look the other way and you look the other way, and nobody complains, then everything is legal. If somebody complains," meaning the law or whatever, "Then," he says, "I'll give you your money back." [Laughs] My dad said, "That's a good deal."

TI: So explain that to me a little bit more. So was he selling the land to you?

JH: What's, with this...

TI: This land, I mean, what was the legality? Was he selling the land, or why couldn't he, what was, what was wrong with the transaction?

JH: I'm illegal. I have to be eighteen to rent. Is that what answers your question?

TI: Okay, so he was renting to you, not to your father, to you.

JH: No, no, to me. But still, I'm seventeen.

TI: I see. Okay. And so why did he rent to you and not your father?

JH: He can't rent.

TI: 'Cause he's not --

JH: He's an Issei.

TI: He's Japanese.

JH: Yeah. I'm a citizen. 'Til I'm eighteen I'm legally...

TI: I see, so the laws were that he could lease to a U.S. citizen, but they had to be eighteen.

JH: That's right.

TI: Okay, understood.

JH: Well, here's an example. A child is maybe twelve years old and that's the eldest son. The family wants to farm, so the, there was a good, I won't say a religious leader, but I guess he sympathized with Japanese, named Jerry O'Brien, and he would sign all the legal papers and the family would become sharecroppers. And he would give the family a number, JJ-10, JJ-12, whatever, so that when the produce goes to the market, the commission then can recognize the difference. Well, the checks come to J.J. O'Brien, then you go to his house and once a week he figures it out and then he takes his cut. That made it legal because you're sharecropping under O'Brien. Basically, you're renting. He rents the land and, supposedly. [Laughs]

TI: Now, when the son got to be eighteen, though, did he transfer the land over to the family? If someone, like --

JH: Well, that part I don't know, because this happened way before me. Like the president of San Jose JACL, Shig Matsunaga, he's ten years older than I, and that's how it went. And same thing with Judge Kanemoto's family.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So we kind of got you through high school. What did you do after you graduate from high school?

JH: What year?

TI: Yeah, what year did you graduate?

JH: 1936.

TI: Okay, so 1936, what did you do next then, after you graduate from high school?

JH: Okay, seventeen we were already farming, we were farming with berries. Well, everybody was farming berries, so there was a glut on the market, so my father switched to celery. And he was a good farmer. From, yeah, '38, '39, '40, '41, boy, we were rolling in money because he talked me into going to the produce terminal and selling direct. So the first year we made, yeah, we made ten thousand dollars, I think. Then from then on, it just grew because we increased the acreage and grew and grew. And my clients liked my produce, so no question. "How many you want today?" "Oh, I'll take twenty-five." Write out the tag and deliver it to 'em, this kind of stuff. It was great.

TI: So explain the produce terminal. What, how was that set up and what was your typical day there?

JH: Right over there. Trying to figure... Taylor, Taylor and the railroad track. What is there now? Gee, I haven't been that way -- anyway, there were commission houses, Banana King, Potato King and so forth, and so some of 'em would go out in the country and buy produce from Japanese and truck it in and sell next morning. Well, in the back there was space available, and you'd go beyond the commission houses and you parked your truck and they'd come, well, mostly we did our selling in the coffee house because once you're known there's no problem. We made money, got a new car. [Laughs]

TI: So John, who would you sell to? Who would your customers be?

JH: Italians.

TI: And these are Italian grocery store owners?

JH: Distributors.

TI: Okay.

JH: See, in those days they didn't have chains. Each grocer had his own so that they'd go over there and sell direct to the, in other words, the distributor buys from me, takes his cut, and sells it to the store. Now, here's a typical example: one of my clients was Franco Foods -- now it's, well, P.W. went, not bankrupt, but they're closed now. That was one big outfit. And the rest of 'em were Italians, Giannini Produce, Phil Lababera, Frank Aiassa, a whole bunch.

TI: So you said that most of the, a lot of the transactions happened in the coffee shop, so you would go to the coffee shop and these people would come and that's where you would, they would take orders in the coffee shop?

JH: Yeah. See, in front of the produce market was this Bini's. I don't know if you heard of it or not.

TI: No, I haven't. But go ahead, explain it.

JH: And anyway, it's half restaurant and half bar, and the biggest seller was coffee royal. Instead of ordering coffee, they'd give you a cup of coffee and they'd put a shot of something. [Laughs] That's the way it was.

TI: And so in the morning, would you just go to the coffee shop and sit there and then people would come?

JH: No, no, no. You walk up to each client.

TI: So you're, you're...

JH: They're all sitting on their stools.

TI: And so you would go and say, "I have celery to sell," and --

JH: No, no, no. Once you're known, then you say, "How many you want today? How many you want tomorrow?"

TI: I see. So they would know you, they would know that you had celery, they'd know the quality of your food.

JH: That's right.

TI: And you would just ask --

JH: Maybe initially it was hard because they didn't know what kind of stuff I had, but once they got the hang of it -- and for some peculiar reason they want great big celery. Why, I don't know.

TI: 'Cause that was tougher, right? Or not as...

JH: Well, first you plant it, then you wrap it with newspaper to bleach it. And my dad was a good farmer. Man, great big celery like this. And what, I don't know what the grocers did with 'em because we'd sell it by the crate, the guy buys it by the crate. What he does after that, I don't know. But the less you got in the crate, the same price, be it sixteen in a crate or twenty-four in a crate or twelve in a crate, three seventy-five is three seventy-five.

TI: Well, and how would you negotiate the price? How would they know how much to sell for?

JH: The pipeline right away, the commission houses are charging so much and word gets around, and they come and say, how much am I gonna charge. Say, "How much you gonna pay?" So I'm like no, no, no, go back and forth. Once it's set then it's, that's it.

TI: So once you set it with one buyer, then that's the price for the whole...

JH: That's right. I said, "He's gonna pay me so much. If you don't pay I go sell to some --" "Oh no, no, no." [Laughs] They're educated immigrants, very fluent in English, very fluent in their native tongue, and very fluent in the, merchandise savvy, the psychology so-called.

TI: And so I'm guessing that you would sell a little bit lower than the commission houses? So you would know what they were selling and you would sell less?

JH: The pipeline is a great thing. Even the produce merchants, they come in and have coffee too, and some of them, the so-called distributors would boycott Japanese. They just don't trust us. They don't even talk to us. But they do talk to each other. "Hey, how much is, commission house charge so much." "Yeah, I'm gonna talk to my -- hey, that..." Maybe I'm cheaper. I may be cheaper, I may be not, but I have quality where they don't.

TI: I see.

JH: Because they go hop, skip and a jump from one farmer to the next to see what, they don't know how big or what quality is. I had it made, man. Jeez.

TI: That was, that's good. So your dad said that was better for you to sell because he would get higher prices.

JH: And you bypass the fifteen percent.

TI: Right. Okay. So that was kind of your job, then, to go --

JH: Well, I was a happy bachelor. I'd like to go skating party or watch basketball games, but by the same token, I have to harvest the celery, wash it, put it on the truck, get up at two in the morning to get first in line. So that was a rough job. But one day my father, I think he was still sharecropping berries, yeah, he came home one day and he said, "You know what? I met this Mr. Omori that I came from Japan with to Honolulu." "Oh?" So they start visiting, 'til three or four years. And then 1940 I think it was, I had my new car and I see this new car in the yard -- you know, joyriding, coming in -- and, "Oh, Mr. Omori's here." I go in the house and I said, "Omori-san, konnichi wa," and I see this girl. "Hi," and I ducked into my bedroom. And my dad knocks on the bedroom, "Son, I want you to come out here and I want you to meet this girl." He introduced me to this girl. So we start shooting the breeze, I guess for two or three hours, and my mother served supper so we had supper, talked some more, and then they went home. Next morning my dad says, "Would you consider a serious relationship with that pretty girl?" "Holy smokes. I just got to --" Well, says, "Alright, I'll give you the..." That's how it started. We finally got married in camp.

TI: That's interesting. She was Nisei also?

JH: Nisei.

TI: But it's like an arranged marriage kind of.

JH: No.

TI: Well, kind of. I mean, they were, where they were kind of setting you up.

JH: Well, the Omori family took a chance to see if her, their daughter would be suitable for me. They started it, not me. Well, that's beside the point.

TI: That's interesting, okay.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

TI: I want to talk about other activities. Now, at this time were you involved with other community organizations, like church or anything else?

JH: I was invited to the Nitto Athletic Club. Well, you didn't have to know about it, but anyway, there was the Buddhist church athletic club and the Nittos, we were the no-goods. We're not, no religiously, no ties. [Laughs] Bunch of farmers. But they invited me because I guess I'd make a good scorekeeper and watch the stopwatch and all that, so I was a Nitto. Then, naturally, go to skating parties, and that's about it.

TI: How about the JACL? Were you involved in the JACL before the war?

JH: The bylaws at that time, soon as you hit your twenty-first birthday, then they, you qualify for a membership. So this Shigio Masunaga says, "John, you're twenty-one. Will you join the JACL?" (Narr. note: His parents named him Shigeo but the recorder of the birth certificate wrote "Shigio.") I says alright. I guess I was a dues paying member because all the other guys were already in their late twenties, early thirties. What am I doing, young buck, nineteen, I mean twenty-one? Anyway, getting back to this selling strawberries, I mean celery, for some reason I ran out of crate covers. In the harvesting of celery you put it in the crate, then you cover it. So I get in the car and turn on the radio, and Pearl Harbor's been bombed. Whoops. So I go to this market, San Jose market box, distributor of... shook. "You're going to market tomorrow?" I says, "Yeah, why?" "Gee, Pearl Harbor." I say, "Well, give me the crate covers. I'm gonna go anyhow." So I went home to my ranch and I told my dad. He said the same thing. "You're going to market tomorrow?" I says, "Yeah. What's wrong with that?" Didn't occur to me the serious or the gravity of the situation. Well anyway, we harvested the whole truckload, and next morning I get up and crank up the truck and go to market. "Oh, John. Boy, good to see you."

TI: I'm sorry, so who said that to you? Was it an Italian or Japanese or...

JH: There was no, no ethnicity involved, just a matter of supply and demand.

TI: Okay.

JH: Yeah. Because --

TI: So, like nothing had, was different when you got there?

JH: No, no. Because the commission houses, some of their Japanese farmers were reluctant to harvest. They chickened out. So they're short on supply. All of a sudden they panic, not me or the distributors, because they already knew that I was their source of supply. And I finished harvesting 'til the middle of January, from December the 7th on, just like routine. Nobody stopped us or nothing.

TI: And then, eventually did the other Japanese start coming back to the...

JH: Market?

TI: To the market?

JH: No.

TI: So they stayed away.

JH: They chickened out, and I guess they just gave up. As a matter of fact, I was the only Nihonjin there.

TI: Interesting.

JH: Yeah, it's interesting.

TI: So did you ever tell the other Japanese, like, "It's okay to go to the market," that they're buying everything?

JH: You know, it didn't occur to me, like I say, the gravity of the situation.

TI: Well, so the Japanese farmers, they had all this produce, what would they do with it? They didn't go to the market.

JH: I have no idea. I have no idea. I was so busy making money. [Laughs] In the meantime, there's this girl that I was visiting.

TI: This is the Omori girl?

JH: Yeah.

TI: Okay.

JH: That's the only girl I knew. [Laughs]

TI: Good. And so did anything else change? So it sounds like your business went the same. How about, like with your girlfriend, did she ever say anything what she was concerned about or any fears that you heard?

JH: Meaning what?

TI: Yeah, I mean did you hear about, like maybe people getting beat up or anything like that, or anything?

JH: People what?

TI: Maybe getting beat up or name calling or anything like that?

JH: No, no. There was a situation -- you know this mileage limit, you can't go beyond five miles -- this lover had a girlfriend in Santa Cruz, got to go over the hill. He goes on Highway 17 and the cop stops him. "Where you going?" Says, "I'm gonna see my girlfriend. I'm gonna marry her." And would you believe, the highway patrol escorted them to the girl's house and they went to the county hall of records and got 'em married there?

TI: That's a good story.

JH: It's just the opposite. Didn't throw him in jail, he got 'em married. [Laughs]

TI: Good.

JH: Nobody could back out. [Laughs]

TI: That's funny.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

TI: You know, earlier you mentioned that you were a member of the JACL. After Pearl Harbor, did anything happen at the JACL? Did anything change there?

JH: Yes. The, again, this president, Shigio Masunaga -- well, as a matter of fact, the board of directors authorized Shigio Masunaga to open an information center in this, in the Issei Memorial Building. And they hired an executive secretary, paid Dan Izu, and a paid clerk, typist... what the heck's her name? Kawakami, Aiko. Aiko, her married name is Jio. And one day, like I say, new car, joyriding, come home, and I see Shig's car, Lincoln, Lincoln Continental. Oh man. So I went in the house and I said, "Hi, Shig." And before he could answer my dad says, "Mr. Masunaga wants you to staff the JACL office, and I want you to go." Well, the pop is the boss. I'm counting the money, but he's the boss. And Shig kind of grins and he says, "You know, John, all I can afford to pay you is a dollar a day and all you can eat." I said, "That's fine, all I can eat." [Laughs] So we had finished harvesting celery already and we knew there was a war, but our destiny was unknown so we don't plan any crop management.

TI: So what was your job, though, at the JACL? What did he want you to do?

JH: I'm the guy that got the job of answering questions. See, the executive secretary and the president once a week would go to San Francisco, Western Defense Command -- "What's the latest? What's the latest?" -- then come back and he informs us. And when the community comes and asks, I tell them what had transpired, which is alright. Dollar a day and all I can eat. [Laughs] The only thing is, why I don't know, we're under the scrutiny of the community. "Those guys are buttering up the Western Defense Command and when this is over they'll put them up in a fancy hotel and live like kings." They said to me right in my face. I says, "No. If you don't believe me, go ask the president." Well the president, he, after he finished his meeting in San Francisco, he goes home and runs his farm, whatever he has to do. And the executive secretary is, what do you call 'em, those people looking for jobs?

TI: Like unemployed? Or what do you mean looking for jobs?

JH: Well, say a student just out of school, he's looking for, in other words, they don't know what Pearl Harbor's all about, they're just lookin' for a job. So that was his primary --

TI: So the community thought that you were getting, you might get special favors, is what they were saying?

JH: Yeah. In other words, they think we're lying so that in the end we get good treatment and everybody else has to suffer the consequences.

TI: You know, when the president, Masunaga, came back from the military people, what was his mood? Were there times when he'd come back really concerned?

JH: No. He was all smiles, because whatever they said was the truth, not what's in the paper or anything. You got it from the horse's mouth. Well, what's wrong with that?

TI: So what were they telling him? What was the truth that he was hearing?

JH: As it transpired, number one, alien registration number. So we got part of the load in that we have to translate or escort them to the federal building or whatever, but the main thing was to tell the family that you have to go to get an alien registration number. I don't know whether it was January... it couldn't, no, it's got to be January. Then the next ultimatum was the so-called pink book, where you were born... not why you born, where you born, when you came to United States, on what ship, and fingerprint and everything. That, again, was taken care of by the federal office, but we had to help get the thing altogether, especially when they say, "Munakata-gun." "Huh?" [Laughs] So that was, the other thing was tetanus shots. I don't know where they got the serum, but there was an older Nisei doctor from the East Bay. I forget what her name was. She must've been in her fifties already, and single. [Laughs] And she came and once a week gave everybody a shot in the arm for free. Everybody did things for free in those days. And February, March, income tax, income tax. And some families sold their crops to a hakujin, or a Caucasian, and they, we told them to go to the Farm Security Administration so there'll be no legal hang up. So there was a legal, federal, so no problem there, got that all straightened out. And for some reason everybody came in the morning or after supper, because they were working or whatever, I don't know, but in the afternoon things got kind of quiet. And the future Judge Kanemoto drove in one day and he says, "What're you guys doing?" "Income tax for today, so we're kind of slow." "Tell you what," he says, "Let's play poker." [Laughs] So he, everybody gets nickels and dimes and pennies, playin' poker. And then Norm Mineta that lived right next door, he comes in, changed clothes after school, and he comes and looks -- I guess he was eleven or twelve. And George Fujii, he was visiting I guess -- bless his soul, he's not here anymore -- but he says, "Norm, you shouldn't see big guys playing with money." And Norm gets upset. He said, "I don't want to see your lousy game anyway," and he huffed off. That was one of the highlights. You know, now he's a wheel, he and Judge --

TI: Yeah, but he was, but he lived right next door to the Issei Memorial.

JH: Yeah, the family owned that house.

TI: Okay.

JH: And I think they still own it. Course, I don't stick my nose in it. They lived in it, the father and mother and Norm and a sister. I went to school with her. What the heck is her name? That's not important, but anyway, as soon as they came back out of camp they were living there.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

TI: And so how long did you work at Issei Memorial Building? I mean, how long...

JH: I think half of April, February, March and half of April.

TI: Okay, so quite a --

JH: And in between, this president would say, if you got stuff that's got to be taken care of at home, take care of it. And the truck I sold with the understanding that he takes me to the depot on the time of evacuation, that's understood, my new car, I stored it in a friend's house, or a garage. The horse -- this is funny -- this horse trader named Nicora, he sold it to me. And he says, "How much you want for your horse?" I says a hundred dollars. "Hundred dollars? Who's gonna buy it for a hundred dollars?" "It's alright. Then don't buy it." Well, he had this hakujin, I don't know, Portuguese or whatever, and so the question came up, "How're you gonna put the collar on?" And I said, "You give me a hundred dollars, I'll put the collar on." Well, this guy that was gonna buy it, he tried to get the collar on and horse would raise (its head). I said, "Give me a hundred dollars, I'll put the collar on." Okay, he gave the hundred dollars. I took a small pebble and I banged him in the rump, he comes on like [leans forward]. I had him trained, so I got a hundred dollars for that. Then the tractor, I paid a hundred and fifty for it and I got a hundred and fifty for that. It was a charm I was lucky.

TI: How did you do that? Everyone else had to take, like, pennies on the dollar for their things and you were able to get full price.

JH: I got what I wanted. Nobody "Jewed" me down.

TI: And how come? What did you do?

JH: Somebody liked me up there, I guess.

TI: So you were able to find someone who could --

JH: No, they came to my house.

TI: Interesting. But they were expecting to get a cheaper price, though, right?

JH: It didn't occur to me, honestly.

TI: Interesting.

JH: It didn't occur to me. The only thing, I gave the house away for nothing. But big deal. [Laughs] And then, let's see, what else was there? The new tractor, I got what I paid for that. I don't know when it was, latter part of April, Standard Oil, the guy that distributes gasoline -- in those days they set up fifty gallon drums and there's no meter or nothing, you got a five gallon can, put a funnel on the drum and dump it in. When it's full it's fifty gallons, well, a hundred fifty gallons. But this time a guy and the, the driver and a guy in a suit comes along, and he says, "I got to have those tanks for the war effort, but my driver brought good tanks, cheapies, but they won't leak." Said, "We're gonna transfer the gasoline into those cheapies and then when you run out you go down to the town and buy it from a gas station." Fine. A couple weeks later, PG&E comes along and another guy, technician and a guy in a suit, the technician goes, looks at the meter and says so far the charge is seven dollars and some odd cents. So the guy in the suit says, "If you pay that much, from then on your electricity is free." Good deal, nothing wrong with that. So that was alright, and pretty soon, a couple of days later a guy, neighbor, Buddhahead, comes and, "Hey, what did you do with your gasoline?" I says, "Why?" "You know what? They came to my place, they opened the spigot and dumped all the gas in the ground." I says, "No. They didn't do that to mine." He says, "Yeah, they did to mine. And they come and pulled the switch on the electricity and cut the wire and we had to sit in the dark." "I don't believe it." He says, "Yeah." Well, when you got a house full of kids certain things get skipped, so the big boss says, "You ain't gettin' this gas for nothing."

TI: So why the difference? I still don't understand why.

JH: I paid cash. Those guys put it on the book, put it on the book. What assurance is a guy gonna get his money when, when... I shouldn't say this, but so in my personal opinion, some of the, I wouldn't say all, but the people that had the big bucks, no problem. It's the families that was barely getting by.

TI: So they were on credit and they were...

JH: Exactly. A lot of guys, the landlord made 'em give a promissory note, "When I come back I'm gonna pay my rent back to you," all that kind of stuff. [Laughs] So I would say I was lucky.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: Going back to the JACL, you were there all the way through April. You talked about in January how you did things like helping with alien registration, the pink book, and the tetanus shots. At some point the JACL had to decide how much to cooperate with the government. Did you, were you part of that? Did you see that discussion happen?

JH: I think we had good leadership, because I don't know about the other communities, but the president, the executive board, every week they went to get the latest information. They were way ahead of the newspapers. And when 9066 came out, that didn't mean anything. It just says, "We're gonna kick you out of the state." Well, it was first half of the state, then some of the people were given privilege to go move inland. They move inland and then the whole state had to go in and they have to give their cars away. That's the tragedy. Whereas we stayed and somehow we could get so-called -- like I say, I was lucky.

TI: But within the JACL, you talk about the San Jose leadership, which was strong, but then I'm wondering how much influence did, like Mike Masaoka, have? He was the president of the whole, or the national secretary.

JH: Prior to that he had just graduated from Salt Lake, Brigham Young University, and why he came to the West Coast I don't know, but I have the opinion that he was on a crusade to keep the Japanese status quo, because most of 'em were farmers and they contributed to the economy and this and that. So he would go to the Rotarians and the grange and all those guys and says, "Why don't you give these Japanese a Chinaman's chance?" And nobody listened. They wouldn't listen to him. Well, they'd listen, but they wouldn't take sides. By the same token, this political unrest, like competitive farmers, "Oh, get rid of them. We can clean up," this kind of thing. And the funny part of it is those guys that were told to plant to the spring crops, they planted it, but April or May they evacuated, from then on the culture savvy wasn't there. It was a disaster.

TI: Because the crops got ruined?

JH: They don't know when to irrigate, they don't know when to fertilize, they don't know how to hoe weeds. They think it's come... oh man.

TI: But I'm wondering, kind of the relationship between, like Masunaga and Masaoka, I mean in terms of, because you said Masunaga was going every week so he was kind of in the know.

JH: There was, that's where Shig was very diplomatic. He didn't take sides. He didn't say, "Don't do this, don't do that." He'd just listen. That guy, for, let's see, how old was he? I was twenty-one. He must've been thirty. That's a young age for, have the responsibility. And we were covering everybody from Palo Alto to Gilroy. In other words, we were available if they came up, and by golly they did, because evacuation registration says, "From here to here, you go to San Jose State gym and register. If you don't, the sheriff will come after you." [Laughs] So I guess they came.

TI: And so Shig was just a, so you listened, but in some ways he probably had a lot of knowledge and could've made, maybe, good decisions.

JH: Well, the dominating factor was when evacuation registration became official. I said to Shig, "What are you gonna do?" And he says, "You know, John, I have an infant daughter, but I'm gonna make the government take me where they want me to go." Meaning he's gonna go, not voluntarily. He could've, he could've loaded up his truck and go to Timbuktu or wherever like some people did. No, he was gonna stay in the community. I think a lot had to do with when the community accused us of being, buttering up somebody so that we'd come off easy. And by golly, he went with us.

TI: So I live in Seattle and up there, there were some controversy with the JACL where they said some of the leadership of the JACL turned in names to the FBI. Was that a similar situation down here, that the community accused them of doing anything like that?

JH: No.

TI: 'Cause I know in Los Angeles they did the same, they had the same accusations, so I was just curious.

JH: Let's see, here again, going into detail, we were manning the office and Aiko, Aiko Jio, said, "John, there's a man that wants to talk to you." So I answered the phone and it was my future son-in-law. He says, "My dad got taken by the FBI." So the president and the executive secretary says, "Go over there right away and see if they need any help." So I went over there and, naturally, her husband's gone and she's a single parent of five children. She was strong. But I said, "Can I help you in any way?" She says, "Let's lay low for now."

TI: So this is Mrs. Omori?

JH: Yeah.

TI: Okay.

JH: And I forget whether it was that time or the next visit, she wrote me a note in Japanese, and I took it home to my dad and he read it to me. And he says, "She says, 'I can't sleep. I can't eat. I'm awfully upset.'" But me, meaning Yoneo-san, "when you come and visit my daughter, don't tell her anything about her problems. Just pretend like nothing." That was her words to me. And later on they got communication that the father was in Sharp Park. That's a, I don't know what it is, but anyway, that's were all the so-called FBI (prisoners) were taken. There was one person got taken, just a common farmer. For some reason he took his World War I draft card along. He showed to (them). "Yeah, go home." [Laughs] My dad had the same thing, but they didn't pick him up. Now, Mr. Omori was a wealthy strawberry grower, but they picked him up, why we don't know. To this day, we don't know.

TI: And so it sounds like in San Jose you didn't have as much friction with the rest of the community. I know, again Seattle, there was, especially with some of the Issei and the JACL, there was sometimes --

JH: If there was any resentment it was underground. It didn't come out in the open. There again, I think the president and the executive board going into San Francisco and getting the latest data and coming back, even before the newspapers got it, that helped an awful lot.

TI: Yeah, just having that information.

JH: Beg pardon?

TI: Just having information.

JH: Yeah, that's right. "This is what happened." They would say, "This is what happened." Then, "Oh, that's right?" Next week, "Yeah, remember what I said last week? Well then this happened." So it goes, there's a continuity there.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

TI: There's one meeting that I read about, and I wanted to see if you knew about this. I think it was February 1942, so right, I think right before Executive Order 9066 was signed. They had a big JACL meeting in San Francisco where kind of people from different chapters all came to San Francisco. I think Mike Masaoka was there, and they talked about what should happen. Do you remember that meeting, when they held that meeting?

JH: No.

TI: Okay.

JH: I wasn't in the office then. There was one suggestion -- I don't know who the hell made it -- the suggestion was made to confine all our alien parents in a given place so that we Nisei will behave. In other words, the parents would be hostage. That was presented to the Western Defense Command, and they said that's not democratic. Well, what the hell's democratic if you're gonna throw the citizens in camp? [Laughs] But that's what they said.

TI: Interesting. So it was like back and forth, just trying to negotiate with the Western Defense Command?

JH: This incident in Seattle I don't know, but there was an incident in Sacramento where he spoke out of turn, meaning, "It's your patriotic duty," or something like that. And I, when there's all this tension, I don't think he should've said that, but...

TI: Yeah. No, it was really a difficult time in the community. I mean, a lot of uncertainty, and people didn't know what's gonna happen.

JH: Well, you know, when you're in a tension somebody's gonna light the fuse, and that's what happened. There was a case, two Nisei GIs, I don't know where they were stationed, but they wanted to tell us their experience of what happened immediately after Pearl Harbor. I think they were Kibei, the way their dialect sounded. And the president says, "No, I don't think so." It's off limits. I mean, what the military did is no concern of ours, so he politely told 'em, "Thank you very much."

TI: Because they wanted to kind of complain, or have a complaint about how they were treated? Or just... I still don't understand exactly. So they wanted to just say how they were mistreated so people would understand or hear that?

JH: What's this question?

TI: So my question is, so the two men who wanted to speak, they just wanted to, like, complain?

JH: No, it's not a complaint. From what I understand -- of course, this is a rumor -- but their firearms were taken away from 'em and their rank was stripped. That's the rumor I heard. Most of my friends were already in the Midwest. Prior to forming of the 442, most of my friends were --

TI: But why did, but why did they want to speak, though, these two men?

JH: Money, I guess.

TI: Okay.

JH: Well, there again, the president was smart enough to not even let it go that far. And he didn't even have a college degree, but he had money. [Laughs]

<End Segment 12> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So let's talk about you and your family. So at some point the orders came that you had to leave the area, so what happened to your family?

JH: I would say technically I already had a girlfriend, supposedly. Of course, we weren't engaged or anything. But my neighbor came to my dad to help him load, he had a house full of girls, to help load the furniture and this and that on their truck. And one of the girls came to me and said, "John, why don't you come with us?" I said, "I already have a girlfriend." [Laughs] So that was the end of that, although he invited my dad to several places inland. I said, "You can go if you want. I'm not gonna go. I'm gonna go with the bunch." So that settled that. Naturally, my mom don't say nothing. She, she couldn't.

TI: So what did your father do? Did he stay with you or did he go with the other...

JH: No, he left it all up to me then.

TI: Okay, so he stayed with the family.

JH: Yeah, there was no argument there. He was kind of pleased that I got all my money out of our equipment and stuff. The only thing is the house, but who's gonna buy a house when the guy's leaving, especially in the country. Well, two things, when the ultimatum came that we had to move, my landlord says, "Can you pay six months' rent in advance? Because this is gonna be only six months." In other words, it's gonna be all settled in six months. Says, "Sure, I can do that." He says, "Put all your goodies in one room," stove and mattress and, "Put it all in one room and then board up the windows and the doors and everything." He had a pear orchard in the back, so he has to come. He says, "I'll keep a watch on it." That's okay. So we did that, and then two days before evacuation I went to the draft board, says, "You know we're leaving. Have you any instructions?" And the clerk says, "As soon as you change residence, refer back to me. When you get there, refer back to me. If you get a job, refer back to me. If you get fired, refer back to me. If you change residence, refer back to me." So I did that like clockwork, so when I got to Heart Mountain I did two weeks of carpentry, I reported that. And there was an opening in the fire department so I switched to that, I reported. Just kept right along. And when I became an officer, then it's stationary, so every six months I reported that, I reported that. And I always got "enemy alien," 4-C, unfit for military service. Three years I got that. By the same token, I reported, on the other hand, as the younger staff in the fire department got taken for the draft and the fire protection officer, (Glen Rumley), hakujin, says, "John, we're losing a lot of manpower. What's your draft status?" And I told him, and he says, "Well, if they call you," says, "Let me know right away 'cause I'm gonna write 'em and tell 'em you're an officer in the fire department and you're essential to the war effort protecting five million dollars of government property." I never did have to ask him that.

TI: So they never drafted you. And why do you think so? 'Cause you were, yeah, you were, well, because you were, maybe you were married?

JH: I have two opinions. One, I was not being evasive. In other words, I did exactly as I was told. A bunch of the other guys, once they were in camp they didn't give a damn. Then all of a sudden there came this ultimatum, "Anybody that's not working in the war effort, we're gonna draft you." So there was a mass exodus of, even married guys left. Boy, there was a shortage of everything.

TI: Or do you think it might've been your position too, as an --

JH: Hmm?

TI: Or do you think it was maybe your position as an officer in the fire department that they said, "Well, we won't draft him because of that"? Do you think that might've been...

JH: No, I think I honestly reported just as they asked me to. That's my opinion.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So can we talk about your job at Heart Mountain? What was it like being in the fire department? What did you have to do?

JH: That, that was a total lifetime in itself. You put in twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours off, and the toughest part is to try to keep the olive drab fire engine polished up. [Laughs] You had to, cloth and the rubbing, it won't shine, nothing to shine. But this, the title for the Caucasian chief is Fire Protection Officer (Glen Rumley). He's hired from Washington. Whereas a Nisei is the fire chief or whatever. And once I made the rank of assistant chief I was satisfied right, right there, so that's where I stayed for three years.

TI: Now, how many fires did you guys have to fight?

JH: We had two of 'em. One was in what they used to call a recreation hall, in other words, it's a multipurpose building. And the report came quite late, so the inside was all full of flame and fire was coming out of the window. We put it out. The only thing is we had to put new outside and inside. The woodwork was still good. Maybe a few places where it was hot had to be replaced, but the building was steady. And the other one that hit, the desk sergeant -- we called him the desk sergeant, he's on a control board, fourteen lights, designating each station and each geographical area where there's a call box. You just lift up the phone and automatically the alarm rings in the firehouse and the desk sergeant will answer. So this time it didn't come on the dispatch board; it came from the telephone. And this desk sergeant says, "Hayakawa-san, there's a fire in the military police officers' barracks." So away we went, and the Caucasian fire protection officer (Glen Rumley)was already there, and he says, "Tell your fellows to make a deluge gun," which is a two source of supply onto a fitting, and then it's fitted onto a, what they call a hard suction. It's a ten foot solid tube, and on the other end there's a two and a half inch nozzle. "Once the water comes out," he said, "tell 'em to hit the floor. Never mind the fire. Hit the floor." So from both sides, just waterfall cascades. Soon water started running out of the door. And I guess as things went along the fire protection officer says, "Okay, now tell your men to use," what they call a mystery nozzle. In other words, we're still flooding the floor, but there's a hundred fifty gallon reservoir in the truck. He said, "Use that to put the flames out." So we put the flames out, and then next thing -- this is twenty degrees below zeros -- next thing we have to do is disconnect all the hoses, roll it up and take it in, have to wash it, wash it and dry it. So some of the off-duty guys -- it's down the hill, I would say about, yeah, about a mile from our firehouse to the military police quarters, and from the firehouse to the camp proper is another two miles the other way -- they all ran to help roll up the hose. Well, not all of 'em, but... next morning he got all the officers together and we rode one truck -- not fire truck, auxiliary truck -- and you know what? It was so hot, the rifle was bent, some of 'em. And underneath the officers' bunk, live ammo, boxes and boxes of live ammo.

TI: So is that why they had you hit the floor?

JH: Hit the floor and flood it, keep it cool.

TI: I see.

JH: And no machine gun, just rifles. And I thought, oh man, we could've really loused it up if we weren't trained right. But boy, those guys worked like robots. I said, "Hey guys, assemble a deluge gun." "What's that, John?" I said, "I told ya." "Oh yeah, yeah." Boy, that, they got it going right, like right now. I was so... man, if that box of ammo took off... [laughs]

TI: Yeah, that'd be dangerous. So you had two fires in three years, so there must've been days where you didn't have much to do.

JH: Our company hit two big ones, and then the other incident was, again, we got a call from the military guardhouse down at the entrance. He says, "One of the towers is reporting smoke. Can you check it?" And I says, "Where is it?" He says number so-and-so. I said, "Don't tell me numbers because it's outside the fence. Geographically tell me where it is." It's the middle tower on the western border. Well, that's easy, so I got the captain, we drove, and he, captain pulls the barbed wire apart. I climb up the ladder, bright moonlight night, what they call a bomber's moon. You could see for miles. And he says, "You see that smoke over there?" I says, "Yeah, I see that smoke. That's not a fire." He says, "Oh?" I says yeah, the boiler man is told to, what they call, see, you bank the coals like this and cover it and just leave a little small flame burning for the rest of the night, and that smokes like crazy. And next morning he comes, he starts it up again, the whole pile goes. I said, "That's it." And I looked around, there's no machine gun there. I didn't see any sidearm. Maybe he had a sidearm, I don't know. So this, at least in Heart Mountain, this machine gun pointing at us, no.

TI: Now, when you were up there, what else did you see? Could you see the whole camp?

JH: Oh man, I never seen --

TI: Because you saw the bright moon and so it must've been quite a sight to see.

JH: You could see for miles. I could see the hospital chimney and all the streetlights. Gee.

TI: And so what did you think when you saw the whole camp like that?

JH: No time. I got to get back down. [Laughs] I wasn't a tourist.

TI: Okay. But going back, so you had two big fires in those three years, but so there must've been days when you had more free time, when you didn't have to do --

JH: Another company hit a fire in the mess hall, and I don't know what happened, but they thought it was out so they went back to the firehouse, and by golly, they got another call, the same mess hall was on fire. Well, they put that out and the next morning the fire protection officer called all of us and he says, "See here, fellows, this is where the fire started." And somebody put a cigarette butt and the butt, hot, full length, and it just kept crawling, crawling, and it then went up this celotex.

TI: Wow. Just one cigarette.

JH: One cigarette.

TI: Interesting.

JH: That's training. That's why he called us.

TI: As a fireman, how would you guys kind of wait? I mean, a lot of days you would just be waiting all day.

JH: No.

TI: No?

JH: No. We had a pool table there. We'd shoot pool, play poker, play shingoro, four, five, six. And there was one time, this small fire, the USO called, they had a fire. And one of the GIs thought that the stove was too full of ashes, so he scooped it up into a dust pan and he took it and threw it in the other half of the building. [Laughs]

TI: And so that started the fire.

JH: He thought it was ashes. Well, it's hot coals. By golly, the thing took off. [Laughs] But that, that wasn't a fire. It just, you could take a bucket of water and put it out.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

TI: So how about some other memories of Heart Mountain? So we talked about your job, how about other things that you did at Heart Mountain?

JH: This is what really, shall we say, concerned me, in that we were very close, my girlfriend and I, but we weren't engaged. And I said, see, you register Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, five days, okay? Monday train will go the first Monday in April, the Tuesday train will go the second... in other words, it takes a whole month for it to evacuate. So I said, "If you'll register on Thursday, I can take you and your family to the train depot, and then I can meet you five days later, I mean a week later at Santa Anita." So they figure, well gee, that's nice, because they had no (car), all their car were all stored away too. So that was agreed, and then two days later I get a letter from Pomona Assembly Center, says, "John, for some reason we got switched to Pomona Assembly Center." We're supposed to meet at Santa Anita. And I told my dad. "Oh, komatta na." Said, "What are we gonna do?" And he says, "Well, let's wait a while." So when we got to Santa Anita I told Shig Masunaga about my problem and he says, "I tell you what, I'll go to the administration and see what we can do." So he went to the administration and he came back and said, "Yeah, we have one barrack that's vacant, so if they want to come, we can arrange it, send a truck over there." So I sent her a telegram, then she wrote a letter back, and she says the community -- in other words, she told the community, her community that, "We're gonna register on Thursday because John's gonna furnish transportation." Well, they figured, the five hundred said, "Well, if the Omoris are gonna go on Thursday, let's all go." It backfired and now they're cussing the hell out of her. So she wrote me back and she said, "I'm upset too, but I don't want them to think that I'm deserting them, so I'm gonna stay where I am." And I thought, "Holy cow. What am I gonna do with my love life?" So we start writing letters back and forth. But she never said "I love you" or "I miss you" or anything. By the same token, she didn't say, "I met another man." That's some consolation.

TI: Yeah, so I just want to clarify, so you were able to find one empty barrack so that she could move from Pomona to Santa Anita? Was that, so when you talked to Masunaga, he said they found one barrack, and this barrack was at Santa Anita for her to move to?

JH: In Santa Anita.

TI: Yeah, to move there.

JH: See, they were constructing barracks as evacuees came in. Well, once we came in there's no more trains coming. Consequently, there're empty barracks.

TI: Okay, and that's why, but she didn't want to leave her, her group.

JH: Yeah, the one that she went with.

TI: Okay, now I understand.

JH: So patience, love letters. I wrote my draft board that I was in Santa Anita, then when I got a job in the camouflage department I wrote 'em about that. And in August I got a letter from her saying, she says, "John, being that I'm in the canteen," they got to go to Heart Mountain, get ready to open the facilities there, motor pool and office staff and a bunch. So fine, she's going to Heart Mountain, but where are we gonna go? And my father says, "Komatta na." Boy, we got... [laughs] Well, the good news is that when we got officially notified that the Santa Anita bunch from Santa Clara County are gonna go to Heart Mountain, I wrote her that and she says, "I received your letter today and I can hardly express my happiness in knowing you are coming." She walked a mile and posted it air mail. I thought, oh man.

TI: So that was a signal that she really, really wanted to be together with you.

JH: Well, that's the first time she got emotional. [Laughs]

TI: Okay. [Laughs]

JH: Because courting in those days were very formal. You go in the house and greet the family, and the family wants, especially the little kids, want to play poker, I mean checkers or whatever. We didn't get to hold hands 'til, yeah, 'til we got to Heart Mountain. Even then it was very limited. I really missed going to a movie and stopping by for a hamburger, all that kind... but that didn't happen. We came out of camp, I already had a child. [Laughs]

TI: Tell me her first name. I didn't write down her name.

JH: Her, same as mine, her legal name is Hisako, H-I-S-A-K-O, but when she went to get her passport she put Alice Hisako. That became her legal name.

TI: And what did you call her, Alice or Hisako?

JH: In the course of conversation I'd get mixed up. Even now I call her Alice, Hisako. Omori, O-M-O-R-I.

TI: Good. And so when you got to Heart Mountain, describe seeing her. Did you guys have a, like a reunion?

JH: The guy that was on the train with me said, "You know, John, you're bragging about a pretty girlfriend." He says, "You got to show her to me. Can you prove it?" And I says, "Yeah, but you're gonna have to follow me." So after he got his family settled and I got my family settled, we knew she works in the canteen, so we asked, "Hey, where's the canteen?" "Over, no problem, over there." And I opened the door, she caught my eye and I caught her eye, and we just nodded and smiled and that was it. And my companion said, "Boy, is she pretty." Then after that I don't know what happened to him. Where he went, what he did, I don't know.

TI: But eventually, you said you dated at the camp, but then you also got married in camp?

JH: There again, bear in mind that her father was in detention, and my, the Japanese term is nakaodo, marriage, not a marriage broker, but the go-between between families, he starts saying, "You know, John --" I mean to my dad, he says people are -- see, she was a block secretary. She left the canteen and became block secretary, and in the absence of the block manager she has to go to the block manager's meeting, so her face became well known -- says, "You know, people are asking what kind of a family is the Omori, what kind of a girl is Alice." So he, Mr. Nakamura started to get worried, says, "You got to do something or the family'll think we're not interested." Well, in the meantime I'm visiting her when I'm off-duty, which isn't every weekend, not like her. I was visiting her one day and there was a knock on the door, and she being the oldest, she answered, and this guy comes and says, "We want to visit." And my future wife says, "I'm the oldest and my mother told me when my mother's not here to not let anybody in." "Yeah, but we want to visit." And she was firm, she says, "No." I thought, "Holy cow, what's going on now?" But well, that's so much water under the bridge. [Laughs]

TI: So there were other men interested in her.

JH: Oh yeah. Number one, they had money. Number two, if they get married maybe they get exempt from the draft. So then wheel started to turn, write letter and so forth and so on 'cause he's still in detention, and I guess he had consented, so we got engaged and got married. Guest of the government.

TI: And so to her father, was your father helping you write letters to him asking permission? Or how did that communication go back and forth?

JH: Unfortunately, he couldn't write, so the mother, or the mother selected a representative representing her family, and my family representative and her family representative wrote in their language. They got it, then he had it... that's my opinion, just guessing. The thing is he approved. [Laughs]

TI: But it's interesting how formal all that was, how formal the...

JH: Yeah, seventy years ago it was, that is, good families. Families that didn't care, they took their own course. [Laughs] So this is off the beaten track, say a family has four daughters thereabout marriageable age, and so the supposed groom would approach with a nakaodo, and our son, I mean my family's, friends from, "My friend's son would like to have your daughter for a wife." "How much?" Dowry, in those days it was dowry. That was, okay, so agree they get the first daughter married, then they have a good time, buy a car. Then the second daughter gets married, the third daughter, fourth daughter. They spend it all, then come evacuation time they were in a problem. They shouldn't have spent it. That's just one sad story.

TI: Interesting. Okay.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Can you tell me about the ceremony, the marriage ceremony? How did you do that?

JH: We had to go to -- wait, one thing before. While I was manning the JACL office this Aiko Kawakami came to me and said, "There's a man that wants to talk to a man." So I said, "Hayakawa, sir." And he said, "Do you know a Mrs. Yamada?" And I said, "Yes, she teaches Japanese language in Edenvale and Trimble Road." And he says, "Have you heard of her propaganda about Tennouheika, banzai and all that kind of thing?" Not in those exact words, but I said, "Well gee, I don't know because I have never been in her class." And he kind of got firm in his conversation and he says, "Have you heard of any activity against the United States?" (I said no). And he, he was really upset then. He said, "You're a representative of the Citizens League and you're not turning in anybody of un-American activities?" I said, "I'm sorry, sir, I don't know. I don't know, so I can't tell you." He was pissed. Jeez. Then he hung up, so I hung up. That was one of the so-called close shaves. By then the president and executive came in and I told 'em. He says, "You did good work. You don't know, you don't know. What else can you say?" I felt good. [Laughs]

TI: Good. Thank you for that story.

JH: Now, proceeding to your...

TI: Yeah, the wedding ceremony in camp, I'm curious how you did that.

JH: We went to the social welfare department to get a release. By the same token, the welfare department gets in touch with the Cody powers to make arrangements for a wedding, in other words, who's gonna perform the wedding, what place, and so forth and so on. And while we were waiting there a case worker comes and talks to this hakujin superior. She says, "The client said she's willing to give up her husband for two thousand dollars cash." In other words, it was a triangle and she was gonna give up, give up her husband. [Laughs] That's just a side I...

TI: So it's just something that you overheard, a conversation.

JH: Well, they talk right in front of us. Why don't they shut the door? My goodness. Well, that's alright. Anyway, we had to get our blood test, so forth, and that was all clear, and then we were told to meet at the administration office a given time in the morning. I think it was a Saturday. And this lady chauffeur and so-called, what do you call them, security, another Nisei, older Nisei, and the best man and my wife's sister and myself went to the judge's house. We got married there.

TI: And this is in Cody, Wyoming?

JH: Yeah.

TI: Okay.

JH: Well, he was, he's a judge, but it was justice of the peace then. And his wife stood as witness. Then we went someplace for lunch, I think. I ordered salad and I got creamed corn and carrots for salad, other than the steak and potatoes. [Laughs] Vegetables were scarce there. Then we came home. And Sunday -- yeah, Saturday was the wedding -- Sunday we had a Buddhist wedding ceremony at my dad's apartment, and then Monday we, I mean Sunday we had the reception, and Monday we moved into our own apartment. We had, she went and put lace curtains and this kind of stuff, and I bought a vanity and a chest of drawers from Sears, made it nice. But no honeymoon. Where can we go? Yellowstone is fifty miles away, which is fine, but where's the wheels?

TI: Yeah, right. Or permission to leave.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Okay. So John, let's get started again.

JH: Okay.

TI: We left off when you talked about getting married and you had your own apartment, and then later on you and your wife had a child.

JH: Yeah.

TI: So can you talk about that? I'm curious, what did you have and how hard was it to have a child in camp?

JH: How what?

TI: How hard was it to have a child in camp?

JH: Fortunately, my wife was healthy, naturally, and this, I think he was an older Nisei doctor, Dr. Suski, and I think our son was two months old and when my wife went to a physical, he said, "I'm gonna be leaving the camp on the last train out of camp." In other words, after he leaves, then the camp's gonna be closed, so don't worry about medical care. So that, that was a godsend.

TI: So your son was born right before the camps closed, then? Right near...

JH: August and the camp closed in October, I think.

TI: Okay.

JH: So we, shall we say, got everything ready to leave. But there's a strange Japanese custom, before you depart any home or dwelling you're supposed to mop it, so I hold my baby in my arms and my wife mopped it. I said, "You don't have to do that." "No, I'm gonna do it." So she did. Got on the train, we got to Salt Lake City. By the same token, while she was mopping she missed supper, so when we got to Salt Lake City her breasts wouldn't produce anymore. So I went to the Pullman porter and I said, "I don't know how you're gonna do it, but can you get me some kind of milk?" "Here?" I says, "Yeah, there's a depot." By golly, he found two quarts, which is fine. My wife drank it and the milk, she says, "It's warm in here, so can you hide it out in between the cars where it's cold.? I says fine. Somebody stole it. But that's alright; next morning, breakfast, so her energy was restored. So that was one of the close shaves. [Laughs]

TI: I'm curious about your son, was he ever surprised that he was born in Wyoming? 'Cause probably he thought he was born in California?

JH: No.

TI: So did you tell him where he was born?

JH: Ever since he was old enough to go to, understand English, he's Wyoming-born. And all his classmates, "Wow." Not like being born in Japan. The other thing, the question came up, how shall we name them? So they got pieces of paper, they put a name in -- this is both parents, I mean grandpas -- put name on, rolled it up, put it on a table. You know what a ojuzu is, the Buddhist (prayer bracelet), okay, has a little tassel on it, and Mr. Omori goes here, here. Nothing happened. Then my dad picked it up and he, the third one, it stuck, so he opened it and that was it, Howard Hisao.

TI: Interesting, so the tassels would pick it up.

JH: Yeah.

TI: And so how many names were out there when they would --

JH: There was a whole bunch, I would say, easy a dozen.

TI: So your father-in-law was released from the camp?

JH: Yeah, he had come back in 1944. Here again, he comes unannounced, no letter, no nothing, and at the guardhouse, naturally, they call the administration and the administration picks him up with a car and takes him to the address. That's it, he walks in the house. No hooray or nothing. Well, the same way they took him, the same way they bring him back. [Laughs]

TI: But that's a nice story that the grandfathers got to choose the name.

JH: Well, it saved a lot of argument. Course, we were the third party. We had nothing to say.

TI: [Laughs] Well, it was your son.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

TI: But here's another story about after you got married, that outside your apartment there was a tree. Tell me about the tree story.

JH: Naturally, you live in a camp that long you get friends, and one day this young fellow that worked in the farm project... at that time they had, gee, no escort, no nothing, they could run around anyplace. Well, they went to the river, they pulled up a sapling out of the mud. "John, you want a tree?" I says, "Yeah, I'll take one." So I plant, I planted it. And buckets of water, keeping it alive and so forth and so on, and by golly, it survived.

TI: Well, not only it survived, but to this day it survived.

JH: Yeah, I saw it last year.

TI: And when you tell people that that was your tree, what do they say?

JH: Number one, they challenge it because, then I tell them it's an inverted wishbone. Then there's no argument there. And this is another story, but the secretary of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation, she called it the Honeymoon Tree. And when I was in camp last year some people start asking, "Where's the Honeymoon Tree?" [Laughs] I don't know if you want to keep this on the record or not, but the Wyoming board that worked from 1994 'til 2010, all their hard work, they got pushed off by the new board.

TI: So there's a change in the board.

JH: They weren't even invited to the grand opening. Didn't give 'em credit for nothing.

TI: And how did that make you feel, that they weren't there?

JH: Man, I thought that was really chicken shit. And as soon as I came back, I wrote all five of them. One told me that they got pushed off, not politely, just pushed off.

TI: And what did you think about that, when you heard that, that they got pushed off?

JH: I didn't hear it. I read it.

TI: Yeah, but after you read it, what did you think?

JH: Well, I'm on a crusade telling everybody I know that they got pushed off. That's a dirty pool. Call it what you want. Man.

TI: You went to the grand opening. What did you think of the grand opening and what was created, the interpretive center and the reunion and all that?

JH: Well, the Wyoming board asked if we had any furniture that we had saved, and for some reason we saved the vanity and the chest of drawers, and I shipped it by truck and it was on display. And then a chair that I made, it was on display. That's all I went to (see). I didn't even register the register. But it's a shame.

TI: Yeah, 'cause I know they put a lot of work into the Heart Mountain -- you're talking about, like, Dave and Pat, I think, were two of them. Dave Reetz and Pat were on, the board members you're talking about.

JH: You're mentioning names, not me.

TI: Okay. [Laughs]

<End Segment 18> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

TI: Another story that you mentioned during the break, that was when the end of the war, when the war ended you did something to...

JH: Oh. Well, going into detail, it was getting dusk, not dark enough for the stars to come out, but for some reason the neighborhood or the community was quiet. I don't know why. Then the desk sergeant comes to me and says the fire protection -- this is a new one, (Andy Kerr), not the old one -- the new one says he wants to talk to me. So I went. "Hayakawa, sir." He says, "Hey, blow the siren for five minutes. We won the war." So the desk sergeant, [makes siren noise], he's got a button. Then two Issei came. "What happened? Nani goto na," And I said, "The fire chief said we won the war, so blow the siren." And they said, "So daro," accordingly. The emperor said mujoukenkoufuku, unconditional surrender. I heard it on the radio, shortwave. That was it. And then just before the shift, duty shift, this new fire protection officer calls me and says, "What did you tell the project director?" I says, "You said blow the horn for five minutes, so I did." He said, "Well, he chewed me out." He says, "You want to start a riot?" Well, there was no riot.

TI: Well, and for you, what was your reaction that the war was over? How did you feel?

JH: The same as Pearl Harbor. [Shrugs] I'm a different guy, I guess, optimist.

TI: Good.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

TI: I have another question since you were at Heart Mountain, at Heart Mountain there were men who, as a group, decided to resist the draft.

JH: There was two, the Fair Play Committee and the "no-nos'" two different categories.

TI: Right two different categories. I want to talk about the Fair Play Committee.

JH: The Fair Play Committee, their request was, "We will join the army, providing our constitutional rights are returned to us, meaning we can go free. Then we'll go in the army."

TI: So what did you think of that?

JH: Well, one of my colleagues in the fire department, he had an older brother in Germany, or in Europe, and a younger brother in Japan, and he figured he might get called. So he said, "John, will you go with me to Frank Emi's barrack and give me moral support?" So I sat there and Frank made his spiel, that we want our constitutional rights and this is why we're campaigning to, shall we say, shout our cause. And that's how it started. And I guess word got around that, all the ten camps, they all contributed to this Fair Play thing, and the three hundred, yeah, three hundred and sixty or something went to prison for it. Well, of course they got pardon and they got their twenty thousand dollars too, but that's different than the "no-nos."

TI: Right. But when you heard Frank Emi talk, what did you think about what he said?

JH: Like I say, I'm different. I didn't panic, I didn't sympathize. I thought, well, he's got a point, but what else can I say?

TI: So what did you tell your friend? So your friend asked you to come to give him support, what did you tell him?

JH: He was quiet, and when Frank said, "We would like financial support," I forgot what he put in, maybe five dollars or something in the coffee can. And he thanked him and then we went back.

TI: And what did your friend do? Did he...

JH: Well, he came home and then he got his draft card, or draft call. And still, his brother in Japan and Europe, maybe were Stateside but still in the army, and when he got his 1-A he got upset. He went in the, went to bed and didn't get up. But as luck would have it, when he got up, whatever President says, no more draft. [Laughs]

TI: I don't follow. When you said he went to bed and didn't get up --

JH: He, "Damn, they're gonna take me in the army." Went to bed and became a hermit.

TI: But then you said they then weren't drafting? I don't get that part.

JH: Well, the president issued a decree, no more draft. I don't think you're old enough to remember that, but he, or whatever Congress decided, the war's over, no more Japan, no more nothing.

TI: Okay, so this happened after the war had been over.

JH: Yeah. I think it was 1946.

TI: So this happened, okay. Alright. Earlier you also said there were two groups, there were the draft resisters, and then there was a group that said no on the loyalty questionnaire, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, "no-no."

JH: "No-no."

TI: And many of them went to Tule Lake. So what did you think about that group?

JH: I went to some of the people that I knew and I says, "You're making a mistake." And they give me a dirty look. "Shut up your face," and this kind of thing. And my dad left everything up to me. He didn't even consult me. He didn't say, "What do you think?" Why, I don't know. Well, for one, after working hours and hours on the farm from sun up to sun down he comes to camp, nice room, comfort, warm, hot water, he has a hobby to pursue, and work in the mess hall, all you can eat. [Laughs] It was a vacation for him, him and my mom. But when we came back, then it was work for everybody, naturally. We started farming. Went into strawberry business and we got into, I got into politics, became a, board of directors of the Naturipe Berry Growers Association.

TI: So you became more active -- but before, I want to ask about that, but before we leave, when you were at Heart Mountain, were you still active with the JACL? Did they still have meetings and do anything?

JH: No. Politically, the executive director probably kept in touch with the national headquarters, being in Salt Lake City or whatever, and the president became the executive of the block managers. And then I think it's about two years later, he voluntarily evacuated back East someplace, Des Moines or somewhere. But here's one story that's interesting. The camp had already been fully occupied when the last train came in and so forth, no fence, no barbed wire fence. Then all of a sudden contractors start putting up posts, so community starts in. "Hey, how come?" So they went to the managers and the managers had a meeting, and there again, see, this Shig Masunaga's thinking was different. He says, "Wait a minute, you guys. Don't panic. Suppose, look, Cody is twelve miles to the south of us and Powell is thirteen miles to the north of us. Suppose a bunch of renegades come running through and raising hell in the camp. If there's no barbed wire to stop them, then what?" "Yeah, sou dana." So the fence went up, no squawk, no squabble or nothing. The same situation with the Fair Play Committee, "If they want to do it, let 'em do it. If they're breaking the federal law, then that's up to (them) not the block managers." That's the way he handled it, and by golly, it came out alright. Now, had we had a different kind of executive manager, who knows? Philosophy was different, then...

TI: Good. Okay.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

TI: So when you left camp, you now leave with a wife and a young child.

JH: And my mom and father.

TI: And mom and father, so where did you go? And what did...

JH: For some reason being that we were the last train, I mean the second to the last train -- no, no, the last train headed for California. They didn't come to San Jose. They let us off at Alameda, or the Oakland Mole. In other words, that's the end of the railroad. Then they took us by bus to Hunter's Point, which is a federal housing project for the war workers. And apartment, apartment, apartment, then at the end is the latrine and the shower, and my wife says, "No, this won't do. We have a crying baby and the neighbors are gonna complain." So the suggestion, well, there's another federal housing on the Pacific side, Camp Funston, or Fort Funston, so we went over there. And the manager there said, "We want fifteen dollars a month, I mean fifteen dollars a week ahead of time for each family head." And there again, apartment, apartment. I says, "No, this won't do. We're gonna keep the neighbors awake." And there's some older guy from San Jose, Santa Clara, whatever, on our bus to Fort Funston, he got mad and said, "I'm not gonna pay no rent in advance." And what happened to him, I don't know. But I spoke to the WRA representative, I says, "Can you do me a favor?" He says, "If I can, I will." And after he finished his paperwork he comes to me and says, "What can I do for you?" And I said, "We have a family friend in Palo Alto. Now, if you could take us to the train depot at Third and Townsend, then I can get off in Palo Alto and go from there." And he says, "Okay, wait a minute." Get paperwork, then he got in his Lincoln sedan, the whole six of us or whatever, and he drove to Third and Townsend, the railroad depot there. "Ah, too crowded." He didn't even look. He just zipped by and came down Bay Shore and took us to Palo Alto, and we said our goodbye, and that's how we started. Then our brother-in-law, who had already gone to San Jose, we got in touch with him. He picked us up, then Alice and my mother and the baby slept in the church, Buddhist church, and my dad and I went to this, my best man's landlord had a housing there, so we fixed that up and moved there. We didn't have too much problem.

TI: What happened to your belongings? I mean, before you left you put it in one room and you...

JH: Okay. I think it was in 1944, my landlord wrote me a letter and said, "We found a tenant for your land, so can you vacate the house?" So I went to the Evacuee Property office, and so, "I'll take care of that." He called the WRA in San Francisco. He told Bekins to go over there and pick everything up, inventory. I got it. Everything was there, to the last. So when we got to this housing I went to San Jose WRA office and they contacted the powers that be, and in two days we got it delivered.

TI: So everything was there?

JH: Yeah. Everything, kerosene stove, wood stove, mattress, bed. [Laughs]

TI: Good.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 22>

TI: So John, that's the end of my questions. Is there anything else that you want to say to end this interview?

JH: To go into detail, we lost our third child to a brain tumor. Surgery and she died on the operating table, then funeral, so forth and so on. Money was going like crazy and I thought, "Gee, Alice, please don't have a nervous breakdown." She was awfully quiet, but she was strong. And, well, we started farming and our well ran dry on our premium crop. We lost a bundle there, right on top of losing the child. There again, I thought, "Please, Alice." And she hung in there. She didn't have a nervous breakdown or she didn't say the hell with it and she didn't dump me or anything. Out of a clear sky, she says, "I'm gonna go look for a job." So I took her to the nearest streetcar terminal and she called me back -- telephones were hard in those days, but being a board of directors of the berry growers, we had a phone -- she called me back, she came home and said, "The pay is lousy and the environment is awful." Says, "I'm not going there." And our daughter had heard that at the dinner table. By the same token, she was -- she was twelve, I think -- she was an office assistant at the grammar, one grammar school, superintendent principal, and the principal had talked to his Nisei secretary, "We're gonna build a new school pretty soon and you Japanese ladies are very well work-oriented. Do you know anybody that might want the job?" And my daughter pops up, "Yeah, my mom's looking for work." And that's how it started.

TI: So she got a job through your daughter.

JH: She got a job. And I figure, well hell, I'm not gonna stay home alone. I'm gonna put in a blind application to Eastside (Union) High School District because they're building a new high school right near us. I got called in, and he said, "We're building a high school, but we don't need a gardener 'til school is up and running." "Well, then I'm no good here. I'm gonna, might as well go home." So I start getting up. He says, "Wait, wait, wait." He says, "We got a groundskeeper opening in the district level," meaning three high schools. "Gee, I'll tackle that." By golly, I got it. And that led to, just like it being assistant chief, from grounds maintenance, two years later, supervisor of grounds at ten high schools. We grew every other year and I grew right along with 'em. So now we get four checks. [Laughs]

TI: So all the pensions and...

JH: The story is I got a phone call in my office, "Hey, John, I understand you're supervisor of grounds." I says yeah. Says, "You hiring gardeners?" I says yeah. "How much?" "Three hundred and sixty dollars gross a month." "Oh hell," I said, "I drink that much." Okay, this is fine. A year later, "Hey, John, this is So-and-So. Yeah, what's doing?" Says, "I'm looking for a job." I said, "I thought you were fixed?" He says, "No, I got fifty acres of prunes and I can't pay the taxes." But I wasn't gonna give him a job, not after what he said the year before. I mean, rough is rough, but jeez.

TI: Yeah.

JH: By the same token, the gardeners were making six dollars an hour, grounds maintenance. But you have to babysit the mama of the house, the kids come riding, ride on your back while your... that's not for me.

TI: Yeah, sounds like a good job. Well, John, so thank you so much for the interview. This was excellent.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.