<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So you were an only child.

SA: Well, it was my... I was the only child because my mother and father had sent the other kids to Japan because life was so bad at the beginning.

TI: Okay, that's right, you have like three older brothers.

SA: I have my one brother and two sisters.

TI: Okay, yeah, three older siblings, one older brother.

SA: Yes.

TI: Why don't we just talk about them? Why don't you go down like birth order and their names?

SA: Mary.

TI: And how much older was Mary than you?

SA: Let's see, my brother is seven years older, and my sister is probably another four years older.

TI: Okay, so about eleven years older. Then after Mary?

SA: That's my brother, and my brother was seven years older.

TI: Okay, and his name was?

SA: Sho, Shoichi.

TI: And after Shoichi?

SA: Tomiko. And she's four years older than I am.

TI: So you said you were sort of raised as an only child because the three of them were sent to Japan. Why were they sent to Japan?

SA: Because life was bad. They had a tough time, so they felt that they could get the kids educated in Japan better. And the two grandmothers had agreed to take care of... one child was left with one grandmother, and two of the others with the other. So the father's side grandmother took care of two of 'em, and the mother's side took care of one.

TI: And the time period they were sent to Japan, was this when your father had the fertilizer business or was this after he sold it?

SA: Long before that.

TI: Oh, before the fertilizer?

SA: Long before that. Long before, long before Blaney Estates. See, I started Blaney Estates because that's where I was born. But before I was born, they were married for quite a while. Because you figure my brother is seven years old, my sister is another four years, that's thirteen years. So they were married a long time before I was born.

TI: So you didn't really know your siblings?

SA: No, no.

TI: So for all sense and purposes, you were like an only child.

SA: That's right, that's right.

TI: Did they ever talk about the children? Did you know about them?

SA: Not really, not really. Well, until when I got older I knew that they were in Japan. And they came to, two of 'em came to this country just before the war broke out because they were very concerned, they wanted to bring two of 'em. The other one was already married -- I mean, not married, the other one was... let's see, why didn't the other one come now? For whatever reason, one stayed in Japan during the war.

TI: And so your brother and one of your sisters?

SA: Yeah. So basically we're three -- as far as the children were concerned -- there were three families. Because the two grandmothers were in different places, so I don't think they saw each other that much.

TI: Well, how was it for you to all of a sudden have an older brother and older sister show up, and for all intents and purposes, they were kind of Japanese, right? Probably they didn't speak much English.

SA: No, no.

TI: And you were, at this point, kind of a young boy, but probably kind of independent.

SA: Well, I was only at that time about eight years old.

TI: But still, you were in school, pretty American in many ways. So how was that to all of a sudden have a Japanese brother and sister?

SA: That was a rude awakening. [Laughs] Rude awakening in a way that it was a cultural shock for all of us, really. And so, in fact, if I look back, it probably toughened me up because I used to get beat up. Because, see, I was mama's boy, and here's the outsiders come in, they're older than I am.

TI: And so probably resentful?

SA: Oh, yeah, there was a lot of resentment; tremendous amount of resentment, simply because they felt they were abandoned; they were left as orphans. So you can't really blame them.

TI: And how well could they adjust to American society?

SA: Well, they had a tough time.

TI: So did they go to school?

SA: Well, yeah, because they were basically Kibeis.

TI: And they were, like, kind of teenagers? Like your brother would be, at that point, about fourteen, fifteen years old? Which is kind of a hard time to...

SA: Well, yeah. And they had to start from scratch to learn the English language, get back into a lower grade, so it was a very tough, tough period.

TI: So let's go back to... and so your father sold the fertilizer business in 1938.

SA: Well, he didn't sell it; it just went out of business.

TI: Okay, so went out of business.

SA: And he decided that before he closed the fertilizer business now, he decided better buy a farm, he bought a farm. So he bought twenty acres in West San Jose.

TI: Now for a Japanese to buy twenty acres, is that a pretty big...

SA: That was a big move at that time. In fact, he had to borrow his friend's son's name to buy it, because he was an alien and so he couldn't buy it.

TI: And so this is about, what, 1937, '38?

SA: Either '38 or '37.

TI: And what kind of farmland was it?

SA: It was orchard. We had prunes, apricots and walnut.

TI: And did your father have much experience with orchards like this?

SA: Well, he did because of the Blaney Estates. Because, see, the Blaney Estates were not just a garden, there were a lot of, they had a big farm, it's a big estate when you have a hundred acre estate, you have an orchard and gardens. So he learned a lot on that, on that estate.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.