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TI: So after they sort of didn't allow you and the other men to stay in the station house, so what did you do?

GN: I went home to my folks' place in Kent, in Thomas. And that's when the Indians in La Conner were starting the oyster business, and they needed help. So they came and wanted us to come over there and help them open the oysters and grade, and literally helped start the oyster business there.

TI: So they had started by, they've already seeded it, and they're harvesting and they...

GN: Just beginning to open, harvest the oysters, so they needed somebody that knew something about it.

TI: Yeah, so how did they find you and the others? I mean, how did they know that...

GN: I don't know how they found out. They heard that we'd gotten chased out of here and was living around Seattle, so there was three kids from Seattle area, and a couple of us out in the country there, Kent. They come over and says, "Oh, we'll give you a place in the reservation, we got a nice house there for you." One young couple cooked for us, and that's how we got started there.

TI: And the wages were okay, too?

GN: Yeah, they treated us real well, in fact. They hated the white guys at that time, you could see it.

TI: So when they, when you got there with the other... so you're pretty experienced right now. How, they're starting up, I'm curious how good their operations were when you first got there.

GN: It was pretty bad. One of the guys was a grader here, and he knew how to grade oysters. Another guy was a good opener, two of 'em were good openers, and the other two were like Kuni and myself, we had to learn how to open oysters. That's where I literally learned how to open oysters when I got there.

TI: Because before you didn't do that.

GN: No, because I was just working out in the bay harvesting.

TI: And so why didn't they have you do the harvesting? Was it the same reason that the police didn't want Japanese out in the water?

GN: Oh, I didn't want to... I really didn't want to work in a cannery standing there one place opening the oysters, I'd rather be out in the bay.

TI: Right.

GN: I was an outdoor type.

TI: But they wouldn't let you go out there? Like in La Conner, did you ever go out there?

GN: No, I wasn't interested in there, 'cause I'd be the only one out there.

TI: And so when the tribe people saw the workers, did they learn a lot in terms of how to grade and open oysters?

GN: Oh, yeah. They learned a lot. In the short time we were there... we were there about May when they started taking the... in fact, we were working right alongside the highway where the buses from Seattle would go by, five, six of them in a row, going from Seattle to Puyallup.

TI: So this was down, you're in Kent, Washington?

GN: Yeah. Then that spring there, after the oysters stopped in La Conner, why, we were home just waiting to go to the evacuation.

TI: But going back to La Conner, what was the relationship between the Indians and Japanese? Did you guys get along?

GN: Oh, yeah. They treated us real well. They used to tell us... you know, when we had that incident with the Swedes where they came in there and told all the Japanese to move out, and told the Indian kids to move out.

TI: So tell me the story again. So you're, and other Japanese are working side by side with the Indians.

GN: Well, we're mixed up.

TI: Okay, so you're all mixed up.

GN: You're all mixed up.

TI: And you're all, like at this point, you're opening oysters?

GN: Yeah.

TI: And then was it one Swede or a group of...

GN: No, there was about three of 'em.

TI: So who were they? Did they just come off the street?

GN: No, they were fishermen in that area. La Conner is a fishing town.

TI: Right. So they came in...

GN: One morning, yeah.

TI: And specifically because they wanted the Japanese to leave?

GN: Yeah, they didn't want us to be there.

TI: Okay, so they come in, three of them, and they walk in, and you mentioned how they walked by one Japanese...

GN: The first guy they got to at the end of the table, they looked at him, they decided he wasn't a Japanese. [Laughs] So they went to the next guy and said, "Well, this guy looks like a Japanese." They asked him if he was a Japanese, and the kid was kind of sassy and he says, "I can't help it if I am." [Laughs]

TI: But he was actually Indian.

GN: That's an Indian kid.

TI: Okay. And so the Swedes told him to leave or something?

GN: Yeah, told him, "Don't come back anymore.

TI: And so then what happened with that?

GN: Nothing. We all started laughing, you know. [Laughs] The Swedish fishermen kind of felt silly, so they walked out.

TI: Because what they had done, the three of them walked by the first guy, who was Japanese, they thought he wasn't Japanese so they walked by him, and then went to the Indian, they thought he was Japanese.

GN: Yeah, so they asked him.

TI: And he said he can't help it if he is, but he wasn't, and so everyone laughed. And so the Swedes just walked out afterwards?

GN: Yeah, "Tell all your Japs to get out of here."

TI: That's a good story. So it sounds like the Indians were kind of supportive of what was going on. Did you ever talk to any of them about what was happening, especially when you had to leave because the Japanese were going to be removed. Did they ever talk about what was going on?

GN: Well, no one was really certain of what's going to happen at that time. I used to argue with my mother, "They can't send us to camp or lock us up. We're American citizens." I was a history major; I was really interested in history and I can recite all those, Constitution and all that. I can recite the Gettysburg Address when I was in the sixth grade.

TI: So you didn't think anything was going to happen then?

GN: No, I didn't think they could do that.

TI: And so when back to Kent thinking, "Okay, so oyster season's over, we're going to go back to Kent."

GN: "We can't work here."

TI: And then, so what did you think when you saw those buses go by, you hear these buses...

GN: Oh, by that time, it was pretty obvious that they're not gonna make... my mother was right. So it was just a matter of days before we had to leave.

TI: Just one last thing about the oyster farming by La Conner, by the tribes. So were they successful? Are they still doing oysters up there?

GN: I think they're still doing it. We went up there and visited, but Jiminy Christmas, about twenty years later, we'd go up there and visit, all the older ones, Indians we knew were gone. And couple of the little kids that was big athletes. That one, James, Landry James, he became a big star at Washington State. He was still around, but by that time he was a coach in La Conner High School. But he was a little kid, but he was really good in everything.

TI: So if I were to go up to La Conner and go to the oyster farming where the tribes are doing this, would they remember or know about the Japanese?

GN: I bet you there isn't a one left that can remember us. They're all gone.

TI: That's a good story of how the two communities got together.

GN: They were waiting to... every May, they have a tribal rowing contest, and they were looking forward to us helping row a canoe. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, so they were trying to recruit you guys to be unofficial Indians to do that. That's a good story.

GN: And the guys that were running it kept saying that, "We're going to build our own cannery," and they're going to build it on their side of the slough, on their reservation. Says, "And then we'll see who can come over here and harass us," and stuff like that.

TI: But they never did that, do you think?

GN: They did build a cannery on their side. I don't know whether it was just a fish cannery or whether they...

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.