<Begin Segment 6>

TI: So when you graduate in 1939, what did you do?

GN: Within a month I was over here working.

TI: So South Bend.

GN: Yeah. I graduated in May, end of May, and by the second, first week in June I was here.

TI: So how did you make that connection from Kent to South Bend? Because that's, what, like a two-hour drive.

GN: Some friends that... I was trying to get up to Alaska to work in the salmon cannery. But this foreman that we knew couldn't get us, couldn't get me a job, because that's the period when the Filipinos were taking over a lot of the jobs. So he says, "There might be a job up in, somebody over in South Bend's looking for workers to work on the, farm kids to work on the oysters." So this Kuni Sasaki that was in the [inaudible] and I, he had a car, so we drove down here to see what this was all about. The people here wanted farm workers, farmers to come out there instead of the city kids from Seattle, so they hired us, and that's when we came down.

TI: Now, when you think about it, so why didn't you go to farming in Kent? I mean, you knew how to farm there, why did you decide to, either want to go to Alaska or South Bend?

GN: We were starving to death. [Laughs] I was getting tired of work on the farm, and not having any money at all. I used to hate, I never walked home with the rest of the kids from high school, 'cause they stopped and had milkshakes and ice cream cones or something, I never had that money.

TI: So it was just a really hard, hard...

GN: Hard time. We just didn't have any money at all.

TI: And so did your parents encourage you to go out and either go to Alaska or South Bend?

GN: No, no, I was determined I wasn't going to spend any more time working on the farm.

TI: Now how about your older brother? Did he also leave or did he stay?

GN: No, he stayed home.

TI: So in some ways that helped you. Because if your older brother stays, then it's probably easier for you to leave?

GN: Well, he got to drive the truck. [Laughs] He didn't have to stay on the farm to work.

TI: So there's advantages to being the oldest.

GN: He was driving when he was fourteen.

TI: So what did you think? They said, "Okay, so come down to South Bend and become an oyster farmer." So what were your first impressions about oyster farming when you came down here?

GN: All I know is they were paying seventy cents an hour, which is way more than we'd make in a month on the farm.

TI: And how would you compare the work of, sort of, truck farming to oyster farming?

GN: It's both hard work, but one of 'em, you're getting paid. [Laughs] I wasn't going to spend any more time working on the farm for nothing. I told my mom that I'm going to go out and work and I'm going to help support the family, but I don't want to spend another year on the farm.

TI: And so with your wages, how much of that would you send back to the families?

GN: Just about all of it in those days.

TI: So in those days, did they provide room and board for the workers?

GN: Yes. We paid for the food, you know, split the food. But the board and everything else was paid for. In fact, if you had a car, they would even supply the gas. You can write it off.

TI: So explain to me, so you came down to South Bend to do oyster farming. So who did you work for?

GN: New Washington Oyster Company.

TI: And who owned the New Washington Oyster Company?

GN: It was a group of first generation, plus Bob Nakao. They brought Bob Nakao back from California because he had turned twenty-one. And when they formed this company, they needed a citizen, so they brought him back, and that's how he became shareholder of New Washington. His older brother was instrumental in bringing them back here.

TI: So it was good to be an older Nisei.

GN: Yeah. He said when he turned twenty-one, that's when they were forming the company, that was about 1930. Then they brought him back, and he became shareholder of New Washington Oyster Company.

TI: Now, so explain to me how many other oyster companies were down here? So this one was Japanese Issei and a Nisei, was that common down here? Were there other kind of oyster --

GN: There was one other company in Nahcotta, Long Beach, and there was a Kaoshima family, and they sent, they owned... she was a widow. Her father, her husband died somewhere during the Wallville, that's the one camp between, east of Raymond. And they came down here, and the Kaoshima family was very aggressive in buying land. And they owned oyster lands here, too. I don't know how they were able to own it. There was two Japanese families in Bay Center, just a little village about ten miles from here.

TI: So about what percentage did the Japanese control down here, the oyster farming?

GN: Oh, maybe ten, fifteen percent. There was three families that owned oyster ground.

TI: Now were the Japanese doing anything different than the other oyster farmers, or were they all about the same?

GN: They were all struggling oyster family, small operation, have a boat and a half a dozen guys working for you.

TI: And how did the Japanese get into oyster... like at the New Washington Oyster Company, were those Isseis, did they do oyster farming back in Japan and brought it over?

GN: No.

TI: How did they first get started?

GN: No, I don't know how they got started raising. They must have... Jackson Fish, probably. That's where the Yanagimachi family had some connection, Jackson Fish was a fish company. Like do you remember Main Fish?

TI: Yeah, uh-huh.

GN: Well, just like that. Jackson Fish was a company just about like Main Fish. And they must have been buying oysters, so they probably helped finance it, helped finance the company.

TI: So was it probably like maybe the Isseis first started down here maybe as workers, and then once they got more established they then started their own kind of...

GN: They must have got together and pooled their money and bought land.

TI: And when you say land, it's actually in the bay.

GN: This five-acre here, for one thing, to build a cannery on. And how they got the ground out here in Willapa Bay for oysters, I don't know how they... they must have bought it from somebody, some person.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.