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TI: And so you talked about your sister and your two brothers. So you're the oldest.

CH: I'm the oldest. My sister is two years younger than I am, and then two years younger than my sister is Yoshito, or Joseph, Yoshito Sasaki, my oldest brother, and then I believe my mother had a miscarriage in between Joseph and Ernie, because Ernie was about seven years younger.

TI: So Ernie was, what, about ten, eleven years younger than you are.

CH: Yeah, quite a bit.

TI: So did you ended up taking care of him a lot?

CH: Yes, I was babysitting. [Laughs] I remember in those days our farm was more or less a lot of it was all hand labor, and my parents would be out working out on the farm, and they take us, myself and the babies, out in the field with our blanket and let us play with the dirt and whatever that's around, sticks and rocks and things like that, we'd play. But a lot of times, it's an orchard, so when the trees are being pruned, there were always limbs on the ground, and us kids had to pick those up and burn 'em. My parents let us play with fire, we burned them.

TI: Well, when you were then watching Ernie or the younger ones, what was the one thing or what were the things you had to be careful about? Was there anything dangerous out there that you had to watch out for?

CH: Well, we were just under a oak tree, and the blanket, and I remember Ernie was taking a nap. I don't think we paid much attention to him. I think there were flies coming, and we had to make sure the flies weren't bothering him. By the time the baby drools and stuff, flies would be... [Laughs]. And then I remember one time it was time to spray the orchard, and they made us... well, this is after school, and I had to go take care of my brother, and my brothers, they were babies. So I went out in the field and put the blanket near the trees where they had already finished, and so I took the babies and put 'em there and let 'em sleep while my parents were out there working. My mother was helping spray, my dad... well, we had a helper. I remember his name was Jim Morales, and he was a neighbor, Spanish people that lived next door. And they, Jim worked for my dad for many, many years. So he did a lot of heavy work for my... so my dad would have him drive the horses with a spray rig on it, and then my mother, both my mother and father sprayed the trees as he pulled the rig with the horses.

TI: So your mother had to really be a hands-on worker.

CH: Yeah, she was just one of the men, had to work. And she was really kind of frail, you know, as I recall. I didn't think she was that... but she did a lot of hard work.

TI: And I just wanted to clarify something. You said Jim Morales was... was he Spanish?

CH: Spanish, uh-huh.

TI: So he was from Spain, or he was Spanish-speaking?

CH: I think the parents came from Spain. They have, there were about ten kids in that family, and Jim was kind of my dad's handyman many, many years.

TI: So was Jim kind of like a Nisei, or was he an immigrant also?

CH: I'm almost sure he was born in this country, but I couldn't say. They were kind of immigrants, too, so I'm not sure. Because he was... I'm sure he must have been about nineteen, eighteen, maybe twenty years old when he was working for my dad. I think he was born in this country because I remember he had older sisters, too. When you have ten kids, they were just running all over the place. [Laughs]

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.