<Begin Segment 9>

TI: When you got back home, sort of to Rocklin and Loomis area, what was the feeling then?

CH: Okay. In a small town, of course, rumors fly pretty fast. And through the... well, I think my dad through the church and all, get these little rumors. And there were rumors like, yeah, they're gonna put all the Japanese in camp, they're gonna put 'em all, they're gonna stick 'em all in someplace where they could keep an eye on 'em, I guess, and find out if there's any spies amongst them. That was the main thing, I think, they were trying to find.

[Interruption]

TI: Yeah, I'm sorry, when was this? This was on the train going...

CH: Well, we were all put on a train.

TI: Okay, when you went to, like, Pinedale?

CH: Yeah, to assembly center, assembly center. And then they gave us a number, a family number.

TI: Okay, before we go there, I want to go back. Let's still talk about... so your dad would hear all these stories, where would he go to get this information?

CH: [Laughs] My dad was quite a... he was kind of a church leader, and so he was able to get a lot of information from talking to people around, and he was quite friendly with even the hakujins, because we did business with, the fruit business with the Fruit Association people.

[Interruption]

CH: My brother took care of the farm, and he was already eighteen... well, anyway, he was about twenty-one, I can't remember. But anyway, it was in his name now. You know, after you get to be... in California, I think...

TI: Right, he's a U.S. citizen.

CH: The U.S. citizen, yeah. Then my dad, not my dad... well, my dad really turned over everything to Jay, and Jay just took care of everything. So I myself was in San Francisco, and I had no interest in the farm anyway, so I couldn't tell you...

TI: But the Fruit Association during the war, they took over the operation of the farm, which helped the family by sort of...

CH: Make sure that at least the people that they put in the house were decent people, not just chance it type of thing. Because they left all the furniture in there, so it was on the lease, but you never know what could happen.

TI: So why do you think they selected the family farm to do this? Because there were other farms they could have...

CH: Yeah, there's a lot of other farms. They did, I mean, they did take over a lot of farms. My dad was very, had a... he had a good, well, he took care of the farm real well, is what I'm trying to say, and he'd get good production out of all the fruit. You could tell if it's producing or not. And I think because it was producing, and he was very careful, he sprayed and put a lot of money into it, that they know.

[Interruption]

TI: So what happened to the Japanese farms that the Fruit Association didn't take over?

CH: I don't know. I'm sure that those that were kind of sloppy and didn't have... I really don't know what happened to them, whether they... like I say, I was young then, I didn't care. [Laughs] I didn't care much about farming.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.