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TI: So now, after you graduate from high school, what did you do?

SA: Oh, there was a family in a place called Norwalk, and they had no children. They were kind of related to my father, and they had a chicken farm. And my mother was interested in raising chickens, and so after high school, I thought maybe it would be a good opportunity for me to learn also, so I moved to Norwalk and lived with an elderly couple who had about maybe a thousand, five hundred chickens. And I used to help them gather eggs and sorting the eggs, and also they had an incubator where they raised little chicks. And all that, I wanted to learn, so I went there and stayed with them for about nine months.

TI: So really learning the chicken business.

SA: Yes, I was interested, and it was a good opportunity to learn everything I can.

TI: And then after you learned about the chicken business...

SA: Then my parents decided to go into chicken business.

TI: So in Gardena?

SA: In Gardena, yeah.

TI: So tell me about that. How do you start a chicken business?

SA: Well, we had a big incubator where we had little chicks, and my mother used to... she was a very good, I should say, not a farmer, but anyway, she did her share and raised chickens and we sold the eggs. It was a pretty, quite a nice business.

TI: So when you were young, you were actually an entrepreneur. This was kind of a little business that you created.

SA: Yeah. [Laughs]

TI: I mean, that's pretty impressive for you to do that, because it brought in income and food for your family. And when you did that, what did people say? Were they really encouraging that you did this?

SA: Yes, I had so much support. Like I would deliver eggs to where a lot of Japanese ladies are working in the nursery, and every week they all wait for me so that I could bring fresh eggs to them. We had a very, well, I wouldn't say lucrative, but it was good income.

TI: And how big did it get? How many chickens?

SA: We had about two thousand.

TI: So even bigger than the...

SA: Yeah, we got bigger and bigger and bigger. [Laughs]

TI: And leading up to the war, did you have this chicken business during the war?

SA: Yes, this was a big headache. Because they're alive, I can't leave them, so I think I was the last person to leave Los Angeles when the time came for all of us to evacuate. And my family decided to go to a place called Reedley, up near Fresno, and my uncle and friends, and there was a large group of us, all evacuated to Reedley.

TI: Because you thought that you could actually stay there?

SA: And I had to stay, because the chickens are alive, I can't leave them.

TI: So what happened?

SA: So I got a special permit and I sold all the chickens. Finally, I was able to leave. I think I was the last Japanese to leave. [Laughs]

TI: And so who did you sell the chickens to?

SA: I had a big sign out in the front of the house, "Selling live chickens," and so many people stopped by to buy chickens from me.

TI: Were you able to get a fair price for the chickens?

SA: No, it was reduced price to get rid of them.

TI: And I'm curious, people bought chickens from you, did they ever say anything about you being Japanese?

SA: No, never.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright (c) 2017 Densho. All Rights Reserved.