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TI: How about your father? What's your father's name?

FS: My father is Masamori Sato, born December 1, 1885, in Kagoshima, Japan.

TI: Oh, I didn't know you were Kagoshima, that's my mom, Kinoshita. So that must be -- we'll get to that later, I didn't know that. And tell me why did your father come to America?

FS: As far as I know, at the time, there were no jobs in Japan. He went from Kagoshima to Fukuoka where there were merchant ships, you know, the old NYK lines that used to go around (the world). And he was a merchant seaman on an NYK line. And that's how he ultimately ended up in the U.S. And let me tell you, you talk about illegal immigration, I found out many years later, my dad never told me, but on one of his trips when he docked in Seattle, he just left and never went back to the ship. But then, several years later, he returned to Japan and then came back in legally.

TI: Oh, so he actually came through the regular immigration channels. But this is after he had lived in Seattle or United States for a while.

FS: Yeah. And it was after he and my mom were married, and he went back to Japan to visit family and all, I guess.

TI: Now, the time where he walked off the ship, do you know what year that was?

FS: You know, I don't know, but I think it's around 1904 or '05, right in there someplace.

TI: And what did he do in Seattle back then?

FS: After he came here?

TI: Yeah.

FS: Well, when he first came, as far as I know, he worked on the railroads for a while, and eventually he came to this area, and he was working on a farm out there in the valley around Fife, and that's where he ultimately began his own farm.

TI: Now, was his family in Japan, were they farmers initially? Because here he was sort of a merchant seaman and then railroad, I'm trying to figure out, did he have some experience?

FS: You know, I don't know. I've visited Kagoshima, and I've seen his place, and I've visited with some of my cousins over there, but I've never found that part out.

TI: So when you say the valley, you're talking about the Puyallup valley, Auburn valley?

FS: He had his farm in Firwood, right outside of Fife.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2017 Densho. All Rights Reserved.