<Begin Segment 2>

BY: And so your father then is sixteen years old, he's in the U.S. He's the one who, then he was the one who sent money back to his parents in Japan, all for many, many years?

MK: And so he ended up with the property.

BY: Oh, so he inherited the rice farm in Japan?

MK: Yeah, he inherited it. And this I remember after the war, when the returned to Seattle, he asked my older sister -- I had four older sisters, and I don't know which ones were in the conversation. But I do remember overhearing that he, my father asked if any of them wanted to keep the property in Japan or let his nephew or whoever, take it over, and my sisters, they didn't want it. So he did give it to them.

BY: To a nephew or somebody else then?

MK: So his nephews, one of them, or I don't know which relative got it.

BY: Interesting. All right, so then, so your father's sixteen years old. He comes to the U.S., he's pretty young, he's a teenager.

MK: Yeah, I think he was sixteen. I'm going to figure it out.

BY: So do you know what he did when he came to the U.S.?

MK: Yeah. He went to work at that lumber mill.

BY: Oh, same one where his brothers were?

MK: Yeah.

BY: Okay.

MK: And then he started, and his brothers (told their boss) they'll take his paycheck. And so when payday came, my father didn't get a check (...). So they took his checks, so he had to talk to the manager or whoever it was and get the money himself, because they were taking his check.

BY: Wow, they were really not very supportive of their family or their younger brother at all.

MK: No, no, he didn't care. I think it was a nice escape from them.

BY: Okay, that's interesting. So then did he continue to stay at the lumber mill or did he go somewhere else after that?

MK: I don't know the timespan, but he ended up at a junk place sorting junk stuff. I don't know what kind, but in fact, he worked there and then started his own junk company.

BY: And was that in, where was that?

MK: Here in Seattle.

BY: In Seattle, okay.

MK: Yeah, there's a picture of his truck.

BY: Oh, the Togo company?

MK: Yeah, Togo junk company.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.