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BN: So we'll come back to him in a minute, because I want to come back now to talk about your mom and your mom's side of the family.

JF: Yeah, we were closer to my mother's half of the family. I don't know why that happened. I don't know if my dad influenced that or what. But yeah, my mom, she was the oldest of three kids.

BN: And then what was her name?

JF: Dorothy Chizuko Kitaoka. Everybody knew her and called her Chizi. So she had two younger brothers, my uncle Nori and uncle Harvey. Those were the Kitaoka boys. They were, all three of them were born in quick succession, like almost within a year, year and a half of each other. And so they were all born on a farm that my grandfather had leased. I think it was a fifteen acre, they called it a truck farm in the Sawtelle slash Venice area. They lived on... oh, I forgot to get you that address, but it was on Culver Boulevard. And they said they grew celery, lettuce, carrots, other stuff. But the focus was on celery because of the soil. But prior to that, my grandfather and grandmother had lived at the base of the Uinta Mountains somewhere in Utah. I forgot what the name of the city was. Because he had, when he first landed -- I'm kind of going backwards, sorry for jumping around. But he was the second-born son in his family. They lived in Takakamachi in Kochi on Shikoku island. And his older brother was in charge of running this rice store. I had a picture of that rice shop. And as the second-born, he wasn't beholden to the family obligations the way his firstborn, his older brother was. So he decided, once he graduated from high school, he was going to make his fortune in the United States. So he boards the ship, it lands in Hawaii after going past it because it's a foggy night. They turn around and they finally land in Honolulu. He stays for three months and then continues on to the San Francisco Bay area and finds a job as, deliberately so, as a houseboy, even though he hated the job. He wanted to force himself to learn English. So a smart guy, smart kid, I should say. He landed on his eighteenth birthday, 1905. So let's see here. He worked for six months, well enough to learn the language, and then leaves because they're hiring track layers for the Union Pacific for I think twelve years 'til he saves up enough money. And they were only paid, I think it was a dollar twenty-five a day. So somehow he manages to save enough money to contact his family in Osaka now. They've moved the store to Osaka and asks the family to arrange for a marriage. He included a photograph, luckily it was of himself. And then the woman that he married was from a family that they were familiar with from Takakamachi. So she agrees to the marriage, she comes over, he comes to pick her up and they, through this picture exchange, can identify each other.

And she takes her back home to the base of the Uinta Mountains, and it's this one room, dirt floor cabin with a potbelly stove for a cooking device and a heater. And she can't stand it because Shikoku is kind of a temperate climate similar to where we are right now. According to my mom, the day that she decides to put her foot down and break her silent acquiescence of her living conditions was when she was out in the back of the cabin shampooing her hair. And then a wave of frozen air comes down the Uinta Mountains and it flash freezes her shampooed hair in place. And she just can't stand it anymore, and she goes inside to the cabin and tells my grandfather, "We've got to leave here. I can't stand living here anymore, I can't take another winter." And it's only been her second winter. [Laughs] So luckily, though, she had been corresponding with her best friend from Takakamachi who happened to marry a guy named Sakioka. I forgot what his, it was real long, like samurai sounding name. But he shortened it to Roy just so everybody could remember it. Roy Sakioka. So okay, Roy and Tomi lived in the Sawtelle area, and she had been writing to tell Koima, my grandmother, about how wonderful it is there, "You've got to join us here. Roy can show you how to grow vegetables and there's a leased plot of land nearby and we'll save it for you," all this stuff. So she makes it sound really inviting and easy. And so my grandfather and grandmother decide to leave. He leaves his job as a section leader. I have a picture of that photograph where he's standing on the caboose. I could show it to you maybe. They leave and join the Sakiokas in the Sawtelle/Venice area, and they leased that fifteen-acre plot and they began farming even though my grandfather was not exactly a farmer before. So through the guidance of Roy, he learns how to take care of crops, and Roy shows him all the irrigation techniques that he learned as a successful farmer. And according to my mom, they never had any pocket money during the Depression years, but they always had something to eat. Is my wife coming now? Anyway, so my mom, Nori and Harvey were born in quick succession after they settled at the farm.

BN: So they were all born in California? So they kind of grew up in the farming, truck farming environment.

JF: Yes. So most of the labor, though, was from my two uncles. And you might think how much can an eight year old and nine year old do on a farm? Evidently they can run the whole damn thing in those days. So they told me about having to wake up before school and do a little bit with Ojiichan and Obaachan out there, Obaachan would be in the kitchen making them their lunches. Off they'd go to school, they went to Playa Del Rey Elementary School. Evidently my uncle Harvey said it was kind of a poor school because he remembered at Christmastime all these gifts were being donated to the school for distribution to the kids there. So he said he doesn't remember it being a poor school and they didn't think of themselves as being poor at all. But it was predominately a Japanese and Mexican population.

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