<Begin Segment 23>

LO: Do you think the reason so many returning Japanese Americans were able to come back to Bainbridge and start farming again was because of that relationship that they had with the Filipinos?

[Interruption]

FK: I think if it wasn't for these men of, that were of Filipino descent looking after the farms, it would have been very difficult for people to come back to their farms. And even if the farming was not intact, just having the presence of those people in their homes and looking after their property was important. I... oh, for an example, like Bainbridge Gardens pretty much shut down. No one looked after Bainbridge Gardens, and greenhouses were destroyed, people threw rocks through the glass. I remember once Junkoh writing an article about they used to have these two lions that guarded their beautiful pond and they disappeared, and, and they'd never been seen ever since. And right after that article appeared in the paper, then within the next week, the two lions appeared on his doorstep. So, I know, you know, people just decided, "These people probably will never come back, so let's just help ourselves to these things." And then I'm sure that would have happened if, almost all the houses, if no one was there to be living in them. And so, I... in some cases, again, there were Caucasian families that looked after farms like the Kouras and the Rabers and the Cumles and the Ohtakis and things. But most cases it was really the Filipino men that worked for the farmers that looked after the property. So in a lot of ways, Second World War was tough on the Japanese American families, but it gave some of the Filipino families the opportunity to go beyond where they were, 'cause they, they realized that they could.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.