<Begin Segment 13>

MN: Okay, I'm gonna get into the project that you are most known for, the guayule project. Was this the first job and the only job you had at Manzanar?

AK: Yeah, I can't think of anything else. They were asking for police, and I didn't want to do that. I found out that somebody wants something to go, I don't know what it was, but I liked to grow things, so when I found out somebody wants, needs somebody to help plant, start and plant those plants, I volunteered right away.

MN: So when you started with the, was the lathe house completed?

AK: Part of it, I think part of it was. But towards the end there it was all blocked out. When we had a strike they had it locked up. I was the only one that had the key to open, water it.

MN: There was a strike?

AK: Uh-huh.

MN: Was it a camp-wide strike?

AK: Yeah. Wasn't it? Everybody, or was it just a guayule strike?

MN: I think the camouflage net people had a strike.

AK: Yeah, maybe about the same time.

KK: I don't know about a strike.

MN: Let me ask you, then, what was your responsibility on the guayule project?

AK: How to start it, germinate it, and grow it big, long enough so they could transplant it. And somebody else took charge of that, transplanting it out there, but my job was to start it. At first nobody could, they had a hard time germinating the seed. They tried and tried, and it won't sprout. Then, I don't know if Dr. Emerson told me or I read someplace, where you could soak it in Purex, so I just got the cheesecloth and put a bunch of seeds in there and soak it in for about four or five hours. Then when it was dry enough I'd plant it, and they all came up. So that's the only thing... something that you just can't start that thing any time. And I've heard later on that you have to, after you harvest the seed you have to wait about a month or so before you could plant it, 'cause it won't germinate. I didn't know that. Soon as I got the seed I started, and nothing happened.

MN: So you had this success rate with the seeds. How about like the cuttings?

AK: Yeah, cuttings was easy, but there wasn't enough plants to make a lot of cuttings.

MN: Now, once you planted it though, weren't you having problems with, like, the animals eating?

AK: Yeah, rabbits. We had, real close to the camp, and we complained, so our project head got a greyhound dog to chase the rabbits away. So then the rabbits just got, never came around anymore. That was a good thing. Otherwise, every time we planted the seed, it's a little stub, all the leaves are all gone, all eaten up.

MN: Now, this guayule project, what was the goal of this project?

AK: At that time there was a rubber shortage and they couldn't get any rubber from anyplace across the sea, and the only place that rubber used to come from is in... where is that place, rubber plant?

GK: Southeast Asia? The hevea rubber or guayule?

AK: Guayule.

GK: Salinas?

AK: No, the plant. Found that the, it grew guayule there, so we plant that guayule in the, in camp, and heck, the rabbits just came and ate it up soon as I, you'd go there next day and there isn't any more plant. They ate it up. So we had to have somebody else grow it. We were out of camp, and then later on the project manager got some greyhound dogs, and they, as soon as the rabbits come they used to chase 'em away. So after that, we didn't have to make any fence or anything. The dogs kept the rabbits away.

MN: How many guayule plants do you think you propagated?

AK: I don't know, hundreds. They don't get too big, not like, not like the trees. It's a bush about that big and about a foot and a half apart.

MN: How do you identify each little shrub? Did you give them names or numbers?

AK: No, the same, it's all the same. Got the seeds from Salinas and I germinated it.

MN: Did all the bushes give out the same amount of rubber?

AK: This one, it did, 'cause it was already, somebody already tried it, all kinds of different variety of it, and they just picked out the one that'll seed. And some of 'em just, flower comes and no seeds, but they found a plant that'll have seeds and that plant, and that plant had a lot of rubber in it. That's where they started germinating, growing it.

MN: So if you found a plant that gave out a lot of rubber, what did you do with that plant?

AK: How we, how we what, watched the rubber, or just how, you mean how we produced the rubber out of it? We just grow so high and dig it up and cut the small leaf off -- there's no rubber in the small leaf -- there'd be rubber in the, size of a pencil, but it's, anything smaller than that, there's no rubber. So we just cut all the small ones off and then dried it, and then we ground it up, and that's how we used to get it. We had some pretty smart nurserymen there, and they knew what to do. I didn't know what to do. I just, all I knew is grow them. Then we were able to produce a lot of good rubber. We had tests, and the rubber produced, we, in Manzanar, was a lot better than the rubber, tree rubber.

MN: How did you find that out?

AK: Well, they sent a sample out, there was a Dr. Robert Emerson, he's the one that's helping us, all the ones that, in the camp that, they don't, has to be stir crazy. We had something to do, so we all, a lot of 'em were gardeners and nurserymen, so they were happy to do that. And we raised enough, and they shipped it out, and that's how they got the rubber. They sent it to certain, certain, I don't know if it's a factory or not, but they knew where to send it. Then they were able to produce a lot of rubber that way.

MN: So let's see, you talk about the nurserymen, so what did the nurserymen, exactly, do?

AK: Well, they had nothing much to do except... you know, we don't need too many people to raise the guayule, and I guess most of them were pretty good. They didn't want to work anyways, so a lot of 'em were just playing Japanese go and didn't do anything. [Laughs] But some of 'em were interested, so they helped us take care, and we were able to produce a lot of rubber that way.

MN: So the nurserymen took care of the bushes that you propagated?

AK: Yeah. We propagated 'em, and I had a bunch of fellows that helped plant it too. After that, they can't be watching, guarding the plants from the rabbits, so they asked the, I guess, I don't know who asked, but they asked somebody if they know how to protect the plants. They said, "Oh yeah, there's a lot of farmers. They know how to..." plant kind of a barrier, and then we tried that and still, they could jump over the thing. So Dr. Emerson -- Emerson was the one that was helping us -- he thought of a greyhound dog, and he borrowed, he rented or borrowed a greyhound. And then whenever the rabbits came around, he just let the greyhound loose, and he'd just chase 'em out and that's that. We didn't have any problems.

MN: Can you share with us who Shimpei Nishimura was?

AK: Yeah, I don't know what... who was he? I think he was a pretty brilliant man. His head was that big, all brains.

MN: What was his personality like?

AK: Hmm?

MN: What was his personality like?

AK: He's nice, fine. Yeah, he was real nice. We got along real good.

MN: Now, Keiko's father also worked on the guayule project.

AK: Yes, he did. A lot of the old people that used to have farms, they know how to take care of things.

MN: Did you know her father -- and I guess your brother also worked on the project -- did you know them before you met Keiko?

AK: No, I met Keiko first, I think. And then her brother (Tsutomu) really came on late, later.

MN: How closely did you work with her father and brother?

AK: All I did was propagate it and raise the plants. When it's old enough, they do the rest. They just dug it up and planted it. I didn't do any planting.

MN: So they took care of it once you got it going.

AK: Once the vine was ripe enough for them to have the rubber in the system.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.