<Begin Segment 14>

MN: Now, there is this hakujin professor working on (Dr.) Kodani's biography. What was (Dr.) Kodani like?

AK: He was a regular Kibei. He was really a fine guy, Dr. Kodani and Shimpei Nishimura and a few others that used to have a nursery, and they know how to grow things. We had them grow it.

MN: How did you feel when (Dr.) Kodani answered "no-no" on the "loyalty questionnaire" and was shipped to Tule Lake?

AK: Yeah, I don't know if they brought him back or not. I don't, I think Dr. Emerson probably talked them into letting him come back and work on the guayule. I'm not sure. But I, he was with us all, most of the time.

MN: Now, why don't we use the guayule rubber today?

AK: It takes too much work, and tree rubber, getting rubber from a tree is faster. So they were, see, the tree rubber is slowly dying off. And I don't know where, what part of the country, where was it? Do you know?

GK: Where? Southeast Asia.

AK: Yeah, Southeast Asia. Slowly dying off, the trees are dying off. So they had, they have to have everything ready, so they had us work on it to see if we could produce a plant that would produce a lot of rubber. A lot of, you could plant the seed in a different way and some of 'em doesn't have any. So we tried this and that, and then all the plants that produced seeds, we just kept that and then crossed that with another one, then that's how we were able to have rubber. Otherwise, waste of time 'cause more than half of the guayule shrubs didn't have any rubber.

MN: So you're saying, with the disease going on with the rubber tree, this is like an emergency?

AK: Mostly yeah, it's an emergency. They need, they needed rubber pretty badly. They got to have it, so all their interest came to guayule.

MN: Now, you have guayule bushes in your backyard right now. Why was it important for you to bring these cuttings with you?

AK: What do you mean?

MN: You brought it from Manzanar, right?

AK: Yeah.

MN: You carried it from one house to another. Why was it important for you to carry the, to have the guayule with you all the time?

AK: I love that plant. [Laughs] Yeah, that's all I did in Manzanar, was work raising that thing, then at that time they didn't need any rubber. They were getting plenty of rubber from the bush. But then, lately, well, the rubber plant is slowly dying off here and there, and so I said, "We better have some other plant to produce rubber ready." 'Cause they could get, grow the, plant the tree rubber, but then that takes a lot of space and nobody wants... just for the rubber. And so in Manzanar we tried, we got some seeds from -- actually, Dr. Emerson got some seeds from some place, Salinas I think it was -- and we planted some in our, between the firebreaks. And it was alright until the rabbits thought to come and eat it up before we get it. So Dr. Emerson got some greyhounds, and that chased the rubber, the rabbits away, and so we were able to have rubber for experimenting on.

MN: Is there anything else about the guayule project at Manzanar that you want to share with us?

AK: No, I can't think of anything.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.