<Begin Segment 21>

DC: What did you do over the subsequent decades? You're not a farmer now, right?

CM: I still have a garden, if you call that farming. I have eggplants and a few squash and a tomato, that's my farming now. So if you connect that together I'd be farming over seventy years.

DC: Did you do another job besides farming, or were you a farmer your whole career?

MM: He was a nurseryman.

CM: Yeah, I was a nurseryman and then... I would say farming had been in the longest there. Yeah, it's hard work, but...

MM: It paid off.

DC: So you ran a nursery?

CM: Well, a small one. And when we was in California, the folks had a florist shop and a garden supply on the side, a little nursery there, and I took care of the nursery there. That's when the war broke out.

DC: And then in New Mexico you farmed?

CM: Yes, nothing but farm, straight farming in New Mexico.

DC: Wow, okay. So did you have a farm, where was your farm?

CM: Here in Albuquerque.

DC: Inside the city?

CM: Yes, within the city.

DC: I see. What kinds of things did you grow?

CM: It was all vegetable. And the best money-making vegetable was green chili. That was the best, because you'd be able to not go through a warehouse or... you sell it direct and so your earnings would be better percentage. You don't have to go through another hand.

MM: Yeah, he did 50 acres of green chili only. And to try to sell all that through a little store...

ET: But you sold it all, so that's okay.

MM: She had 100 acres, she and her husband.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2012 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.