Densho Digital Archive
Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL Collection
Title: Chiyoko Yagi Interview
Narrator: Chiyoko Yagi
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Watsonville, California
Date: July 28, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-ychiyoko-01-0021

<Begin Segment 21>

MA: And he, so they ran a barber shop, then, for a long time, right? Or Harry (and Tom).

CY: Oh, yes, uh-huh, 'til ('89). See, my mother-in-law was running it, because my father-in-law and mother-in-law ran the shop for a while, and he died, and then she ran it by herself. And then my brother-in-law became a barber first, because he was a single man, you know. And then after, well, my husband became a barber. He had, you know, you had to go to school six months and pass a test, then be a, to be a real barber you'd have to work under a licensed barber, and he did it under my mother-in-law. But during the war, we had that shop all rented out, and they, they had some kind of place that sell artichokes. And he was able to rent everything out, but very little. Twenty-five dollars a month rent. I think that granny quarter was fifteen dollars. [Laughs]

MA: When you came back, though, the property was still there.

CY: Oh, yes. It was, the property was still there, but we had everybody and moved out by then.

MA: So you mentioned living in the church kitchen for a while.

CY: Uh-huh.

MA: Which church was that?

CY: That's the old church, the Buddhist church. That Buddhist church had a big temple in the front, and that was where the chapel was. And downstairs was a big hall, and in the back, and the separate building there was a kitchen area, and that's where we stayed in there. And then the storeroom, there's another family staying in the storeroom, in the kitchen area. So I just wondered, I was thinking, "How do you ever get all the beds in the little kitchen?" but we managed.

MA: And then you moved back to your place after your renters moved out?

CY: Yes, uh-huh, yes. So after we moved back to our house a lot of people started coming back much later, and they (turned) the church hall into a hostel, and lot of people came back and they, they all moved in there until they found a place to go.

MA: Did most of the families who went to Poston from Watsonville, did they eventually return back home?

CY: Not all. I think some never came back. But most of the old-timers, they all, they came back, yeah. And people that had homes.

MA: And did most people resume what they were doing before, farming or their business?

CY: Well, after they came back, even my father-in-law, before he could open his shop, he went to work in a cannery in Monterey. Even my, my father-in-law went, and a dentist, used to be a dentist's friend, they all went to work in a cannery. Any job they could find, 'cause we were only given fifty dollars apiece or something, and that was all. There was no welfare, no nothing, so you have to stand on your own right away.

MA: And it probably took a couple years to build up enough money to start something again. What about your, your parents?

CY: My parents (...) they had to go back into sharecropping, so they went to sharecropping for about a few years and then they bought their own place, and they did, farmed on their own, yes.

MA: And that was in Watsonville?

CY: No, they went to Morgan Hill.

MA: Is that nearby?

CY: That's, it's the other side of the hill, anyway, it's near Gilroy, past, do you know where Gilroy is? Past Gilroy is, is San Martin and Morgan Hill. Lot of people went over there, they had the, I think it was the Driscoll company or something, wanted sharecroppers, so that's where they went.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.