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TI: And so you mentioned how, in 1938, he bought the Redman House. And before this interview, I drove by the highway and saw the Redman House. It's still there; it's rundown now, but there's signs that they're gonna renovate it. But you say "house" or "ranch," but, I mean, I would call it a mansion. It's a, quite a fabulous-looking house.
EN: We needed that kind of a house to house every one of us, though.
TI: But more than just a large house, it's quite fancy. When I drive around, you don't see a Victorian home very often in places like Watsonville. So what, how did your father afford to buy such a nice piece if, you know, nice house and nice piece of property?
EN: Well, I don't know where he got the money, but farming and everything, he was real tight with money. [Laughs] Those days, it wasn't that expensive. He must have bought it on terms. So even though the lawyer took care of him, so...
TI: Okay, so he was able to get the house. In addition to the house, do you know how much land he farmed and owned during this time period?
EN: There was about 100 acres, huh? They cut that ranch in half when they made that Highway 1. That wasn't there, and then the ranch was right through there. So it made it inconvenient.
TI: Oh, so the highway cut right in the middle of the land.
EN: Yeah. So my father bought a ranch with that money, close to the Beach Road, with my mother and father's name. They had to put that big ranch and that house under my brother's name because he's American-born, but my father was an alien.
TI: But later on, when they put the highway through, you said, so he got money for that.
EN: Yes.
TI: And he used that money to buy another ranch, but under his own name.
EN: Under my father and my mother's name.
TI: So the laws had changed by then.
EN: Yeah, the law had changed. That's why the lawyer that helped him got it through.
TI: Okay, that's interesting. So lettuce growing, obviously, I think, quite successful. Because not only the house is really nice, but then he owned a hundred acres, which is a large piece of land. How many workers did he have to do all this?
EN: I didn't see very many. I don't know how they did it, but my brother did most of the tractor work. When he was young, he didn't have a chance to graduate because he had to help my father when he was real young. At that time, there were a lot of Filipinos that helped there. So there must have been quite a bit. I never did go out to the ranch to see.
TI: Well, so did your father have, like, workers' housing someplace on the property, or did they live someplace else, the workers?
EN: They had their own place, yes.
TI: And so he would just hire them on a more seasonal basis, to do, like, lettuce thinning and things like that?
EN: Uh-huh.
<End Segment 7> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.