Densho Digital Archive - Kitako Izumizaki Interview (denshovh-ikitako-01-0022)

<Begin Segment 22>

MA: After the war, did, what happened to the Japanese farming industry? Did a lot of people go back to it?

KI: You know, right after we came back, strawberries were getting, I don't know what it was about strawberries, but everybody plants. And like Reiters and Driscolls, they had these great big patches of land. And you go and you plant, you work for them, but every one of them, they made money. And then as they made money, they sort of scooted out and did their own. But now, I don't think, none of them that I know, most of those people, they're already gone. But the next generation, you have to, you can't do it on your own, little, I don't think, any more. It's all big companies.

MA: When did that start happening, that change?

KI: Gee, I don't know, 'cause I'm not that close with the strawberry industry, but that's what happened. But most of the people that had made money was, they made it right after the war when they did strawberries. 'Cause I remember an old schoolteacher of mine and my husband in high school said, came over one day and he wanted us to plant berries for him. So my husband asked me, "Do you want to?" I says, "No." I said, "I don't feel like crawling around a berry patch." And I'm glad we didn't, because otherwise, he would have never got to be an executive farmer, and I wouldn't have been able to do what I did, too. So it turned out to be the right decision.

MA: So what are some changes that you've seen in Watsonville over the years, with people or the, you know, anything.

KI: I hate the way that Watsonville is turning out to be just a bedroom community. You know, I don't see why they keep building houses here, because there's no industry, no jobs. That's why like our kids, you send 'em to college, they don't come back to Watsonville 'cause there's nothing for them. Even the people that own land like Mines and stuff, all the kids, his sons, one's a CPA and one's, I don't know what else. I mean, they don't come back to farm. So I said, well... so my kids, well, I knew that they wouldn't be able to find a job here. Because even in the '40s, a local girl, she was very smart and very cute and everything, she got a job, and she was a very good stenographer-like, secretary, and she got a good job in San Francisco with Bank of America, and they just loved her. And then she had to come home and live with, I don't know if it was family problems or what, but she had to come home, back to Watsonville. And gee, she had a hard time finding a job until they said, well, the Bank of America over here says, "Well, she's a good worker," and she got a job. I mean, it's, then when you get a toehold. Yeah, it's hard.