Densho Digital Archive - Emi Yamamoto Interview (denshovh-yemi-01-0019)

<Begin Segment 19>

MA: So you returned to Watsonville, eventually.

EY: Uh-huh.

MA: What was the connection to Watsonville? Did you have a friend who asked you to come back, or did you want to be with your family?

EY: It's, one of my, when we had berry farm at Driscoll at San Jose, my sister-in-law wanted to find, and saw in the paper about they want the sharecropper in Watsonville. So my husband, they knew my husband in Watsonville, so he, they went into direct, to grow with him. And then, so the Driscoll berry farm was advertising in the paper where it was around Salinas. And we stopped at one strawberry stand, right there on the side of [inaudible]. My husband asked where this place that Driscoll advertised, and it happened that my husband's real good friend's place, he had berries over there, and he had a little fruit stand pretty close to the golf course. And this fellow said, "Why don't you come back and raise berry over here?" And we had a place to stay and everything, so all of a sudden, we came back to Watsonville.

MA: And what about your parents? Had they returned to Watsonville?

EY: No, they went toward Fresno.

MA: And when did you see them for the first time after the war?

EY: They were first back into San Juan Bautista, that's where I saw them after, when they came back. And...

MA: Must have been a great reunion.

EY: Oh, yes. But they didn't have a place to stay, so they stayed at the hostel. Right now, it's a Japanese American Citizens building. I went to Japanese school over there when I was twelve years old, before we moved to Watsonville.

MA: And this was San Juan Bautista?

EY: Uh-huh.

MA: Okay, so they made a hostel for the returning families?

EY: Yes, temporary hostels.

MA: And how long were they in San Juan Bautista?

EY: Who?

MA: Your folks, your parents and your family?

EY: Oh, not too long before they went, they went to Fresno again. That's where my sister was staying with her husband and his family. My father used to live in Fresno were I was born.

MA: That's right.

EY: Uh-huh. So he kind of wanted to go back there. So my brother and his family still lived in Fresno, they bought the property.

MA: So they never came back to Watsonville, they remained in Fresno? And so you and your husband were working, strawberry farming, in Watsonville. And this was with your, your friends that had asked you to come back.

EY: Uh-huh, were very close friends.

MA: And what are the name of your friends who, who you were working with at the time? What's the family name?

EY: It's the Sugikane.

MA: Sugikane?

EY: He passed away now, but the family is there. It's a big family. And my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, they were same place in Japan, old-timer. All my, all my brother-in-law, they were all born in Watsonville, old-timers.

MA: Your husband's family?

EY: Uh-huh.

MA: What did his family, were they, were they farming?

EY: Uh-huh. Farming and the boys worked out, and they used to go cut lettuce. There was a lot of...