Densho Digital Archive - Mas Hashimoto Interview (denshovh-hmas-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: Your dad was a very prominent person in the Japanese community.

MH: I think so, I hope so.

TI: And do you have a sense of how the, the leaders of the Japanese community interacted with non-Japanese in Watsonville? Was there any connection at all?

MH: There was a good connection. There were a number of stores that catered to minorities, there was a store, the biggest store in town was called Ford's Department Store. And you could -- and this was the days before credit cards and such -- but you could go to the store and charge things, and then you get a bill later. And they carried articles that were of the Japanese size, but the Chinese, Filipinos, smaller Hispanics and such. Whereas many of the other stores carried extra large. But some stores you just don't go into because they're not going to carry your style or size. Well, Ford's did. In fact, even during the war, World War II, they had a catalog, and you could order things from Ford's Department Store. It wasn't just Montgomery Ward and Sears, you could order from. They, when our accounts were frozen, they kept theirs open so that you could still go there and buy things.

TI: And who was the, the owner of Ford's Department --

MH: George Menasco was the general manager and owner at that particular time.

TI: So it's amazing to me that even, so it's a local store, but he would do mail order and actually send the catalogs to, like, camps and things like that?

MH: Absolutely. That was wonderful. And they welcomed us back when we came back. So Ford's was one of the stores that we patronized.

TI: Are there other businesses like that that you can recall?

MH: There were some law firms, John McCarthy, he was the city attorney as well, and he looked out after people's properties and people's rights. Many of the people in Watsonville did not sell their homes, they boarded it up, or maybe they rented it out. And so you had to have trustworthy friends.