Densho Digital Archive
Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL Collection
Title: Shoichi Kobara Interview
Narrator: Shoichi Kobara
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Watsonville, California
Date: November 18, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-kshoichi-01-0012

<Begin Segment 12>

TI: Going back to right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, you said earlier how when the war broke out, you lost everything. So can you describe that in a little more detail? So you had, you're leasing this farm. At that point, I'm guessing that you had crops that were...

SK: Ready to harvest.

TI: Were ready to harvest, so you put all this work. So describe how, what happened. What did you do with all that land?

SK: We took care of it 'til the last, because there was news and stuff that it'd be a sabotage, because Dad was saying maybe we ought to go disk it all up, you know chop it up. They said if you do that, it's sabotage, so you can't do that.

TI: Oh, so if you destroyed your own crops, they would consider that as an act of sabotage.

SK: Sabotage, yeah. We sold the crop for fifteen hundred dollars, the house and everything. They didn't have tractors in those days, just had trucks.

TI: So was that a fair price for all that?

SK: No. Two hundred dollars an acre for over eight hundred, ready to pick. So after the war, they said you can apply for damages. So I get in contact with the University of California, got all the statistics, what the market value was and average production and everything, and I filed a lawsuit against the government. But that time, I didn't know anybody in Watsonville, lawyer or anything, so JACL was saying they're gonna help you. So I got contact with Saburo Kido, he was in L.A., and I would meet him in San Francisco and talk over the -- 'cause I got all the statistics, how much production was, war years, average and stuff. I asked for twenty-five thousand, but he wasn't, Saburo Kido never helped. He just kept saying, "Settle it, settle it. Don't make a lot of fuss over this."

TI: Because the government offered you some amount, but not that much.

SK: Yeah. So finally they settled for five thousand. I didn't want to do it, but he says, "Don't sue the government," stuff like that. So I said, "Okay, settle it." When I got the check for five thousand, I told my mother, "Take a vacation to Japan," because she'd never been there since she'd been married. So she went and afterwards, Saburo Kido sent me a bill for $500, or ten percent. So I told my mother, "I ain't gonna pay that guy." "No," says, "don't do that, give him the five hundred." But he never did back me up or anything.

TI: So you didn't think he did a very good job in terms of...

SK: No. I mean, sure it was suing against the government, still, but it was open to do it. I heard some people that had a lawyer from Watsonville, they got more. I don't know how much, but...

TI: But that $25,000 figure, so that was based on your research, you thought that was about how much all that was worth.

SK: At minimum, yeah.

TI: And you sold it for fifteen hundred dollars. So someone got a really good deal on all that.

SK: Yeah, some hakujin family over here in Watsonville.

TI: Okay. So after you sell the crops and the house and all that for fifteen hundred dollars, then what did you do?

SK: You mean...

TI: Did you, at that point, where did you go? What was the next step?

SK: We waited 'til the WRA said, "Go to Salinas Assembly Center." But that was, I guess, I forgot what day in April, but I, my birthday was the 23rd, so about 20, around 20 or something, they were saying, they were asking for volunteers to go to assembly center earlier and help clean up the place and stuff like that. So I told my father, "Let's go." We just sit here for three more days doing nothing anyhow. We burned most of the stuff and stored a few things in the hakujin family. So we went there and do a little carpentry work and stuff like that.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.