<Begin Segment 6>

SF: I was gonna say, maybe we could just go back to the farming situation a little bit and your dad. Did, did he sell to a co-op, was there a Japanese co-op there in Hollister, or did he sell it to a Japanese packer shipper or a hakujin packer shipper?

RT: I think the Yuki family had a packing house and that's where the lettuce went to. At, I was, I'm told that at one time my father did go into business with Mr. Yuki in the packing house business, but my father was not a businessman and so it didn't last very long. And Mr. Yuki became very successful.

TI: It sounds like your father, the farm was a hundred acres, was he viewed as a, a pretty successful farmer in the area?

RT: He was doing a lot better than most other Isseis, especially because he had his grandfather, I mean, his own father and mother there, so we were more established than the other Isseis.

TI: And when you say well-established, so in terms of living conditions, I mean, did you have more than, say, the other Japanese in the area in terms of things?

RT: Probably. Yes.

TI: So things like, did you have a car?

RT: Yes. Of course, in those days the Isseis couldn't own any land or anything, so when the lettuce crop was good, and I think the land that my father was leasing was pretty fertile land, so the lettuce crop was very good, and so every two years he bought a new Dodge. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, so that, yeah, that sounds pretty...

SF: Did your father ever try to arrange the purchase of the land through some hakujin lawyers or something like that?

RT: I know he had two Nisei, younger Nisei friends that... but he, the land that, before we went to Japan, it was all leased land from Mr. Jack Doherty. I remember a couple of times going to, when my dad was going to sign the lease, we'd go to the hakujin house with, Mr. Doherty's house, and my dad, I always stayed in the car. My dad always signed it outside. He would, he was never invited inside the hakujin's house. I, when I was in Salinas, I never, not once entered a hakujin house. Of course, we were, all our friends were Japanese anyway, but...

SF: So did your father have, would you say a good relationship with Mr. Doherty or just strictly --

RT: I think so. It was, I'm sure it was strictly business.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.